VWR-3089 is about getting rid of the search box
VWR-3156 is about restoring the meters

It is possible to each of these individually - but doing both restores the status quo!

I feel the same as others, and here is why:

1 - The bars are useful, and I would even add more to have a mini lag meter. I already have a nice design (IMHO, will try to post it soon, maybe tonight.

2 - We all know how to access the search. And if I'll be using the new "All" search a lot, it will be my default tab. So, press CTRL+F, type the word, press ENTER. All keyboard. Why would I bother going with mouse to open the search, or click the search box and then type. Swithching from keyboard to mouse and back to keyboard is just too slow to be useful for a serious user.

3 - The damn search box up there just doesn't fit into the GUI design. It's ugly. Sorry.

4 - I understand you want some visibility for the new feature. So, all you need to do is reset the "last tab used" to be "All" on installing/first use of the version that introduces new search. And test it, so we wont complain it resets all the time

Patch attached for v1.18.5.1. It also fulfils VWR-3089 by removing the misplaced search box.

My suggestion: Keep our small network status bars so people can instantly see if there's something wromg. Have it as a clickable button, which brings up the new lag meter for those, who like to see the verbose descriptions.

Remove the search box, it does not belong there and doesn't fit in the rest of the GUI. We have the search button in the lower button menu and there is always CTRL+F

Thanks for your consideration

1. I want to know how much bandwidth I use. Half? Quarter? Do I use any at all? The green light tells me none of this info.

2. I turn on lag meter when I have problems with (guess what) lag. I used to look at meters to see if I'm still loading, or to check the status of my network. The lag meter doesn't provide the info about the former, and doesn't fully replace the former, since it's simply not meant to be displayed all the time. If I had the meters, and if I saw packet loss, THEN I would open lag meter and investigate. I don't want lag meter unless I'm in laggy situation, but I do need meters all the time.

Give us both, please!

The problems are still there, it's just that the majority will not know what to call it now, so those complaints can be ignored for not giving enough detail to narrow down the search. The new idiot lights don't really say much about cause. The fact that your viewer may not be handling the graphics at speed could be a problem with your card, but it's just as likely it's a problem with your card not getting the data to work with in a timely fashion because of packet loss between you and the server. I don't think we will ever see this back, too easy to note what and how often it's below par (IE, it works) That big red line up there just draws your attention..^_

The packet loss and bandwidth bars offer real information. If I see a lot of packet loss - which isn't something I often get - I know there's a connection problem for example.

Make the "lag meter" optional for people and don't take away the bars.

Exact implementation yet to be determined by our Search Team, but this is to acknowledge your comments in advance!
========-

There has always been a search interface. I doubt most residents shop so rapidly that they need a search bar closer than one keystroke combo away.

Covering over "those old lag bars" is a blatant potemkin solution.

My apologies if this comes across as flamebait.

Thanks Torley etc for working to bring them back.

Torley's video shows us what Linden considers the replacement for these two tiny and useful indicators--the Statistics Bar and the Lag meter. Both of these things take up viewer screen space. Thus to keep them open interferes with your SL experience. The tiny Lag and Bandwidth idicators used no viewable space and were there all of the time.

So Linden takes away a useful feature to replace it with a problematic "feature" and Torley makes a video to convince us that this is good.

Don't let the Linden technicians rule--bring back the interface that residents find useful.

Can the supplied patch be used to patch a Windows install, and if so, how?

pleeeeease get rid of it and bring back the meter!!

x x

The "stat graph" networking indicators in the upper-right corner are returning as an option in the next 1.18.6 Release Candidate, tentatively scheduled for next week. Look under Preference > General for the setting.

At some future point I will revisit our server/network status indicators. I would like to add a single good/warn/bad visual indicator, with tooltip information for details, and a click to bring up an improved lag meter.

I also want to consider the issue of a "loading progress indicator". Right now, waiting for bandwidth to drop to low levels is a proxy indicator for the scene being done loading. I think a more explicit load/progress indicator would be better.

