<pclass="last">You are reading an old version of the Evennia documentation. <ahref="https://www.evennia.com/docs/latest/index.html">The latest version is here</a></p>.
<h1><spanclass="section-number">1. </span>Using Commands and Building Stuff<aclass="headerlink"href="#using-commands-and-building-stuff"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>In this lesson, we will test out what we can do in-game out-of-the-box. Evennia ships with
<aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Default-Commands.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">around 90 default commands</span></a> and, while you can override those as you please, the defaults can be quite useful.</p>
<p>Connect and login to your new game. You will find yourself in the “Limbo” location. This
is the only room in the game at this point. Let’s explore the default commands a little.</p>
<p>The default commands have syntax <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Coding/Default-Command-Syntax.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">similar to MUX</span></a>:</p>
<p>A <em>/switch</em> is a special, optional flag to make a command behave differently. A switch is always put directly after the command name, and begins with a forward slash (<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">/</span></code>). The <em>arguments</em> are one or more inputs to the commands. It’s common to use an equal sign (<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">=</span></code>) when assigning something to an object.</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Are you used to commands starting with @, like @create? That will work, too. Evennia simply ignores the preceeding @.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<sectionid="getting-help">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.1. </span>Getting Help<aclass="headerlink"href="#getting-help"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>This will show you the description of the current location. <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">l</span></code> is an alias for the look command.</p>
<p>When targeting objects in commands, you have two special labels you can use: <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">here</span></code> for the current room, or <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">me</span></code>/<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">self</span></code> to point back to yourself. Thus,</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>look me
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>will give you your own description. <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">look</span><spanclass="pre">here</span></code> is, in this case, the same as just plain <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">look</span></code>.</p>
</section>
<sectionid="stepping-down-from-godhood">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.3. </span>Stepping Down from Godhood<aclass="headerlink"href="#stepping-down-from-godhood"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>If you just installed Evennia, your very first player account is called user #1 — also known as the <em>superuser</em> or <em>god user</em>. This user is very powerful — so powerful that it will override many game restrictions (such as locks). This can be useful, but it also hides some functionality that you might want to test.</p>
<p>To step down temporarily from your superuser position, you may use the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">quell</span></code> command in-game:</p>
<p>This will make you start using the permission of your current character’s level instead of your superuser level. If you didn’t change any settings, your initial game Character should have <em>Developer</em> level permission — as high as can be without bypassing locks like the superuser does. This will work fine for the examples on this page. Use</p>
<p>to get superuser status again when you are done.</p>
</section>
<sectionid="creating-an-object">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.4. </span>Creating an Object<aclass="headerlink"href="#creating-an-object"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Basic objects can be anything — swords, flowers, and non-player characters. They are created using the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">create</span></code> command. For example:</p>
<p>This creates a new ‘box’ (of the default object type) in your inventory. Use the command <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">inventory</span></code> (or <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">i</span></code>) to see it. Now, ‘box’ is a rather short name, so let’s rename it and tack on a few aliases:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>name box = very large box;box;very;crate
</pre></div>
</div>
<divclass="admonition warning">
<pclass="admonition-title">Warning</p>
<p>MUD Clients and Semi-Colons:
Some traditional MUD clients use the semi-colon <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">;</span></code> to separate client inputs. If so, the above line will give an error and you’ll need to change your client to use another command-separator or put it in ‘verbatim’ mode. If you still have trouble, use the Evennia web client instead.</p>
</div>
<p>We have now renamed the box as <em>very large box</em> — and this is what we will see when looking at it. However, we will also recognize it by any of the other names we have offered as arguments to the name command above (i.e., <em>crate</em> or simply <em>box</em> as before). We also could have given these aliases directly after the name in the initial <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">create</span></code> object command. This is true for all creation commands — you can always provide a list of <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">;</span></code>-separated aliases to the name of your new object. In our example, if you had not wanted to change the box object’s name itself, but to add aliases only, you could use the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">alias</span></code> command.</p>
<p>At this point in the building tutorial, our Character is currently carrying the box. Let’s drop it:</p>
<p>Hey presto, — there it is on the ground, in all its normality. There is also a shortcut to both create and drop an object in one go by using the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">/drop</span></code> switch (e.g, <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">create/drop</span><spanclass="pre">box</span></code>).</p>
<p>The default description is not very exciting. Let’s add some flavor:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>desc box = This is a large and very heavy box.
