Channel administration

Wizards administer communication channels with @chan. Running it without a self-management must provide Lua commands that enforce its desired policy and switch prints the available operations. Mortals cannot invoke @chan. A game that wants to offer mortal self-management must provide Lua commands that enforce its desired policy and self-management must provide Lua commands that enforce its desired policy and call the appropriate channel functionality.

Create and inspect channels

Create a channel, make it public if desired, and inspect the result:

@chan/create Staff
@chan/flags Staff=public
@chan/status Staff
@chan/status/full Staff

List and inspect channels

Use @chan/list for the normal description view. The @chan/list/full and @chan/status/full forms expose the capability flags, attached channel-object dbref, membership count, and message count.

Destroy channels

Destroy a channel with:

@chan/destroy Staff

Destruction removes the channel and its membership records immediately.

Manage channel membership

Inspect membership and listening state with @chan/who Staff. Add /all to the channel argument to include inactive membership records:

@chan/who Staff/all

A Wizard can remove a member while also on the channel:

@chan/boot Staff=TroublesomePlayer

Channel flags

Channel flags may be set and unset using the @chan/flags command.

New channels are private. Setting the public flag includes a channel in public comlist listings. Clear the flag with !public to take it private:

@chan/flags Staff=!public

A loud channel announces member connections and disconnections. Removing the loud flag on a channel suppresses those notices:

@chan/flags Staff=loud
@chan/flags Staff=!loud

A transparent channel reveals eligible hidden members in membership output; clearing the flag hides them:

@chan/flags Staff=transparent
@chan/flags Staff=!transparent

Channel member flags

Channels track join, receive, and transmit grants separately for players and objects. Use /pflags for players and /oflags for objects:

@chan/pflags Staff=join
@chan/pflags Staff=!transmit
@chan/oflags Staff=receive
@chan/oflags Staff=!join

An enabled flag grants that capability to every member of that type. Prefix the capability with ! to clear the grant. Clearing a flag does not necessarily deny access: an attached channel object’s corresponding lock can still grant it.

Attach an object for descriptions and locks

A channel object supplies the description displayed by normal list and status output and can grant channel capabilities through Lua locks. Create and describe a dedicated object, attach an object module, and assign it to the channel:

@create Staff Channel Object
@desc #123=Coordination channel for game staff.
@lua/parent #123=channels/staff.lua
@chan/object Staff=#123

For example, game/lua/object_logic/channels/staff.lua can define:

local function is_staff(player)
  return mux.object(player):state("channels.staff"):get("member", false)
end

return {
  locks = {
    default = function(ctx) return is_staff(ctx.subject) end,
    use = function(ctx) return is_staff(ctx.subject) end,
    enter = function(ctx) return is_staff(ctx.subject) end,
  },
}

The lock mapping is:

Capability flags are permissive grants and take precedence over the need to pass a lock. For example, if the player join flag is enabled, every player can join regardless of the default lock. To make a lock authoritative for a type and capability, clear that grant first:

@chan/pflags Staff=!join
@chan/oflags Staff=!join

Repeat that pattern for receive or transmit when their locks should decide access. Wizards bypass these access checks.

Detach the channel object with an empty value:

@chan/object Staff=

Detaching removes the description and lock-based grants but does not change the channel’s player or object capability flags.

Emit to channels

Use the @chan/emit command to send a message to every channel member:

@chan/emit Staff=The meeting starts in five minutes.

Ordinary player channel speech has color markup and raw terminal formatting removed before delivery. Because @chan/emit is Wizard-only, its message may contain color markup.

To send a message without the channel’s name prefixed before the message, use the /noheader emit switch:

@chan/emit/noheader Staff=Exact text sent to listeners