This lesson will give some background information about the software and the company and describe the programs and files found on the Client and Server side of palace for reference in future lessons
Background - The Palace Software is put out by Communities.Com - formerly Electric Communities - located a few blocks from Access Internet. The Palace Inc (the original company) was an offshoot of Time Warner Inc, who started Palace as an internal project and then lost interest before they released it. Jim Bumgardner (JBUM), the leader of the project talked Time Warner into letting him go it alone and he formed The Palace Inc in the Portland area. They were moderately successful and were acquired by Electric Communities, when EC's own interactive chat program, Boulevards, went nowhere. Electric Communities has since changed it's name to Communities.com.
Players - These are some of the people we have regular contact with at Communities.com
Kate West - Marketing type - keeps us up to speed on what they are doing and brings us projects. Also helps us in our own marketing efforts.Matt Burgess - In their business development dept. We end up talking to him about access to tools, reselling of licenses, etc.
Ken Arck (PH's Horse) - Head wizard of their own corporate palaces and our primary technical interface. They have asked us to go strictly through Ken for technical issues.
Andy Isenburg (Glide) - Another head wizard of their own corporate palaces and a knowledgeable guy.
Software and files - Client Side - The Client application for palace is available in Macintosh and Windows flavors. If you don't have it and want to play around with it you can get it at http://www.thepalace.com/downloads/client/downloads.html. The user can also access a palace using a web browser using a Java interface referred to as Instant Palace.
For the Macintosh and Windows clients you will also need a free registration code to activate all of the features of the software. You can get a reg code by filling out the form at http://www.thepalace.com/downloads/client/UserReg.html - or we have plenty of codes.
On a Windows the files end up typically in a directory named Palace on the C drive
On a Macintosh they end up in a folder called Palace wherever you tell then installer to put them
Regardless the files look basically like this
The executable application - Palace32.exe or Palace 3.0.1 (note - a lot of people are using older versions of the client to avoid banner ads that EC recently added to the client software)
Cyborg.ipt - contains client side scripts that can be executed by the user
Palace.prp - contains props worn by the user and also caches all props seen by the user as they wander around on palaces.
Plugins (folder) - holds plugins for the client (so far the only real plugin is Palace Presents)
media (folder) - holds copies of all the pictures for all the rooms the user has been in on all the palaces they have visited. Inside the media folder will be a separate folder for each palace the user has logged onto. Inside the folder for each palace will be two folders - Pictures and Sounds. When a user logs onto a palace they have never been to before, the client software creates these folders inside the media folder.
Bookmark.dat - contains a list of bookmarked palaces
There are other files that I will not bother describing at this time
Software and files - Server Side - The Client application for palace is available in Macintosh, Windows and various UNIX/LINUX flavors. We'll talk here only about the LINUX install.
On our servers, each palace owner has a subdirectory off their main account named "palace". This is actually an NFS mount to the palace server (chatterbox). The directory inside the palace directory looks like this
avatars (directory) - contains a set of standard gif files used as avatars when accessing the palace through the Java interface (Instant Palace)
cgi - contains cgi's for use from a web browser
client - contains web pages and web page pieces for the Java interface (Instant Palace)
index.html - the 'home page' for the palace
logs (directory) - contains log files for the palace
media (directory) - contains background pictures for the rooms in the palace and sounds
pal_admin_stat.html - a canned web page that comes with the palace server for checking server status
psdata - contains the props and room descriptions of the palace
pserver.conf - contains addresses and ports for accessing the palace - not editable by user
pserver.dat - a text file containing the layout of the palace
pserver.prp (proprietary format) - contains all the props that have been used on the palace