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>If you try the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">get</span></code> command, we will pick up the box. So far so good. But, if we really want this to be a large and heavy box, people should <em>not</em> be able to run off with it so easily. To prevent this, we must lock it down. This is done by assigning a <em>lock</em> to it. TO do so, first make sure the box was dropped in the room, then use the lock command:</p>
<p>Locks represent a rather <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Locks.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">big topic</span></a> but, for now, this will do what we want. The above command will lock the box so no one can lift it — with one exception. Remember that superusers override all locks and will pick it up anyway. Make sure you are quelling your superuser powers, and try to get it again:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>> get box
You can't get that.
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Think this default error message looks dull? The <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">get</span></code> command looks for an <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Attributes.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Attribute</span></a> named <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">get_err_msg</span></code> to return as a custom error message. We set attributes using the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">set</span></code> command:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>set box/get_err_msg = It's way too heavy for you to lift.
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Now try to get the box and you should see a more pertinent error message echoed back to you. To see what this message string is in the future, you can use ‘examine’.</p>
<p><codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">Examine</span></code> will return the value of attributes, including color codes. For instance, <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">examine</span><spanclass="pre">here/desc</span></code> would return the raw description of the current room (including color codes), so that you can copy-and-paste to set its description to something else.</p>
<p>You create new Commands — or modify existing ones — in Python code outside the game. We explore doing so later in the <aclass="reference internal"href="Beginner-Tutorial-Adding-Commands.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Commands tutorial</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<sectionid="get-a-personality">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.5. </span>Get a Personality<aclass="headerlink"href="#get-a-personality"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p><aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Scripts.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Scripts</span></a> are powerful out-of-character objects useful for many “under the hood” things. One of their optional abilities is to do things on a timer. To try out our first script, let’s apply one to ourselves. There is an example script in <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">evennia/contrib/tutorials/bodyfunctions/bodyfunctions.py</span></code> that is called <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">BodyFunctions</span></code>. To add this to our self, we may use the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">script</span></code> command:</p>
<p>The above string tells Evennia to dig up the Python code at the place we indicate. It already knows to look in the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">contrib/</span></code> folder, so we don’t have to give the full path.</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Note also how we use <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">.</span></code> instead of <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">/</span></code> (or <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">\</span></code> on Windows). This convention is a so-called “Python-path.” In a Python-path, you separate the parts of the path with <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">.</span></code> and skip the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">.py</span></code> file-ending. Importantly, it also allows you to point to Python code <em>inside</em> files as in our example where the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">BodyFunctions</span></code> class is inside the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">bodyfunctions.py</span></code> file. We’ll get to classes later. These “Python-paths” are used extensively throughout Evennia.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Wait a while and you will notice yourself starting to make random observations…</p>
<p>The above command will show details about scripts on the given object, in this case your self. The <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">examine</span></code> command also includes such details.</p>
<p>You will see how long it is until it “fires” next. Don’t be alarmed if nothing happens when the countdown reaches zero — this particular script has a randomizer to determine if it will say something or not. So you will not see output every time it fires.</p>
<p>When you are tired of your character’s “insights,” stop the script with:</p>
<p>You may create your own scripts in Python, outside the game; the path you give to <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">script</span></code> is literally the Python path to your script file. The <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Scripts.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Scripts</span></a> page explains more details.</p>
</section>
<sectionid="pushing-your-buttons">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.6. </span>Pushing Your Buttons<aclass="headerlink"href="#pushing-your-buttons"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>If we get back to the box we made, there is only so much fun you can have with it at this point. It’s just a dumb generic object. If you renamed it to <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">stone</span></code> and changed its description, no one would be the wiser. However, with the combined use of custom <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Typeclasses.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Typeclasses</span></a>, <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Scripts.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Scripts</span></a> and object-based <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Commands.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Commands</span></a>, you can expand it — and other items — to be as unique, complex, and interactive as you want.</p>
<p>So, let’s work though just such an example. So far, we have only created objects that use the default object typeclass named simply <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">Object</span></code>. Let’s create an object that is a little more interesting. Under
<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">evennia/contrib/tutorials</span></code> there is a module <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">red_button.py</span></code>. It contains the enigmatic <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">RedButton</span></code> class.</p>
<p>Enter the above command with Python-path and there you go — one red button! Just as in the Script example earlier, we have specified a Python-path to the Python code that we want Evennia to use for creating the object.</p>