Whatever you do, though, in terms of providing a more novice-friendly indicator, it's important to leave an indicator that provides no less than the current bandwidth and packetloss indicators. In particular, the bandwidth meter is not just an indicator of the scene being done loading. Second Life is dynamic, objects change shape, texture, come into range and go out of ranges, the avatar moves, turns, changes clothes, attaches and detaches objects, all these things have an effect, the meters give you contial real-time feedback on this... replacing them unconditionally with anything that does not provide at least the same information is extremely undesirable.

The problem is that SL itself is not as sensitive to latency as an actual shooter game, and they have a pretty conservative interpretation of "connectivity loss". When the SL client really thinks it's lost connectivity it turns the mini-map red.

And this is probably a good thing: on my DSL connection I will often get bursts of "ping" of 6s or more with the packet loss meter showing 0% and bandwidth still flickering away... so I wouldn't want that to override the meters: I'd have it jumping on and off all the time.

On the other hand, I WOULD like to have ping time indications in the bandwidth meters - even when there's actual traffic. Either a third meter, or some kind of subliminal view: maybe having the meters fade out towards grey-on-red instead of green/gold/red-on-black as the ping times go up would be better.

The lag meter and the stats from ctr-shift-alt-1 are more than enough to satisfy both the obsessive geek and the casual curious user. No need to use up precious real estate on the front page with this dreck.

Re: "[UPDATE] Thank you for all your feedback (votes, comments, and more) on this. I just wanted to share we've heard you loud and clear and are going to work on addressing the related hot issues of "Bring back Bandwidth And packet loss meters" (VWR-3156) and "Search box in menu bar should be removed, moved, or made optional." (VWR-3089). "

What amazes me is that "hearing loud and clear" means hearing "just what I wish to hear" and nothing else. Please, please stop doing these end runs and forwards passes around the broad opinion of the entire community expressed elsewhere on this same issue, and having Torley run the ball forward ignoring the opposition opinion.

Mercia, you're not making sense whatsoever. The packet loss bar is something you would only look at occasionally, because you wouldn't experience it all the time. I never, ever looked at it, even when lagging because...what could I do about it? Nothing. When it was covered up, I never, ever had any burning issue to go peek what it was doing because...if I have packet loss, well, what of it? I can only relog if I am lagging badly or put SL "less than optimal" in the task manager yet again... If I ever had some super burning need to find out if something was up, I could pull up the longer, more detailed stats menu in a few clicks.

Search is something you use gadzillion more times a day than the need to know your packet loss. As clunky as SEARCH ALL is, it's what is there now, to be used, and mainly by new people.

Look, do you want to retain people or not?

"If they do learn what they mean, there's nothing they can do"

Sure there is. You can reduce your bandwidth in preferences. You can check around the house to see if someone else is doing something that's using bandwidth. You can stop building until the situation improves. But you can't do any of these things if you don't know that there's a problem, and you often DON'T know there's a problem until later... when SL tells you it couldn't save the changes you were making, sorry, all gone...

The lag meter won't tell you this.

CTRL-SHIFT-1 takes up too much of the screen to keep it in view all the time.

I've been switching back to older versions when I'm building.

"Search is something you use gadzillion more times a day than the need to know your packet loss."

NOBODY is talking about removing search. I use search all the time. It's right at my fingertips with control-F. You want a magnifying glass in the menu bar? You don't need to remove the bandwidth meters to get that. I'll attach a picture of a search interface that's even better and yet takes up less space when you're not using it. (SearchIcon.png)

Prokofy, perhaps you live right near one of the LL data centers and it is ROCK solid for you without any packet loss. Great, glad you have such a connection. For the rest of us packet loss is a real problem and one you are always watching for. Rather than just say LAG..LAG...LAG we know what the problem is. Oh it is packet loss. Or oh I can't see, but is that because I am downloading or some other issue? I see lots of green ok it will load and I should wait before i move. Etc etc etc. I personally get packet loss now DAILY. And it varies at different times depending on the amount of people online in SL at any given time. But it is something I NEED to know. Here is another tip, really really slow loading and getting a lot of packet loss? Move your bandwidth setting a bit (doesn't matter up or down) in network preferences. This will get those lost packets to be reset. Again another reason that those meters are helpful so that we can take action to improve our SL experience.

