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A quick note on email addresses here - you may use any valid email address you choose. We have found that yahoo and gmail work particularly well. WBS will never require or request your own personal email address, though you may use it if you wish.

We *have* noticed that email addresses that are a total of more than 25 characters may choke due to the size of the field in the database, so shorter is better!

The chat options on the Registration page are explained in the Getting Started section, and may be changed after registration using the User Details button.

As a final note on Registration,  when your confirmation email arrives, the best way to confirm your registration is by using the url in the confirmation email as opposed to using the code.

The User Details screen shows several options, but the most confusing one for newcomers is probably the Chatting Interface selection. (The other sections are a lot more intuitive, and explain themselves with a bit of experimentation, so this one is first.)

Chatting Interface:

• Basic Chat - Displays posts in a long page with the comm panel at the end. Responding to a post or hitting the post button will refresh the screen with all new posts since the last time you hit the post button.
• Framed Chat - This divides your screen into two sections (frames). The top portion of the screen displays all posts. The bottom portion of the screen displays the comm panel. This way, you can answer posts as you see them, without refreshing the entire screen. When you have reas and/or responded, simply click the refresh button on the screen (not in your brower!) to get more posts.
• Streaming Chat - This also divides your screen into separate sections for posts and the comm panel BUT you do not have to hit refresh as often because incoming posts are automatically added to the bottom of your screen. You will be asked to click refresh (again, in the chat screen, not the browser) periodically. To scroll back, click the End Stream button in the room's comm panel.
• Auto-scrolling - This divides your screen into three sections. Select one of the numbers in the left hand section to determine how many posts are automatically added to the bottom of your main post section. The main post section and comm panel work the same way they do in other chat interfaces.

So - you've registered, and logged in, and ... now you sit, scratching your head because the screen shows that you have a default puppet, but you can't get into any of the rooms to use it!

Relax. Not a problem. You have to either add a 'real' puppet/character or configure the default character. From the main portal page (the one with the list of chat rooms), click the Add/Delete/Configure Puppets button on the top right side. That will open the Puppet Management screen.

• To add a new character to the list, enter the character's name in the box following "Puppet Name?" and click on Insert.
• To configure the character you just created, highlight the character's name in the list and click the View button. That will bring up the Puppet Detail screen, where you can configure your character with a tag, add an image, and indicate whether the character is the default which enters a room automatically unless you select another.

And now that you've configured all your characters, putting time and effort into making sure that each and every one looks perfect ... How can you ensure that you never have to do this work again? Very simple once you know about the Import/Export capability. In fact, you can import characters created on any site using the Ethereal Realms script with this!

Exporting Puppets:

1. Click Add/Delete/Configure Puppets on the main portal page. This brings up the Puppet Listing screen.
2. Click the Export Puppet button on the lower right section of the screen.
3. This brings up the Puppet Export screen, which shows a small screen of what looks like gibberish. (It's actually hexidecimal, but it looks like a random combination of letters and numbers.). Copy that 'gibberish' into a plain text file using either Notepad, TextPad, or whatever plain text editor you're most comfortable using, and save it on your hard drive.

Importing Puppets:

1. Click Add/Delete/Configure Puppets on the main portal page. This brings up the Puppet Listing screen.
2. Click the Import Puppet button on the lower right section of the screen to bring up the puppet import screen
3. Open the text file in which you have saved all your configured characters. Highlight the contents of the file and save it.
4. Return to the Puppet Import screen and paste the text file's contents into the Import box.
5. Cilck the Import button, and you should see all your characters in the list on the Puppet Management screen now!