<p>The RedButton is an example object intended to show off a few of Evennia’s features. You will find that the <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Typeclasses.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Typeclass</span></a> and <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../Components/Commands.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Commands</span></a> controlling it are inside <aclass="reference internal"href="../../../api/evennia.contrib.tutorials.red_button.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">evennia/contrib/tutorials/red_button</span></a>.</p>
<p>If you wait for a while (make sure you dropped it!) the button will blink invitingly.</p>
<p>Why don’t you try to push it…?</p>
<p>Surely a big red button is meant to be pushed.</p>
<p>You know you want to.</p>
<divclass="admonition warning">
<pclass="admonition-title">Warning</p>
<p>Don’t press the invitingly blinking red button.</p>
</div>
</section>
<sectionid="making-yourself-a-house">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.7. </span>Making Yourself a House<aclass="headerlink"href="#making-yourself-a-house"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>The main command for shaping your game world is <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">dig</span></code>. For example, if you are standing in Limbo, you can dig a route to your new house location like this:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>dig house = large red door;door;in,to the outside;out
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The above command will create a new room named “house.” It will also create an exit from your current location named ‘large red door’ and a corresponding exit named ‘to the outside’ in the new house room leading back to Limbo. In above, we also define a few aliases to those exits so that players don’t need to type the full exit name.</p>
<p>If you wanted to use regular compass directions (north, west, southwest, etc.), you could do that with <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">dig</span></code>, too. However, Evennia also has a specialized version of <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">dig</span></code> that helps with cardinal directions (as well as up/down and in/out). It’s called <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">tunnel</span></code>:</p>
<p>This will create a new room named “cliff” with a “southwest” exit leading there, and a “northeast” path leading back from the cliff to your current location.</p>
<p>You can create new exits from where you are standing, using the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">open</span></code> command:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>open north;n = house
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>This opens an exit <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">north</span></code> (with an alias <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">n</span></code>) to the previously created room <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">house</span></code>.</p>
<p>If you have many rooms named <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">house</span></code>, you will get a list of matches and must select to which specific one you want to link.</p>
<p>Next, follow the northern exit to your “house” by walking north. You can also <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">teleport</span></code> to it:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>teleport house
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>To open an exit back to Limbo manually (in case you didn’t do so automatically by using the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">dig</span></code> command):</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>open door = limbo
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>(You can also use the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">#dbref</span></code> of Limbo, which you can find by using <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">examine</span><spanclass="pre">here</span></code> when standing in Limbo.)</p>
</section>
<sectionid="reshuffling-the-world">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.8. </span>Reshuffling the World<aclass="headerlink"href="#reshuffling-the-world"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Assuming you are back at <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">Limbo</span></code>, let’s teleport the <em>large box</em> to our <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">house</span></code>:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>teleport box = house
very large box is leaving Limbo, heading for house.
Teleported very large box -> house.
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>You can find things in the game world, such as our <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">box</span></code>, by using the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">find</span></code> command:</p>
<p>Knowing the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">#dbref</span></code> of the box (#8 in this example), you can grab the box and get it back here without actually going to the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">house</span></code> first:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>teleport #8 = here
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>As mentioned, <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">here</span></code> is an alias for “your current location.” The box should now be back in Limbo with you.</p>
<p>We are getting tired of the box. Let’s destroy it:</p>
<p>Issuing the `destroy`` command will ask you for confirmation. Once you confirm, the box will be gone.</p>
<p>You can <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">destroy</span></code> many objects in one go by providing a comma-separated list of objects (or a range of <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">#dbrefs</span></code>, if they are not in the same location) to the command.</p>
</section>
<sectionid="adding-a-help-entry">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.9. </span>Adding a Help Entry<aclass="headerlink"href="#adding-a-help-entry"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Command-related <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">help</span></code> entries are something that you modify in Python code — we’ll cover that when we explain how to add Commands — but you may also add non-command-related help entries. For example, to explain something about the history of your game world:</p>
<divclass="highlight-none notranslate"><divclass="highlight"><pre><span></span>sethelp History = At the dawn of time ...
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>You will now find your new <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">History</span></code> entry in the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">help</span></code> list, and can read your help-text with <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">help</span><spanclass="pre">History</span></code>.</p>
</section>
<sectionid="adding-a-world">
<h2><spanclass="section-number">1.10. </span>Adding a World<aclass="headerlink"href="#adding-a-world"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>After this brief introduction to building and using in-game commands, you may be ready to see a more fleshed-out example. Fortunately, Evennia comes with an tutorial world for you to explore — which we will try in the next lesson.</p>
<pclass="last">You are reading an old version of the Evennia documentation. <ahref="https://www.evennia.com/docs/latest/index.html">The latest version is here</a></p>.