Having search in the upper right corner is redundant and takes up more screen space that is not needed for something that is truly useful to MANY of us.. But since it is something that apparently you want. How about going with my original suggestion and make it OPTIONAL? One click in preferences to see a search bar, or uncheck it and see bandwidth and packet loss meters? It would make both sides happy. Though I think you are in the minority in this case. Anyone I have told them what those meters mean LOVE them and used them all the time.

Did LL implement a way to spy the users and see what part of the UI they are looking at or using ?... A stealth virtual webcam, perhaps ?...

Please, do not be so affirmative about what is used or not by the residents: the only fact that this bug got no less than 146 votes (at the time I'm writing these lines), which is quite high a score for the JIRA, proves you wrong.

I, for one, am using these indicators a lot. I need them and will keep producing patches to get them back in my home brew version of the viewer ( http://sldev.free.fr ), whether LL likes it or not !

'nuff said.

Read again what I wrote in my comment, emphasis added with ***:

Most people never learn what they mean. If they do learn what they mean, there's nothing they can do (about their own ISP's packet loss, especially when they call that ISP, **as I've done numerous times, and only hear them say it's LL's fault, and LL tells you the opposite***.

That's right. I have packet loss constantly. I don't have it on every sim, which makes me suspect it isn't all on my side. When I've had really severe bouts of it in the past, and even managed to get some Lindens helping me several times one even researched this and came back and declared resolutely that it was my ISP, and gave me numbers to read off to my ISP. So I call them, read off the numbers, and the ISP guy just laughs in my face, and tells me no, it's not on my side. Given that the problem went away the next time there was a new patch, I have to wonder if it was "on my side" as it is so often claimed.

Now...what good did having packet loss bars do me??? So I get the news flash I have packet loss? Like...I can't tell that anyway if I'm lagging? And...what will I do about it? Absolutely nothing. Other than getting in the queue and waiting for my ISP to tell me...it's ridiculous.

The "lag meter" which I can pull down is more useful, because it will have a visible colour, like red or green, and will tell me "images loading" or "bad network connection". Now, if there's a bad network connection, what on EARTH can I do – again? What does GETTING that information do for me other than prompt me to relog? That's why especially geeks relog CONSTANTLY throughout their sessions as a fix for this because there really isn't any other one, especially for the average user. (And yes, I have the network slider down to 200).

Now, Henri Beauchamp, right back at you: do YOU have some kind of webcam that plots how people use SL? Of course you don't. But do you have customers? Do you talk to lots and lots of ordinary users constantly? I do. Hours and hours every day or the week. I sure as hell can be as affirmative as I like about what I hear people telling me over and over and over again. The overwhelming majority of users do not know what those bars are doing, and don't care. For those who do care, they have a way of getting a much, much more full menu with a simple ctr-alt-shift-1.

A vote of 146 does not prove me wrong. I merely proves that 145 friends and lovers of DBDigital Epsilon backed him up. This is mainly how the voting works here, as anyone can see. That's ok. It's still interesting and useful. But please, let's not pretend is represents any kind of cross-section of SL.

The fierceness with which the clan here is battling for these meters is more about their wish to have SL look like an airline pilot's dashboard, so they can feel as if they are using – and understanding – the highest level cutting-edge technology with every last widget and gadget on it.

But most people want U.S.A.B.I.L.I.T.Y. And that means simplifying, decluttering, taking out stuff people can't understand, and tucking it under the hood in favour of things they do understand.

I have absolutely no doubt that if there were a bet as to what the next 100 avatars you meet randomly in SL would prefer, a search or a packet loss meter CONSTANTLY in their view on valuable real estate, they'd pick search. And hey, I don't even LIKE that search they've put in.

I don't see why the new lagmeter is "newbish" – is it just because it doesn't have a wavery and bouncy line that looks like life-saving equipment on ER, instead of a simple grammar-school red and green dot? Could that be what this is all about – style? Coolness?

