What you're about to see is an actual, uncensored copy of something I do at Linden Lab: offer feedback to our Developers! This is my part of a discussion which so far involves work done by Paul and Richard Linden to improve inventory management. Joe Linden is Vice President of Platform & Technology Development, and Milo and Brent Linden are the eXtreme Bug Hunters doing quality assurance. And me? Being on the Community Team, I punch into this like a composite of our Residents would. Because in many ways, that's what I am—an "enduser" Linden.

"OMG! I can't believe it! It's here!" I came across the Second Life Preview 1.10.2.1 Release Notes when browsing today, and downloaded it. I'm gonna let Resis who asked "When's it coming?" know that they can get a hands-on taste NOW.)

First things first… I'm surprised to discover a tab instead of a literal "inbox folder". Not bad at all; just not what I expect. I click back and forth between All Items and Recent Items, getting a good feel. At first, due to my Mac OS background, I misunderstand the wording and think "Recent Items" displays stuff I've just accessed or rezzed inworld. I soon snap out of it and remind myself this is actually "Recently *Received* Items".

Whew.

As my inventory takes several minutes to stream (almost 7,000 items total), I get restless and start clicking back and forth between the Items tabs very quickly. All of a sudden, EVERY folder in All Items expands. (The inventory display flashes for a moment.) What's going on? I use inventory's File menu > Close All Folders and try it again. Yup. And then I Clear Cache and do this once more during the streaming process. It's reproducible.

No biggie. I look at how long the Search bar is, and almost subconsciously wonder where the "Show All" (which sometimes appeared merely as "Show" to me for some reason) and "Filters" buttons are. That's okay, I can use the extra horizontal real estate. Nice "X"! Much simpler. Altho I really think it should glow upon mouseover and have a hover tip. 'Cuz the "X" for closing a window sure does.

(Today, I learned a search query can be up to 30 characters long!)

And what's this thing that says "Since Logo"? O, I widen Inventory… "Since Logoff". I get it–sorta. I hover my cursor over the Recent Items tab, and feel it needs a more descriptive hover tip. Kinda like:

     "Shows the inventory you've received since the last time you logged off."

Or something.

Initially, I don't understand why it says "No matching items found in inventory." What is supposed to match? I didn't do a search. I finally grasp it, sometime later, when I find I can check "Show all folders" in the filters. That wasn't apparent to me initially.

Anyway, I go back to the All Items tab. Whoa! My folders are in a messed-up order! I soon discover Sort menu > By Date does this. Well, that's something new. Kind of confusing–not sure if I'll get used to it. I'm too used to having folders sorted alphabetically but items sorted by date. I'd sure like the option of sorting folders by date in Recent Items, because that implies a more chronological display.

Why isn't Show Filters under the Filters menu? Or for that matter, why can't the Filters menu be removed and there could simply be a Reset Filters button in the Filters panel? Since "Show Filters" and "Modify Current" appear to do the same thing, that's redundant.

I look at the filters. "Animation" is singular; should be "Animations". (I get a weird tinge of deja-vu.)

I suddenly envision a horrifying scenario: I receive a lot of stuff since the last day I've been in Second Life, and while I'm rezzing objects from Recent Items into a sandbox to discover out what I've been delivered, I end up crashing unexpectedly. Or, I go on a big shopping spree and go to a quiet place to check out my goods. Enroute, I end up trapped in a laggy region that eventually goes down. It's happened to me a lot.

As a result, once I get back into SL, I find the Recent Items list BLANK! Is there a way to make it persist between crashes?

Makes me wish I could display "Recently received items since logoff, yesterday, the last 3 days, the last week, etc.

I start rezzing goodie dispenser boxes and start clicking on 'em. I have an alt tester account send me things. I watch with glee as my Recent Items list gets stuffed! What a joy to see it update in realtime. How utterly *useful*. Makes me almost wish I had the ability to have textures and notecards sent to me silently without popping up upon receipt (like those annoying web pop-ups) and read them at my leisure via the Recent Items tab instead.

Recent Items sure makes it easier for new Resis to do the "traditional" rounds at freebie shoppes, and then easily see what they got. Instead of the ol' "I bought a box for L$0 and it gave me something, but I don't know where it went!"

Tangent: I wish there was a way I could do a search and have ONLY items matching that query show up. Folders won't show up unless, for instance, you search for "car" and there's a "Hot Cars" folder. All too often, I find that in a struggle to keep organized, having subsubfolders within subfolders within folders eats up a lot of space. For example, I have a lot of vehicles. I know them all by name, but they're buried several levels deep–searching for them brings up the clutter of many folders that I'm not interested in for the purposes of quickly rezzing something inworld.

For some reason, I get another inspirational notion on the Gmail tip and wish I could "star" or emphasize items for closer examination later. For instance, upon login, I find I have a whole mess of party invites, notecards, gifts, objects used for bug repros, etc. Some of it is spammy, and honestly, crap. But there's certainly good gems I want to deal with–not just yet, because I have a lot of other things to get to. Without having to drag these items into a specific folder for later going through, I'd like to do a single-click and go "BANG! THIS IS GOOD! BOOM! THAT SEEMS FASCINATING!". Maybe it'd make those items appear in italics (since worn ones are bold), or in a different color? And then I could have a filter to *just* show those. Part of a bigger picture, I'm sure.

All in all, what a wonderful experience! Besides IM management, Inventory management is one of my sludgiest and unfun chores within SL. This helps save time, and who doesn't like that?

Bravo! *clapclapclap*