format

Olympia: The Age of Gods PBEM (Oct 4 2000)

## `format`

      format [CLEAR] [HTML] [TEXT] [RAW] [TAGS] [ALT] [PATH http://...]

The format command is used to set the format of the turn report.

Four basic turn report formats are available:

The RAW format produces "raw" output. Raw output is largely unformatted and contains both the embedded tags and all of the text output. The raw format is useful mainly to players who want to post-process their turns themselves, e.g., to produce their own version of HTML output. For details on the raw format, see Appendix - Output Formats.

The TEXT format produces a text-only turn report.

The HTML format produces a turn report suitable for viewing with a Web browser.

Specifying the TAGS format embeds Age of God tags into your turn report. These tags can be used to automatically process the turn report, e.g., to extract location information for a map database. For details on the format of tags, see Appendix - Output Formats.

You may select the format of your turn report by using the format command followed by one or more of the HTML, TEXT, or RAW keywords. You may set multiple formats (e.g., HTML and RAW). In this case, you will be sent multiple turn reports, one in each format you've selected. The turn reports will contain a keyword in the subject line of the email indicating the format (so that you can automatically sort them).

To reset your format choices, use "FORMAT CLEAR". This will clear all formats. (If you do not select a format, you will receive only a text format turn report.)

Some players find the location activity logs less useful than others, and prefer them to be banished to the end of the turn report. The command "FORMAT ALT" will do this. This alternate format is also cleared by the "FORMAT CLEAR" command.

0 | Noble reports listed first, followed by location reports including activity logs.
1 | Location reports without activity logs, followed by noble reports, followed by location activity logs.

Finally, you may use the format command to set an initial path for the external links in your HTML format turn report.

In the HTML turn report format, any noble, location or item that does not appear in your turn report is linked to an HTML page of the same name. For example, a noble "John Hawkins [ag7]" will be linked to "http:ag7.html". If you create a web page "ag7.html" in the directory where you keep your turn reports, then clicking on the name "John Hawkins [ag7]" will link you to that web page (where you could, for example, store information about him).

However, you might want that link to point to some other location. For instance, you might be part of an alliance that keeps all information on a central server. In that case, you can use the "FORMAT PATH" command to make the link point to that server. For example, if you give the command "FORMAT PATH http://home.me.org/tag/", then "John Hawkins [ag7]" will be linked to "http://home.me.org/tag/ag7.html".

To clear the path, use "FORMAT PATH".