When James says, "The "stat graph" networking indicators in the upper-right corner are returning as an option in the next 1.18," does he mean this will be an option to toggle, so you do not HAVE to view those dumb wavering pointless meter lines and pretend you're playing Star Trek? or?

Come on people, user retention, user retention, user retention. It's one in 10 because you all won't budge on stuff like this that you need to let go.

Also James, please...don't. Don't go there on this constant of needing a "world loading indicator". Please don't. It's truly not necessary – except as a metric that could go on the ctr-shift-alt-1 kind of thing or in a sub-menu underneath the top layer. It's bad enough that the world even loads, James, and slowly. Having a graphic representation of that already-de-immersive process is just...painful. Do you WANT to lose users?!

And...while we're on this subject, you go back far enough that you know perfectly well when the world began to need to "load" like this. When p2p was introduced. Before, the world loaded as you flew from the telehub nicely, and was loaded when you landed. You didn't wait for it to load, looking at grey squares or the flotsam and jetsam of people's furniture hanging in mid-air in houses. Instead, it was...there. p2p was achieved at the cost of loading the world. Never forget that.

Because you don't seem to give a flip about people who use these bars to tell what the hell is going on. OK, you don't give a flip because your connection is so bad

> The "lag meter" which I can pull down is more useful, because it will have a visible colour, like red or green, and will tell me "images loading" or "bad network connection".

And it's almost always wrong.

Really. It is.

All it ever tells me is that everything's fine on the network, and I need to reduce my draw distance (no: I'm getting 2.4 FPS because I'm surrounded by grey avatars, who by the way aren't loading).

> But most people want U.S.A.B.I.L.I.T.Y.

And a big window is more usable than a couple of inconspicuous bars smaller than a single one of the oversized indicators in that window?

And, no, P2P didn't create lag, it reduced it. Before I'd teleport to a telehub and wait several minutes while the thousands of avatar-trap vendors and dozens of lagged out avatars around me rezzed before I could think about flying to my destination. P2P meant I didn't even have to download an extra 4 sims worth of bling and porn before getting where I was going.

To me replacing two little bars with a very large panel that shows less information is not going to help matters. And you basically said "The "lag meter" which I can pull down is more useful, because it will have a visible color, like red or green, and will tell me "images loading" or "bad network connection". Now, if there's a bad network connection, what on EARTH can I do – again?" Well then my question is why replace a so called small "useless" bar with a larger even more useless window? Sounds like neither one do you any good and perhaps it might be best just to ignore both in your case.

Regarding your comment that it may be on LL's side. This is something you can do to actually check that:
1. Download WinMTR. <http://winmtr.sourceforge.net/winmtr_bin.zip>
2. Extract "winmtr_bin.zip".
3. Start WinMTR.exe.
4. Enter "data.agni.lindenlab.com" in the Host field and click
Start.

This will show you where the packet loss is actually occurring. Why you see it in some places rather than others is likely due to going from one sim in one data warehouse to another. When you move to that second sim in another data warehouse you are changing connections and therefore not hitting the router that is causing you problems. Translation the road is better. You switched from a road full of holes and pitfalls to a smooth street.

As for the comment that everyone here is a friend of mine is totally false. I know perhaps one or two people commenting here. And of those I have met once. Hardly a friends that would come and vote let alone post if I asked. Such a comment is one trying to prove a point again with a large assumption. Even if they were my friends I certainly would not ask them to vote/post on a issue unless they actually felt the same way. To do so would be abusing the system.

Ok lets talk about usability. Why have two items doing the same thing on valuable real estate? A search bar and a search button seems a bit redundant to me and wasting such valuable screen space. That search bar takes up a lot more room than the two little bars it replaced (and hides more of the parcel name information). Seems like a large step backwards to me. Less usability in my book. Even if you don't use the bars. Seems like you would like to be able to read the full name of a parcel (or at least more of it) rather than having to bring up about land to do this. A bar on the left is in the red.....packet loss...network problem. It is as simple as that. The "lag meter" how many people do you think find that when they are new? I doubt many, most have to be told. No difference telling someone where to find a lag meter or that if the bar on the left under the close X is in the red you have packet loss and it is a network issue. Both take the same amount of time. But the latter is much more usable in the long run.

