Generic Enhanced Lecture

Creating a generic lecture allows you to give a prepared presentation in a room. It allows you to prepare your remarks in advance and then deliver them in any order or at any pace you wish. The Generic Enhanced Lecture is similar to the Generic Lecture, but (as its name suggests) it contains more features.

To create your own generic lecture, type @create #16759 named <lecture title>. For example, if you wanted to create a lecture on MOOstuff, you would type

@create #16759 named MOOstuff

The Generic Enhanced Lecture is pre-programmed with directions on how to run the lecture. To view these directions, type deliver <lecture name>. For example, deliver MOOstuff. The programmers have written in fairly long pauses to allow you to read the directions carefully. You'll be at the end of the lecture when you reach the line, "* I am having the lecture stop here for now . . . . " You can then explore the commands for using the lecture on your own.

By typing tutor topics on <lecture name>, you will receive a complete list of the commands needed to use the Generic Enhanced Lecture.

The first step in developing your own lecture is to enter the text that you want presented. You can do this by typing @edit <lecture name>.text. Please note that the first time you @edit the text field of the lecture, you'll need to remove the preprogrammed lines. You can delete all the existing lines by typing delete 1-$ (with $ indicating the end of the field). Then type enter. From here, you can enter your text one line or paragraph at a time. Begin each new line with a quote mark ("). Be aware that the lecture delivers your lines one at a time, preceded by <speaker> says. You'll want each of your lines to be discrete semantic entities, such as whole sentences or mini-paragraphs. If the lines are too short, your lecture will appear slow and choppy. If each line is too long, you could overwhelm your audience with too much text. You'll need to balance your line lengths and delay times so that the lecture is delivered at a managable pace. When you are done, enter a period (.) on a line by itself. Then type save and then q. A sample lecture would look like this:

@edit MOOstuff.text
enter
"Welcome to Diversity University!
"Explore the many features DU has to offer.
.
save
q

For a help sheet on basic editing commands, check out Leslie's Guide to @Notedit .

One crucial difference between the Generic Enhanced Lecture and the Generic Lecture is that each line of the Generic Enhanced Lecture has to begin with a MOO command. For example, the "marks that you use are actually say commands. You could add an emote to your lecture, for example, by typing the following line--while you are still in "enter" mode, before you've typed the final period (on its own line) to get out of "enter" mode:

:wipes the sweat from her brow.

To view your lecture, you can use the command deliver <lecture name>; for example, deliver MOOstuff. You can pause the lecture by typing pause <lecture name> and then resume the lecture by typing resume <lecture name>.

For the above lecture, the first line presented would read (assuming "Maureen" created the lecture):

Maureen says, "Welcome to Diversity University!"

Maureen says, "Explore the many features DU has to offer."

You can adjust the speed of the lecture by using the pause -<new delay time> on <lecture> command. If you wanted the pause between the lines in the lecture to be five seconds, You would type

pause -5 on MOOstuff.

To peek at your complete lecture at any time, type read <lecture name>. No one else in the room will see the lecture.

The Generic Enhanced Lecture has the capability to hold multiple lectures. With this feature, all of your lectures can be stored in one object, using just one item of your quota. Once you decide if you want your lecture to have these sections, type @use_sections yes/no on <lecture name>. If I want to use sections in my lecture, I would type

@use_sections yes on MOOstuff

The following is a list of commands you can use when working with the sections of your lecture.

@sections on <lecture name>

Lists a table of contents of the lectures you have stored in sections. A * denotes the lecture currently loaded to be delivered.

@addsection <section name> to <lecture name>

Adds a section to your lecture.

@edit lecture_name|<section name>

Edits a particular lecture section. The | key is usually the upper-case version of the backslash (\) key, located near the backspace key on most keyboards.

@rmsection <section name> from <lecture name>

Removes a section from <lecture name>

@getsection <section name> on <lecture name>

Gets said section and places it in the slot to be delivered.

Simple commands can be used to vary the presentation of the text within your lecture, whether or not you are using sections for your lecture. Say <text> or " <text> allows you to present the information as if you are speaking it. You can also emote actions by typing emote <text> or : <text>. Bigs <text> presents what you have written in the form of a large sign. Bigt <text> allows you to say the <text> using big letters. You can type pause <length>as an internal command to pause the delivery of the lecture from within.

Using these features, you could create a more elaborate Welcome lecture. You would do this by typing:

@addsection Welcome2 on MOOstuff
@edit MOOstuff|Welcome2
enter
bigs Welcome to Diversity University!
"My lecture will help to acquaint you with some of the features of DU.
: moves to the back of the room.
pause 5
bigt Pay Attention
.
save
quit

If you are using sections, the lecture will deliver the section you have designated with the @getsection command. You must type @getsection <section name> on <lecture name> before you can deliver the lecture. Once you do this, you can deliver your lecture automatically by typing deliver <lecture name>. You may then pause <lecture name> or resume <lecture name>. Stop <lecture name> will stop delivering the lecture.

To play back the lecture you have created above, you would type @getsection Welcome2 on MOOstuff. Then you just have to type deliver MOOstuff to view the lecture. The end result will look like this (again assuming Maureen created the lecture):

Maureen holds up a BIG sign: Welcome to Diversity University!
Maureen says, "My lecture will help to acquaint you with some of the features of DU."
Maureen moves to the back of the room.
--Pausing 5 seconds.
Maureen says PAY
Maureen says ATTENTION

There are other internal commands that can be used when creating your lectures. As "internal commands" they are part of the text of your lecture, but the MOO knows to treat them as special commands that influence how your actual text is delivered. The following is a list of these commands with summaries of their uses:

* <text>

This can be used to display comments in a lecture which only you will see.

[ <text>

This allows you to include comments inside your lecture. These comments will not be displayed when the lecture is presented. They are helpful for you to remember what information a lecture or section of a lecture includes.

+<label>

This creates a label inside of your lecture that needs to be used with the goto command. For example, you could create a label for slide five by inserting a line before Slide 5 and typing +Slide5.

goto <label>

This moves the pointer within the lecture to a certain label. If you wanted to skip a section of the lecture, you would type goto Slide5 so that the lecture would skip the appropriate section of text. This allows you to customize the lecture for different audiences, without having to write an entirely new lecture or section.

goto <line number>

The same theory that applies to the goto <label> can be used with this command to go to a particular line number. When you deliver the lecture, the program skips ahead to the specified line.

pause <time>

This makes the lecture pause for a specific number of seconds after which it will resume delivery automatically. You could set this to fifteen seconds by typing pause 15.

@paste on

This prepares your lecture to paste a section of text to your classroom/audience. The text is then pasted to the screen with no quotation marks. The lecture will show everything you type between @paste on and @paste off. While you are in the editor (in "enter" mode), you would type:

@paste on
Welcome to DU!
If you need help at any time, you can page me by typing:
page Maureen <some message>
@paste off
.
save
quit

The output of this command would then look exactly as follows.