Main Window
The main window displays part of the virtual world in 2D fashion. Rooms, streets, items and other users within the view range will be displayed in this window. In the center of the window is the user itself. Since the user can walk toward four directions in the virtual world, the view area inside the window can be scrolled through the correspondent direction.

Walk
The user can walk toward four directions in the virtual world by pressing the Up, Down, Left and Right arrow (or I,J,K,L in netscape) keys on the keyboard.

Select
The user can select an item or the other people appeared in the main window by click on it. A hilighted rectangle will appear around the selected item or people. Once an object is selected, its information will be displayed in the message canvas. the client can then perform its functions (talk, take, explore or look)

Menu Options
The user can explore the virtual world by issuing commands.

Talk
When issuing this command, the user can talk with the selected people by typing. If the selected person is currently talking with the other one, the talk connection will be refused.

Take
Some items can be taken with the user. Once the user took them, they will be added to the user’s inventory and can be used later.

Drop
The user can select items from his inventory and drop it in a room or street.

Explore
This command will trigger the event bound with the selected item. The event can be another web page, audio/video sequences or any kind of URL link.

Look
An image or 3D model of the selected item or people will be displayed in the Object Window when the user issues this command.

Command Buttons
These are the quick-access buttons for basic commands

Yes/No
User can accept or reject the talk request by pressing these two buttons. They are activated only when another player is trying to contact you.

Quit
This command will make the user leave the virtual world and cut the connections between the client and the server process.

Information Window
The Information of the selected item or people will be displayed in this window. For the item, the information include a short description, a bound URL, and the name of the item image or Vrml file; For the people, the information include name, nickname, sex, and age. Important system information and error message will also be displayed here.

Inventory Window
The inventory contains Items taken by the user. These items can be selected by mouse clicking. The user can look, drop or explore them anytime. At most four items in the inventory can be displayed at the same time, but the user can use a scroll bar to browse all items.

Object Window
The image or wire-frame 3D model of the selected item will be displayed in this window when the user issues the "Look" command. The user can manipulate the 3D model by mouse clicking and dragging directly on the window.

Zoom in/out
Click left mouse button on the canvas and drag vertically.

Translation
Click left mouse button on the canvas and drag horizontally.

Rotation
Click right mouse button on the canvas and drag to any direction.

Talk Window
When the talk connection is established, the talk window will come alive. Chatting users can type words into the text field and send it to each other. All the words sent by both users will appear in the information window below the text field. The talk connection can be terminated by type in "exit" command.

Interactive/Non-Interactive Mode
The user can explore the virtual world in 2 modes: Interactive mode and Non-Interactive mode. By setting the "Alone" parameter of the applet, the user could decide the initial exploring mode. When the Alone parameter is set to false, the user could explore the world in interactive mode; In this mode, users could see and talk with each other as well as take items in the world. Every potential action of the user needs to be sent to the server so that the server could justify if the move is legal. When the Alone parameter is set to true, the user could explore the world in non-interactive mode. This mode, by definition, does not allow any interaction among users. The user can only see the other interactive mode user, but could neither be seen by them nor have interaction with them; Taking any item from the world is also not allowed. The benefit of this mode is that it can minimize the message passing, and the client does not have to wait for the acknowledgement from the server, thus can improve the processing speed.

Room Visibility Mode
The user could decide whether to see through the room or not by setting the "seethrough" parameter. If this parameter is set to false, the interior of the room can only be seen when ther user enters the room. It's more realistic to explore the world in this mode.

HTML Parameters
To retain flexibility, several parameters are also available for the server operator as well as the user.

host
The name of the host where server program is located.

Name
The name of the applet

SysImgDir
The image directory for the server process

port1
The communication port number for the main client applet

port2
The communication port number for the talk applet

Along(typo, should be Alone)
Interactive mode is disabled when this value is true

SeeThrough
See through the rooms when this is set to true