4.1 General information on building things

 

It is useful to know what building implies at a more technical level, so you should read the next paragraph. However if it sounds to technical for you you may skip most information and come back to it later. However, you must know how to list and find things you own, so read the paragraph after the next one.

What does ``building'' mean?

Building relies on the MOO's object-based architecture. When you create an object for your personal use you create a ``child'' of a generic object (a class) that allready exists. E.g. digging a room implies making a child of the object called $room. Except when you build rooms and exits you usually use the @create command to build objects (see section 4.3 for details). Most of those objects can be customized as you will learn later. Usually you are least expected to add a description.

Most MOOs do have some place where generic objects are on display. E.g. at Tecfa we have a MOOseum (#258). Other MOOs have implemented commands that will list the most important generic objects. Else, enquire!    

The last important thing to know is the object naming and numbering scheme. Each objects on the MOO (including yourself) is an object that has a number. People with builders or programming permits can refer to objects as numbers, e.g. #84. Numbers are not always very practical, therefore there exist other ways to refer yourself to objects. In each standard MOO, each objects has:

• A name (which can be changed with the @rename command

Usually you can only refer to objects by name if you are in the same room, or if you use some special commands that will go and find a name in some database. Take the @who command as an example. E.g. '@who Kaspar' will look up the ``kaspar'' string in the players data base and return some information. TECFAMOO users also should have a look at section 2.5 on nicknames that allows you to specify your own aliases for any object you want to remember.

• Very important generic objects on MOOs are corified, i.e. you can refer to them with a name preceded by the $ sign, like $room.

Note that programmers never should directly refer to core objects by numbers. It will make their core much more portable. At TECFAMOO (this is not standard) you have in addition the following conventions:  

• You can refer to users (in programs) by using a ~ like in ~fred (only programmers need to know this)
• Programmers can insert their own objects into the local core database and those objects are referred to with a &, like for instance &channel_class. Programmers, please local corify your stuff here!

Listing and killing objects you own

   

Before you start building lot's of things it is a good idea to learn how you can keep track of them and how you delete them. First remember that any object you create (except rooms and exits) will be on you (in your inventory). Remember the 'inv' verb:

inv     Lists all objects you are currently carrying

Here are a few useful verbs that help you keeping track of things (they should be available in most MOOs). Note that most ''@'' verbs can take arguments for doing more sophisticated queries. Use 'help' in order to know more.

@audit  Lists all objects in your possession. 
        Audit is the most important verb you need to remember.

@prospectus
        like @audit, but lists more information

@quota  Lists available quota
@count  Counts the number of objects in your possession

@location <object> 
        will list the location of an object
@move <object> to here
        will move an object to the room you are in

At TECFAMOO we also have a Short Audit (#1419) feature. Il will give a shorter listing than @audit or @prospectus if you type:

  @sp

Type @addfeature #1419 to add this feature for your usage.