As for user retention. Have you been watching the SL stats? SL is growing not shrinking. One reason we have more and more asset server issues is due to this.

As for point to point teleporting, "p2p was achieved at the cost of loading the world. Never forget that" I don't know where you get that. All point to point teleporting did was enable the ability to set where your avatar went quickly. It had nothing to do with loading/rezing. What you are seeing is the difference between before P2P we had a lot less people then compared to now. I never saw any difference before p2p vs right after with compared to loading. What did change was the ability to get where you wanted quickly and actually have to load less in the process.

Don't get me wrong, originally I was against the idea as I saw so much of the then SL economy was based on those telehubs (that was the only reason). But I had been in other virtual worlds that always had P2P, I knew it could only be a good thing. I had never seen a true virtual world system where you had to walk/fly everywhere from a hub. Except in games where it would give someone a unfair advantage if that was possible. But since SL is not based on such a model, it did not make sense to have telehubs (but leave the option open so that sims that want to be game based can be as LL did). It was a throwback to when it actually cost $L to teleport. It only helped the economy in the long run. Shoppers now can go to many more stores (and potentially spend more money) now than if they had to fly almost everywhere.

We need a name for this interesting situation. I'm gonna call it The Prokofy Perception. The Prokofy Perception is:

1. Prokofy knows what the majority of residents want.
and
2. He's the only JIRA participant who does.

To get back on-topic: I'm just a typical resident who accidentally found a link to this JIRA issue while reading a blog about unrelated matters. Will you count me as one of your 100 randomly-met avatars in SL? Here's what I'd prefer: I'd like to have a continuously visible – but small – indicator of certain performance indicators. I'd rather have that than the little search window which I'll never use.

After the removal of the little indicators from the client, I now frequently hit Ctrl-Shift-1 to glance at the stats. My eyes always scan first for the same few items – client FPS, bandwidth, packet loss, sim frame rate and total frame time. I'd be happy if any of those indicators were displayed continuously in some little unobtrusive way. This issue gets my vote.

Thanks!

Normally I use the First look windlight. Please put these bars back as you stated you would above.

Please try to get this correct first time. We don't need more of the 'Days of Rolling Restarts' (fun as that might have been for you)

I downloaded it from links on this website http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/

This is a topic near and dear to my heart and I for one would just like to know it is really progressing. I am not asking for much. Something as simple as "We have the fix and do intend to have it released before 1.19 is fully released." or "We have the fix complete and it should be in the one of the next n releases".

And it looks like James needs a good poking <_<

If none of the scenario's are correct, shouldn't it be listed as an affected version? Basically I am trying to understand the criteria for including a viewer in the list when were faced with this unique situation.

Thanks for any guidance on this issue

Cheta

1) Go to Advanced menu (new name for Client menu) -> Debug Settings.

2) In the pop-up, enter "ShowSearchBar".

3) Set the drop-down to False.

4) Wave bye bye to the search bar.

5) Sleep better at night knowing how many packets you're losing

For a 1.19 version of the viewer with all the ugly, illogical, unpractical, unneeded UI changes reverted, try the Cool SL Viewer (http://sldev.free.fr/).

You are not the only one to be angry and disappointed (to stay polite) with LL's total lack of regard for their customers' opinion and actual needs... They currently live on a monopoly and may therefore keep treating us like ... (censored) but this will change with time, believe me...

'nuff said.

The 1.19.1 release candidate contains a checkbox in Preferences > General to turn the bandwidth and packet loss meters back on. This will ship in the 1.19.1 final client.

After all it was in 1.19.0 or rather it was promised but did not make it.

Also lets pray that the option to get shot of the '2nd idiot proof search bar for those blind to a Search button' does not fade away in the update after this.

Why not leave the search box in the top right and replace the Search button at the bottom with the packet loss and bandwidth meters?