METAbolt is highly configurable. Via the Preferences you are able to adjust how METAbolt behaves and what it does in accordance with your needs. Preferences can be found under the Application menu item.
There are 2 modes for Preferences:
1. Generic: Applies to all acounts to login with
2. Individual: Each avatar account you log in has its own preferences so that each can behave and do different things
To enable individual preferences (known as INI files) you will need to check the "Create av BAT file" checkbox on the login window. This will create a BAT file which you can use to start METAbolt with the avatar you logged in when the BAT file was created. If you had also checked the "Remember my password" checkbox it will start METAbolt and auto log in that avatar. As well as creating a BAT file it will also create an INI file which will hold the preference settings for that avatar. The ini file will be named with the name of the avatar it was created for. Deleting an individual ini file will default that avatar to the generic preferences. You cna see all the BAT and INI files in the "Data Dir" of METAbolt. If you don't know where this is, from the Help menu select the About METAbolt menu option. On the About METAbolt window you will see Data Dir at the bottom. Click on the "..." button to the left of it. This will open the Data Dir folder in Windows Explorer.
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Note
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If you are using individual preferences, you can only change the generic preferences before you login to SL. Simply make the required changes and re-start METAbolt.
To change individual preferences you need to log into SL and then change the preferences. This is because METAbolt can't know which avatar you are using until you login to SL.
If you are using individual preferences, some settings will require you to set them in both the generic and individual preference modes. This will be covered in detail below.
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General Tab
Options
- Connect to multiple SIMs: When you login to SL this option allows METAbolt to connect to the SIMs surrounding the SIM you are logging into. It is useful for such things as SIM crossings. You should bare in mind that this option could connect to over 100 SIMs upon login. It will have an impact on the amount of memory and bandwidth used by METAbolt.
- Disable tray notifications: By default a popup from the tray (bottom right hand section of the Windows taskbar) will appear to display any notifications such as an item being recieved or a friend coming online etc. Using this option you can disable the popup of such notifications.
- Disable friends online/offline notifications: Using this you can disable all notifications of friends coming online of goign offline.
- Disable tray icon: In the tray will be the METAbolt icon. This option will not display the icon in the tray. Bare in mind that all notifications will be disabled by this option. This option will also disable "Hide METAbolt when minimised" option if the "Disable tray notifications" option is also checked.
- Hide METAbolt when minised: When you minise METAbolt the application will not be minimised to the taskbar but will only appear in the System Tray (bottom right hand corner of Windows where you see icons). To re-display METAbolt you will need to double click on the METAbolt icon in the tray. You can also right mouse click on the icon to display the popup menu.
- Start METAbolt minimised: Each time you start (login to SL) METAbolt will be auto minised to the taskbar
- Decline given inventory items: All inventory items (excluding notecards) will auto declined.
- Auto accept all inventory items: All inventory items will be auto accepted.
- Disable inbound group invites: All received group invites will be ignored.
- Disable LookAt: By default the avatar will look at (turn its head) each avatar that speaks in chat. This option will disable this.
- Disable auto re-start: If there is a crash or the avatar gets logged out from SL for whatever reason, METAbolt will auto re-start and if "Remember my password" had been enabled, the avatar will be auto logged in. Each re-start will wait 10 minutes before re-starting METAbolt. This is to give time to an SL server, it it was an SL server reboot in SL that caused the log out.
- Optimise settings for Dial-up: If yo uare using a dial-up connection to connect to SL. This option will optimise all settings to the recommended states for a dial-up connection.
- Display LSL commands: If yo uare using the METAbolt LSL API (MB_LSLAPI) you can check this checkbox if you want received commands, responses, errors etc. to be printed on to the MB_LSLAPI screen. This is recommended if you want to see what commands are coming in and how they are being processed.
- Enable Auto Sit upon login: METAbolt is able to sit on an object upon each login. The object needs to be in a 10 meter radius of the location the avatar logs into. The object needs to have the avatar's UUID in it's object description.
- Disbale typing animation: Disables the typing animation when chatting in public chat
- Auto log out at a preset interval: Using this option you can set the number of minutes METAbolt will auto logout from the login time.
Radar/Range
The "Radar range" and "Object select range" settings enable you to control the limits in which such things as objects and avatars are covered. These 2 settings encompass the total ability of METAbolt. Mainly these settings are used to control bandwidth and/or increase the speed of certain features in METAbolt. e.g. if you are not interested in any objects that are further than 20 meter radius around you, you will need to set the "object select range" to 20. This will ignore all objects outside of that range. This setting has a direct control of the object range in the Object Manager window.
The "Radar range" is the master range and it encapsulates the "Object select range" i.e. if this setting is set to 50 meters the "object select range" will be limited to a maximum of 50 meters. Lowering or increasing the "Radar range" will have an affect on the avatars and objects that displayed or not.
