If you have took a sneak peek at the new Second Life™ UI, you have probably noticed that pie manu, the circle thing with several useful tools that comes up when you click on the avatar or object, will be replaced with old-fashioned, linear menu. Yes, there are many changes in the new user interface, some of them very useful, but getting rid of the pie menu is not one of them. And it’s not just me being sentimental here.
There are two main reasons why circle-shaped, divided in segments menu is much better than the linear one.
As you know, one can change the menu item’s text via script. That is, you can make your object to have "Eat" instead of "Sit" as the upper left item and "Choose food" instead of "Touch" in the upper item. Everybody older than a week knows the mechanic of the world and knows that "Sit" doesn’t always mean sitting. Most of the times it means teleporting. We all know what to expect from the combination of the menu text and its position. And we all know whether we want to touch or sit on the object, no matter how those functions are named and what they will actually do. But now, with the changed menu, we’ll have to think what’s the name of the function that triggers what we want to do and to search for it between all the options. Related to this is the other problem. Not quite intuitive, right?
With pie menu, you don’t have to search for things. It’s just a slight move of the mouse away. And that slight move has a distinctive direction. Not "n items down" move, but left, right, upper-left… you get the point. When you search the item in the linear menu, you actually have to read. In pie menu, you do it instinctively. It might seem like insignificant difference, but those insignificant things that bypass the reading and make things accessible unconsciously are what makes great interfaces.
There are couple of things to say about the content of the new menu as well. One of the things that were weird in the old one (and that will stay in the next generation) is the "Appearance" option. That is not meant for simple appearance interventions like changing your clothes, it opens the tools for creating and changing your shape and creating new clothes and skins. Yes, you know that, but you wouldn’t believe me if I tell you how many new residents have problems with this. How often we do that? Even the creators. Not often enough to have it right under the fingers. But, if there is an available spot (though I’m sure it can be used better, let it be. But why then "Edit", which is not creator’s tool only, and which is everyday thing, will be completely removed from the new menu? It simply doesn’t make sense.
So, while the new interface is still in the Linden’s workshop and, hopefully, might be changed, please say your concerns and give more arguments, either here or on JIRA. And of course, vote! Thanks.
“But why then “Edit”, which is not creator’s tool only, and which is everyday thing, will be completely removed from the new menu?”
It won’t be. “Edit” is still there, if you right-click on something that can be edited. Read the comments on the entry you linked to at the start.
A pie menu is easier to use on a laptop.
I’m usually "playing" SL with a laptop sitting on the couch with the computer on my lap (yeah that’s what laptops are for, eh?) and – here comes the clue – without seperately attached mouse. Now try scrolling down with your built-in mouse pad to the lowest item in a linear menu and find the same item in a pie: the last one is definitely faster.
must agree with Miss Zablin, using a pie on a laptop ESP a MacBook is MUCH easier than a linear menu! GAH! i really wonder sometimes who’s feeding the gerbils at that place!
~Redgrrl
Thanks for pointing that out Samantha. Corrected.
Just a couple of days after I posted this I had to face a brutal proof of how muscle memory works. I’ve installed a new version of the client, one in which Lindens changed the places of items in the pie menu. I still have problems with getting used to it.