Administering Your Palace Site

This section describes how to administer your Palace site. This includes:

Maintaining Palace files and network settings

Setting user access and privileges

Changing the look of your Palace site

Owner and operator commands

Maintaining information for web-based users

Maintaining your site page in The Palace Directory

As the owner of your Palace, you need to periodically maintain the actual Palace files on your machine. One file in particular that will grow noticeably in size over time is the file that contains your props (the pserver.prp file). This file stores the binary data associated with all props used in your Palace site by all members. This file can become quite large if your site becomes popular; it's not uncommon to hear of 10- or 15-MB propfiles. There are two ways to control the size of this file:

• Use the `purge or `flushprops command. `Purge is a operator command and `flushprops is a owner command that has been built into the system for prop maintenance. For more information see The Palace Wizard's Guide online at The Palace website.

  
  
  

• Make a backup copy of your pserver.prp file, while it contains only those props you want it to contain. Periodically thereafter, you may overwrite your current propfile with the backup version. However, do not copy the prop file while your Palace is running. This can crash your Palace, corrupting the prop file and negating any changes you have made in authoring mode.

  
  

Art and sounds

All artwork and sounds for your Palace web-based users reside on your Palace web server. When users access your Palace, this web server provides the artwork and sounds for them. In addition, if a user with the stand-alone Palace User Software accesses your Palace, the sounds and artwork for that room are downloaded to their machine from this web server.

Your Palace installation has a built-in mini web server to serve this media. You can keep your media here, or move it to another own web server (for example, to reduce the load on your machine). Note that this web server is not intended, nor supported, as a general purpose web server.

NOTE: If you move your media to a different web server, consider leaving a copy on your machine. If the web server goes down, standalone Palace User Software users will still then be able to access the media from your machine. Web-based users, of course, will not be able to access any media.

* To put your art and sounds on a different web server

1. Bring up the Palace Server Preferences by clicking Preferences on your Palace's control panel.

   
   
   

2. Click Network.

   
   
   

3. Check the field Use an external web server for media.

   
   
   

4. In the field URL for the media server, enter the URL pointing to this new location.

   
   

* To customize sounds for your site

Your sounds are contained in .wav and .au files. The .wav files are for Palace User Software clients; the sounds in the .au files are for Palace Viewer clients visiting your site. Note that .au files need to be 8KHz and either 8 or 16 bit mono.

1. To make a sound available for your site, make sure it exists in both formats, and copy the sound file(s) to the media folder of your palace server (by default, PalaceServerpalacemedia).

   
   
   

2. If you want users to be able to access and play this sound from their Sounds window, you must add the sound to your sounds list file. In your soundlist.txt file (residing in the same directory), list the name of the file, minus the file extension. For example:

   
   

       	Amen 
   
   
       	Applause 
   
   
       	Belch 
   
   
       	Boom 
   
   
   

You can set rules for users visiting your Palace sites.

NOTE: To access your Palace site preferences, click Preferences on your Palace's control panel.

What to do	How to do it
Set the number of users who can access your Palace site, or any room within your Palace site. Purge props at regular intervals Let users whisper (hold private conversations). Maintain a log of conversations.	Palace Preferences General
Let users wear props. Let users create rooms and draw within a room. Allow non-registered users (guests), and how many can visit at a time.1 Allow user scripts (called robots) on your site. 2 Allow wizards, and specify what they can do.3	Palace Preferences Visitors
Set operator password to give to other users Automatically kick off users who are trying to hack this operator password (by entering it more than 3 times).	Palace Preferences Security
Kick the user off the system.	The 'banuser or 'kill command.
Prevent a user from returning immediately after being kicked off Automatically kick off users who send lots of messages Set this message limit	Palace Preference Security
Control access by and create custom avatars for web-based users.	See Maintaining information for web-based users

¹Guests have limited privileges to your Palace
site; they cannot wear props nor have custom avatars.

²You can also allow robots room-by-room through from your Palace
User Software. Enter operator mode using the instructions in Owner and operator commands, go to the
specific room, then select Wizard:Room Info, and check No User Scripts.

³For more
information, see Owner and operator commands.

You can change the look of your Palace site by customizing and adding rooms. These rooms can be linked together, have original artwork, and scripts that execute when users enter the rooms. You can add the new artwork one room at a time through the stand-alone Palace User Software. Or use the Add-a-room fro Ali-Co, check the Ali-Co website for details on this funky Palace tool.

Using a new Palace template file

The easiest way to change the look of your Palace is to download a template from The Palace website and then have your Palace use this new template. Templates are the look and feel of your Palace site; they contain artwork, sounds, scripts and a configuration file (.pat) containing information about your Palace rooms. The Palace Planet Downloads section has many different configuration files you can download, such as a kids Palace or an office. You can download as many of these templates as you like, and change the look and feel of your Palace whenever you want.

To obtain a new template, go to the downloads section and select .pat file associated with this template.

