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Draft notes

Author: Brian Jones

Initial Revision: $Id: doc_layouts.html,v 1.5 2004/06/24 21:53:39 brianj Exp $

Intent: This document lists the proposed documentation work products to be released as part of the NMC2 version.

Concept of Operations (net-access only)

In compliance with IEEE standard and useful as a guiding force.

Core Concepts (net-access only)

This is a glorified glossary whose purpose is to define the terms used in the project.

System Requirements

Software lower level technical document. Another IEEE standard.

Core User Manual

This is meant for end-users to make sense of the key operations of our product.

Projected Table of Contents with sub-headings

  1. Establishing account
  2. connecting
  3. Default Telnet Shell
  4. communicating with other users
  5. establishing a character presence
  6. communicating through a character
  7. creating content
    1. creating places
      1. individual places
        1. locations
        2. connections (exits, doors, etc)
        3. events
        4. multiple rooms per place
        5. multiple places per room
      2. regions
      3. organization
      4. team based region building
    2. creating objects
    3. adding properties
    4. adding permissions
    5. external scripts for updating
      1. declarative building with XML
      2. command scripts
    6. groups
      1. creating groups
      2. adding and removing members
      3. communications
      4. group-based permissions
    7. scripting
      1. making commands
      2. responding to events
    8. accessing other NMC MU
      1. communicating with remote players
      2. connecting to remote character
      3. using remote scripts
    9. special effects
      1. broadcasting
      2. multiple players controlling a character
      3. vehicles
      4. dynamic descriptions
      5. timed and recurring events
      6. MOB (Mobile Objects)
    10. managing content
      1. generating maps and routes
      2. examining objects and properties
    11. customization
      1. choosing a different shell
      2. using a different protocol
      3. accessing scripting languages
    12. deleting my account when I leave

    Administration Manual

    Manual for use by those who will be doing the "behind the scenes" work with the MU.

    Projected Table of Contents

    1. downloading
    2. installation
    3. Configuration
      1. persistence mechanism
        1. RDBMS
        2. RAM with text flush
        3. multiple text files
        4. none (used for testing mostly)
      2. Networking
      3. Firewalls
      4. Quotas
      5. installing trusted extensions
        1. adding new shells
        2. adding new protocols
        3. adding new languages
      6. Security Policy
    4. Operations
      1. Starting the system
      2. Auto-restarting from a crash
      3. Backups
        1. periodic
        2. manual
        3. To multiple destinations
      4. Shutting down clean
        1. Manually
        2. Scheduled
      5. Searching for audit information
        1. what people did
        2. where people came from
        3. statistics and usage
    5. Disaster Recovery
      1. fixing broken DBMS
      2. Recovering from backup
    6. Unusual Issues
      1. upgrading the core software
      2. Importing XML
      3. Exporting XML
      4. Reporting bugs
      5. Problem users
        1. blocking access
        2. event auditing

    Developer Manual

    Manual for developers only! This can be as technical as desired.

    Projected table of contents

    1. working with primary source
      1. version control
      2. unit testing
      3. naming conventions
      4. documentation conventions
      5. coding conventions and standards
    2. extending via Java
      1. adding new shells
      2. adding new extension languages
      3. adding new data types
      4. adding new protocols
      5. add new authentication mechanism
    3. accessing the internal data model
    4. interacting with the internal event model
      1. being triggered on events
      2. adding new events