Unless you are on a dial-up connection or have any special reasons not to do so, the recommended settings are as below:
- Radar range: 1095 meters
- Object select range: 20 meters
Cache
To increase efficiency and speed things such as clothing, textures and maps etc are cached. Using this tab screen you can see the cache files and/or clear them if/when required.
Security/L$
If you are using GroupMan Pro or interacting with SL objects via the METAbolt Commands Interface (
Using LSL to control METAbolt) you will want to have the communication to be secure. To enable that you need to generate a METAbolt password. Clicking on the "reset" button will generate a random password. You then copy that password and paste into the LSL and/or objects in SL.
Master avatar is the UUID of an avatar of your choice. Checking the "Transfer all recieved amounts..." will enable METAbolt to auto transfer all monies received to the avatar whose UUID you have specified here.
Master avatar UUID and Object UUID are used by the METAbolt LSL API (MB_LSLAPI) to restrict LSL communication with avatars and objects to the ones you define here for increased security. If these fields are left with their default zero values (as seen in the view above), avatar and object security will be disabled. Entering valid UUIDd for one or both of them and then checking the "Enforce LSL command security" cehckbox will enable this feature and restrict LSL commands to the avatar and/or object you have entered. Any LSL received from any other avatar or object will be ignored and dropped.
The recommended level of security is to lock down to an avatar and object.
Layout
METabolt has 2 layouts:
- Modern layout (the default)
You can switch to the Classic layout by unchecking the "Use modern layout in chat and IM screens" checkbox. If you are using individual prefrences you will need to do this at both individual and also generic levels and re-start METAbolt.
The font size used in chat and IMs can be changed by clicking on the "change" button next to "Chat/IM text font".
If you are using METAbolt with the modern layout you can change the header background colour and font size from the settings inside the "Options" box.
Sounds
As each option clearly displays, you can use these settigns to setup sounds for the various events that are displayed above.
Text Tab
- Messaging box: Options are as listed.
- Chat buffer: This setting allows you to control how many lines are kept in the chat screen. If set to 250 the chat area will be restricted to the last 250 lines and anything before that will be auto discarded as and when new lines appear. Setting this setting to 0 (zero) will disable this feature. If you disable this feature and if you are in a busy area your chat could fill up to levels that it will consume your memory and cause METAbolt to grow in size.
If you are not happy with the smileys used in chat and IMs, you can disable them by checking the "Disable simleys" option.
Chat and IMs can be auto logged as they come in. This will enable you to search through them or refer to them in the future by either using the "history" button on Im screens or by using the "Chat/IM Log Manager" under the "Logs" menu. Disabling IM logging will disable the history buttons on IM screens and no history will be available.
If you want an automated response to be sent when your avatar is in "busy" mode, you can enter your message into the "IM busy response" section.
"IM initial response" is used to send an IM to someone who opens an IM window to talk to you avatar. e.g. handy if you have a customer services bot with AI enabled, you can send something like "Please note that I am a bot" so that the person does not get offended if a conversation is entered with the bot not knowing that it is a bot they are talking to.
AI Tab
This is the area you use to enable METAbrain/AI. Any changes in this area requires a METAbolt restart.
Checking the "Enable multi-lingual AI" option will enable multi-lingual AI in the sense that the bot will auto-detect the spoken language and follow these steps:
- If the language is other than English it will translate what was said into English
- It will get the AI response from METAbrain
- It will translate the AI response into the original language which was used
- It will respond back with the translated comment
It must be noted that this is an experimental feature and it is not 100% accurate at all times. The accuracy of the translation depend largely upon how well (gramatically) your AIML files have been prepared.
Chair Announcer Tab
Read this page for information: Chair Announcer - What is it?
Proxy Tab
If you are using a web proxy to connect to SL specify yoru settings here. If you don't know what a web proxy is, ignore this section.
Plugins Tab
To use plugins with METAbolt you need to place the plugins files (EXE or DLL) into the extentions folder under the METAbolt Data Dir (see the begiining of this page if you don't know where the Data Dir is). Each plugin you have placed into the extentions folder will apear in the list you see on the left hand side. If you want any of the listed plugins to be auto loaded/started each time METAbolt logs into SL then select each one and click on the ">" button to add them to the selected plugins list. Each one will then be auto loaded each time you start and login with METAbolt. Changes in theis area requires METAbolt to be re-started.
METAcourier Tab
Using this section you can set-up IM commands to auto give inventory items. It is ideal for automating customer services and support.
Basically if a listed command is received via an IM, the corresponding item for that command will be sent to the avatar that sent the IM.
For example you can specify "Help" as a command and then drag and drop a notecard that contains help information. You can setup an unlimited number of commands (within reason!).
Note that commands are NOT case-sensitive.