CUSTOMIZING VROMA ROOMS AND OBJECTS:
USING THE OBJECT EDITOR

An earlier version of this document is also available in PDF format, which preserves the orginal formatting of the handout.

After you have built a room or created an object, you will want to give it a description, as well as add a link to a web page or an image, or perhaps add some custom HTML that you wrote yourself. You do this with the Customize rooms and objects button on the Tool Bar, which takes you into the Object Editor. The Object Editor can also be used at any time to change a room's or object's characteristics, if you want to add something later (or find a typo!).

  1. Click on Customize rooms and objects on the Tool Bar
  2. Under Select an action, click on Edit an object's basic characteristics.
  3. Under Select an object, click on the name of the room or object you wish to edit. The Object Editor gives you two lists to choose from; you may have to scroll down to see these. The first lists "objects near you," meaning the room you are in and all the objects in it; the second lists all the objects you own. You need select the object in ONLY ONE of these 2 lists. Or, if you prefer, you can type in its object number in the corresponding box.
  4. Click the Do Browse or Edit button.
TIP: If you are editing a room and were in that room when you clicked on the Customize button, that room will be the first item in the list of "objects near you." So it's a good idea to be in a room before you edit it, though this is not required!

Now you are in the Object Editor for the item you selected. You will see a list of characteristics that you can edit. To edit one or more of these characteristics:

  1. Place a check in the box to the left of the characteristic (e.g. Name or Description). This is very important; if the box isn't checked, the MOO won't know that you made a change and you will lose whatever you typed!
  2. Make the changes (or add information)--see below for details on the kind of information to put in each box.
  3. Click on the Update Characteristics button in the red box at the bottom of the page. You will see "Changes saved" plus the date. Click on Return to Viewer to see your changes.
TIP: If you get confused while editing and want to reset everything to the original settings, click on the Clear changes button in the red box.

DETAILS ABOUT OBJECT CHARACTERISTICS

Here is some more information about each of the characteristics of an object or room that you can edit using the Object Editor.

NAME This is the name of the object, which you can change at any time.

ALIASES An alias is useful for objects like exits or bots, to shorten a name that will be typed frequently; for other objects, leave it blank. An object's first alias should be the same as its name; after the name, type a comma plus the alias (e.g., Antoninus Pius, emp).

DESCRIPTION This is the text description of the room or object that appears in both the Web Window and the Output Window. Note that you can include line breaks (using the Enter key once) and blank lines (using the Enter key twice), or just leave it as one long line for it to wrap automatically. You may have to use the scroll bars to see the whole description!

TIP: Descriptions can only be plain text; you cannot use italics, bold, or HTML tags in descriptions, and you cannot add links.

OBJECT IS UNLOCKED/LOCKED If the object you are editing is a room, do not lock it or no one will be able to get in or out! For other kinds of objects, this allows you to keep an object "tied down" in its current location. Do not lock an object if you want people to be able to take, drop, or move it in any way. Otherwise it is probably a good idea to lock the object into a room or container so people won't walk off with it. Make sure you have dropped an object in a room before you lock it: if you are holding it, you will be locking it inside your character.

OBJECT'S ASSOCIATED ICON (IMAGE) URL This must be a URL of an online image (beginning with http:// and ending in .jpg or .gif) , located in your own web directory or anywhere else on the web. We recommend that you try to stick with images on the VRoma server or another stable location, since many images on the web have a tendency to move or disappear!

Important: If the object you are editing is a ROOM, the Icon will show up full size on the page. If it is any other kind of object, the icon will be squished into a small square (32 pixels on a side) and appear next to the object's name in the room (so square-ish images work best!).

OBJECT'S ASSOCIATED URL or HTML document Place a check next to this box and then click on either URL or HTML.

URL: If you want to add a full-sized image to any object other than a room (see box above), type the full URL of an online image (beginning with http:// and ending in .jpg or .gif). If you want to add a link to a room or object, type the full URL of an online document (beginning with http:// and ending in .html or .htm). Again this can be either your own web page or any other online page (caveat about avoiding pages that may not be stable applies here too!) The link will appear on the page as link to <http://www.yoururl.edu>, so that clicking on it will take the user to that page, in a new browser window.
TIP: If you do not know HTML but want to include multiple links in a room, the easiest way to do this is to create an object for each link you want. Drop the object in the room, then edit it with the Object Editor, being sure to lock it into the room. Add the link you want to this object's ASSOCIATED URL. Then your students can click on the object name to get to the web link. No HTML required!
HTML: This is an optional alternative to entering a URL, for those who know some HTML. This can include links to web pages, as well as images and formatted text, just like any web page. If you include links here, you are responsible for making sure they launch a new page, rather than replace the current page. To ensure this, you must use the following code for every link you include in this HTML box (substituting the URL of the linked page for www.mypage.edu and your link text for here's my page):
<a href="javascript:CreateWindow('http://www.mypage.edu')">here's my page</a>.
This is case-sensitive, and you must duplicate the punctuation exactly. Use of this code ensures that the link will be launched in a separate, smaller window that will not completely obscure the main window and kill the user's MOO connection.
TIP: You do not need to include the <html>, <head> or <body> tags in this HTML box: these are put into the page automatically. You can put returns into the HTML Document box to make it easier to see everything. These returns will not affect the appearance of the actual page. If you are planning a rather complex HTML document that includes a table or many links, create it first in an ASCII text editor like Notepad or SimpleText, and then copy and paste it into the HTML box without the initial and closing <html> and <body> tags. This will ensure that you do not lose the whole document if you forget to check the box next Object's associated URL or HTML document. However, if you use a web editing program like Claris or PageMill, you will have to edit the html source to change all the links to the above javascript code and to remove all extraneous tags.

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