Label links as (solo) or (shared) where appropriate

[sophialuden]

Currently a portlist entry is labeled as (global), (personal), or (personal: username). The first two of these are ambiguous-ish: (global) may be the global instance of either a shared or standard world, and (personal) may be either a solo world or the viewer's[*] instance of a standard world. The latter in particular is an annoyance when managing public portlists through the in-game interface (as opposed to the /build interface).

I suggest that the possible labels be (shared), (global), (personal: username), and (solo), with the username printed explicitly even when the instance owner is the viewer.

[*] viewer: the user observing the label.

[erkyrath]

Good point. But also a complicated point. :)

Portals are listed in several contexts:

• Top of the right column (where you are now).
• Your booklet.
• The focus pane, when examining a multi-book bookshelf.
• "This Page" in the right column, when examining a link.
• The build interface.

Most of these describe scope with the condensed form: "global", "personal", "personal: OtherPlayer". (Not yet implemented: "group: Team Name".)

The build interface is more verbose: "global", "personal: Name", "shared world", "solo world", "player's global instance", "player's personal instance", "player's current instance". (Yes, "player's global" is pointless, ignore that for now.)

(A not-entirely-obvious point here is that the booklet can't contain "player's global instance", "player's personal instance", or "player's current instance". Not sure that matters, but there it is.)

So. The condensed form has ambiguity but does it matter? You're never going to see a "shared" link and a "global" link to the same world, because the world either is shared or not. Those cases can't be confused. The only question is whether you can choose to visit a personal instance -- but this is resolved when you try to do that; the "This Page" pane will either offer you a selector menu, or the message "Only your personal instance is available".

Similarly, if you're looking at a bookshelf and see "personal", that always means that it will take you to your personal instance. If you see "personal: Fred", that will never take you to your personal instance.

I feel like this is a good balance of brevity and clarity; it makes the distinction that most players will care about.

What is the annoyance you mentioned?

If you want a bookshelf to distinguish the world model (in addition to the link destination), I might go with "global", "always global", "personal", "always personal".

[sophialuden]

The current system works fine for conveying where I'll go if I use a link. The annoyance arises when maintaining public bookshelves, in which case I care about where a link would send someone else who used it. If I see "personal", that might be a solo world (the link sends them to their private instance) or it might be a standard world (the link sends them to my private instance). The distinction, though relevant in this case, cannot be distinguished except by clicking the link to examine the sidebar (impractical for large bookshelves with many links), or by memorizing the instancing model of each world (similarly impractical).

[erkyrath]

Okay, thanks -- that makes sense.

Does the "always global" "always personal" label seem like a good solution?

[sophialuden]

Sure, that makes sense. I could quibble with the wording, but in terms of information conveyed I think it works.

(For "always personal" I like "solo", since it emphasizes that I can't invite others to join me. For "always global", maybe "shared" just for symmetry, but "always global" is fine too.)