* To use a new .pat file

1. From your server control panel, open Preferences:General.

   
   
   

2. In the Palace Configuration field, navigate to where your .pat files reside (generally in the psdata directory). Select the .pat file you want.

   
   

Creating new room artwork

Each room in your Palace site corresponds to a graphics file (GIF or JPG file). You can use background images from anywhere; but they must meet the following requirements:

• 512x384 pixels.

  
  
  

• 24BIT color JPEG, or to maintain compatibility with older Palace Clients and keep many oldtime users happy: a 256 color GIF.

  
  
  

• GIF's have to be conform The Palace Palette color scheme. To ensure this, download The Palace Palette from The Software, Palace & Web Utilities<a/>. There you find the Palace Palette for Paintshop PRO and Photoshop. Open your image in a graphics editing tool, and load The Palace palette according to your graphic tool's instructions. You can also open a Palace image in your graphics editor from the Palace Client software Media folder and save The Palace Palette from that image, again according to your graphic tool's instructions.

  
  
  
  
  Once you have the palette source, open your image file in the graphics editor and convert it to 8 bit/256 color, loading The Palace Palette to convert the image to The Palace color scheme.
  
  

When you have your room artwork ready, you can customize your site with these new background images through The Palace client's operator mode (also known as Wizard Mode).

Using The Palace User Software

* To add graphics through The Palace User Software

The following steps describe using operator mode from a Windows Palace client. The Macintosh version has slightly different menus and windows.

1. From your Palace User Software, enter Wizard mode (press CTRL-W and enter you Password, if you need more info look in Owner and operator commands).

   
   
   

2. In Wizard mode you will see the Wizard menu. Use the options on this menu to create and link rooms. (For detailed information on these Wizard menu items, see The Palace Wizard's Guide.)

   
   
   

3. Use the New Room option to create a new room on your Palace.

   
   
   

4. Use the Room Info option to bring up the Room Info window. From this window, enter a name for the room, attach your graphics file in the Picture field (browsing to get it if necessary), and set options for the room. Even if you are using just a JPG images and no GIF or when using BOTH, you must still use the .GIF extension for your pictures name. So if your is called "mypicture.jpg" name it "mypicture.gif" in the Room Info > Picture field. (don't rename the pictures themselves)

   
   
   

5. Enter authoring mode by selecting the Authoring Mode option. Now, instead of activating doors and rooms, you can edit them when clicking on them.

   
   
   

6. Use the New Door option to add a door to this room. Then, use the Door Info option to set options for this door, such as its destination, and add a script. Doors that execute scripts, such as connecting to other Palaces or activating web pages, are called Spots. You need to change this door type from Passage to Normal.

   
   

NOTE: Owner and operator are the terms for the former god and wizard, respectively.

You perform most of your Palace site maintenance through The Palace control panel. However, there are some tasks you perform through your client. These can include

• Writing, adding or modifying rooms, and testing out your changes

  
  
  

• Enforcing crowd control and behavior standards

  
  

You perform these tasks with owner and operator commands entered through The Palace User Software. These two types of users are described in Introduction.

Operator commands let you do things such as change room graphics, add scripting, and remove unruly visitors. The owner commands let you do everything a operator can do and more. These commands and capabilities are discussed in detail in The Palace Wizard's Guide, available from The Palace website. For a list of these commands, see Palace Command Summary.

To become an operator or owner, you must enter the correct password on The Palace client. You establish these passwords when you install your Palace server.

* To enable operator and administrator mode on your client

1. Start your client.

   
   
   

2. Do one of the following:

   
   
   
   

   Select Wizard Mode from your Palace client's Options menu (for a Macintosh client, select Wizards from the Edit menu). In the resulting password dialog, enter the operator or owner password.

   
   
   

   Or

   
   
   

   In the text input box, type ~susr owner or operator password

   
   
   

* To change your owner and operator passwords

1. On your Palace control panel, bring up the Preferences window by clicking Preferences.

   
   
   

2. On the resulting Preferences window, click Security.

   
   
   

3. In the Owner password and Operator password fields, enter the appropriate passwords.

   
   
   

Or

1. Connect to your Palace through The Palace User Software (described in Connecting through the standalone Palace User Software).

   
   
   

2. Enter owner mode using your current owner password.

   
   
   

3. Enter the owner's new password with the following syntax:

   
   

    		'godpass newpassword 
   
   
   

   
   
4. To change the operator password, type:

   
   

   	 	'wizpass newpassword 
   
   
   

You retain your operator status until:

• You turn it off,

  
  
  

• You disconnect from the current Palace, or

  
  
  

• A local owner turns the wizards Permission off.

  
  
  

  NOTE: Your operator status is not saved anywhere on your Palace site. If you want to use operator or owner powers next time you sign on, you will have to enter the password again. This is a security feature; it keeps others who use your client from automatically becoming wizards themselves.

  
  

You retain your owner status until:

• You turn operator mode off, or

  
  
  

• You disconnect from the current Palace.