Shadowlands Forum Features

Shadowlands forum was built and is grown based on the comments made by members of the Shadowlands community, and the other users of Shadowlands Forum worldwide. Feedback is always appreciated!

Note to 1.9.5-devel users: Please visit the 1.9.5 Features page.

Note to users of versions older than 1.9.4: See the New Features page for what's new.

Appearance and Uses: Shadowlands Forum can be used as a place for your community to hang out: 

     FORUM: away: at 09:21:
      AWAY:    jeremy: a bit more sleep ;-)
     FORUM: death has arrived, from localhost at 10:11.
     FORUM: jeremy has returned at 10:34.
    jeremy: ugh.  mondaymorning.
            hi death
            i feel much more normal today.
            sigh
     FORUM: dracofav has returned at 10:35.
  dracofav: morning everyone
    jeremy: hi!

And as a place to coordinate: 

     FORUM: phoenix has returned at 12:33.
   demaria: Hey Dan, where is our test?
   phoenix: newhouse
   demaria: wow.  I'd never of found it.
   phoenix: newhouse 1 a2
   demaria: Which room?
            a2?
   phoenix: <nod>
   demaria: where is the heck is a2?
   phoenix: by coffee machines?
   demaria: it sounds like a quake level name.
   phoenix: damn
            hiccups
            leave now or soon?
     death: it's downstairs from the coffee machine
   demaria: soon
            ready to go?
   phoenix: shoes

Quick Logins! This should be mentioned first; if you telnet to the Forum from localhost, it will automatically recognize who you are, and let you in without needing to enter your name and password again. Quick and easy!

For the Users, there are many helpful commands, a gentle and clean-looking interface, and support for common line-editing control keys (see below.) And of course you can turn off ("ignore") types of messages you don't want to hear.

You can whisper to other users (one or many at a time) with "!to" and "!also". If you're whispering to someone and you quickly want to say something to everyone, you can use "!to all" or "!!" (an abbreviation for "!to all") to do so.

Large Command Set
Shadowlands forum also comes with a versatile set of commands that are available to all users. Of these commands, a "!set" command allows preferences to be set to each user's tastes.

Currently, !set has seven options: 

     FORUM: Current settings:
     FORUM:     command    !    Current command-prefix char
     FORUM:     autowho    5    Min idle when away before auto-!who on return
     FORUM:     hereidle   15   Max idle time for !here listing
     FORUM:     local      No   Telnet local echo (for screwy telnets)
     FORUM:     msgchk     3    Check for new mail (minutes)
     FORUM:     tabself    No   Tab-completion includes your own username  
     FORUM:     trueidle   No   Idle time based on last keypress
For details on any of these options, see the section on !set.

Plus, fun features have been built in:

!roll rolls imaginary dice for fun.
 

    matted> !roll 6
     FORUM: matted rolls 6 dice: 2 6 5 2 2 5 = 22

!spam randomly selects an ascii-art banner file and pastes it into the room. (This command can be disabled.) 

   jeremy> !spam
   jeremy:     ____
              (.   \
                \  |
                 \ |___(\--/)
               __/    (  . . )
              "'._.    '-.O.'
                   '-.  \ "|\
                      '.,,/'.,,mrf

Control Keys
The following shortcut and control keys are supported:
Tab Complete word (username or command)
Ctrl-W Erase word
Ctrl-U Erase line, can't get it back
Ctrl-K "Kut" line to clipboard
Ctrl-Y Paste ("yank") line from clipboard
Ctrl-L Clear screen (think "form-feed")
Ctrl-O Turn command character on/off
(good for pasting in text which may contain the command character at the start of a line.)
Ctrl-N Paste last public line
Ctrl-P Paste last line you sent
Ctrl-D
Ctrl-D		 Log Out (needs to be hit twice)

For the Sysadmin, the preferences header file (slfprefs.h) easily allows the following to be set according to the needs of your chatroom:

Configurable Guest Privileges!
Although the program is intended for account holders of a server, provisions have been made to allow guests the ability to chat.

For more about the admin features of Shadowlands Forum, see the Administrator Information page.

Configurable Room Preferences
* Default Prefix for commands (default is !)
* Room Topics on/off
* Spam command on/off
* Guests allowed/not allowed
* Guest autoaccept on/off
* Roll using Star Wars RPG rules, or standard 6-sided-dice

Tunable Program Preferences
* Max chat users (up to 32)
* Maximum number of consecutive blank lines
* Maximum number of dice you can roll
* Maximum consecutive topics kept in memory
* Max lines/sec
* Max lines in one second
* Max lines for second avg
* Location of "banners" directory used by the !spam command
* Topic reset interval

Go on to the command descriptions
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