Chat in colors - with a Preston bot

Minimum requirements :

• A Preston bot build 37 or higher (Universe 3.x)
• A Preston bot build 39 or higher (Universe 4.x)
• The 3D Active Worlds browser
• Possesion of caretaker rights in the concerning virtual world

This tutorial explains one of the methods to obtain a chat in colors within your Active Worlds virtual world.
Any visitor, citizen or tourist, can make their choice between your predefined colors. The choosen color will be stored and reused, if the aliasname of the visitor didn't change.

World options settings :

In the menu Options/World/Features/Options check the option Hide chat.

Bot configuration :

Onglet Login tab :

Dictionary tab :

In the column Action, the used commands are Announce and Remember.

To add an action, click Add.

Configuration Announce :

In the field Messages the character between %a: and %r is a tabulation, recommended to keep the chatlines correctly aligned.
To insert a tabulation, open a text editor, use once the tabulation key, highlight and copy (CTRL C), paste (CTRL V) the selection between %a: and %r.

Define and store color definitions :

To discover a list of available colors, scroll down the window similar as shown below.

In the following example, once present in your world, every visitor who enters !chatbleuciel in the chat window will receive the message Vous écrivez en Bleu ciel in whisper and will from then on write in chat with the color skyblue.
To access these parameters, click on Add in the Dictionary. tab.
To store a visitor's choice, so they won't have to repeat the same command every time when visiting your world, specify a character other than 0 (zero) or No in the field Permanent.
Repeat this step for each desired color.

IMPORTANTE NOTE :

• If your bot is offline, nobody will be able to speak in chat in your world and only whispers can be used with others in the same area.
  
  
• Our tests provided that it should be recommended to dedicated a bot to this color function and this function only. Indeed, its speed seems lagging behind in the chat when the bot has to perform other simultaneous actions.
  
  
• The server choice is also of importance because even a slow or instable connection could cause delays in the display of the chat.
  
  
• All messages send to the chat window will be visible throughout your world, even for those not in your direct area, tourists and citizens alike, eventhough you will only see the alias names of other visitors in your direct area when pulling down the whisper list.
  
  
• The possibility to write in bold will be deactivated. If you wish to conserve this option, reserve an additional command in your bot.

Best regards,

JermeL, virtual world Gala in Active Worlds

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Tutorials Active Worlds