Finger Profiles

The finger package gives every character two short profiles:

+finger shows the in-character one: name, age, what they do, a quote.
+oocfinger shows the player’s out-of-character one: pronouns, time zone, when they play, what scenes they like.

The fields are a list the game keeps, one attribute per field, so adding or removing one is a single line.

You are	You want to	Read
A player	look someone up	Reading a profile
A player	fill in your own	Filling in your profile
A player	keep a field to yourself	Hiding a field
Staff	set a player’s field	Staff
Staff	change the fields	Choosing the fields

In the game, +help finger has the same commands in short form.

Reading a profile

+finger <name> shows a character’s IC profile, and +oocfinger <name> the player’s OOC one. On their own, both show yours.

> +finger Wren
===================================< Wren >===================================
Full Name: Wren Ashdown                  Species:    Human
Alias:     Wr                            Occupation: Lighthouse keeper on the
                                                     Shale Coast
===================================< Quote >==================================
The lamp does not care who is lost. It burns for all of them.
==============================================================================
+oocfinger Wren
==============================================================================
> +oocfinger Wren
================================< Wren · OOC >================================
Pronouns:  she/her                       Last on:    6s ago
Time zone: UK (GMT)                      Usually on: Weeknights after 7pm
==============================< RP preferences >==============================
Slow scenes and long poses. Happy to play with newcomers; ask me on page. No
graphic violence, please.
==============================================================================
+finger Wren
==============================================================================

Short fields sit in two columns, and stack on a narrow screen. Longer text, such as the quote, gets a line of its own with its label in it. The line at the bottom is the command for the other profile.

A field the player has not filled in is left out, and so is one they hid: Wren’s age is missing above because she hid it. See Hiding a field.

Some fields are worked out by the game rather than typed:

Alias is the character’s alias.
Last on says on now and how idle they are, when you could see them in WHO, or how long ago they left.

A web client and the portal show the same profile as a card:

Wren's +finger and +oocfinger in the portal's Play page: each a bordered card with the fields in two columns, and the quote and RP preferences under their own headings

A terminal shows it in the reader’s own colours:

The same two profiles in a terminal: green rules with the name set into the top one, labels in green and values in white

Filling in your profile

Your own profile shows every field, with - where you have set nothing, so you can see what is left to fill in:

> +finger
===================================< Tomas >==================================
Full Name: -                             Species:    -
Alias:     -                             Occupation: -
Age:       -
===================================< Quote >==================================
-
==============================================================================
+oocfinger Tomas · +finger/set <field>=<text> · +finger/fields
==============================================================================

+finger/set <field>=<text> sets a field. Name it by its label or its key; case and spaces do not matter:

> +finger/set full name=Wren Ashdown
[FINGER] Done: Your Full Name: Wren Ashdown
> +finger/set age=27
[FINGER] Done: Your Age: 27

+finger/set <field>= with nothing after the = clears it:

> +finger/set age=
[FINGER] Done: Your Age is cleared.

+oocfinger/set is the same command, so either works for any field.

What you type is kept as you typed it, less the spaces around the =. Brackets and percent signs are plain text, so +finger/set quote=[Laughs] 100% stores just that.

A field the game works out cannot be set:

> +finger/set alias=Wr
[FINGER] Warning: Alias is worked out by the game: nobody sets it.

Every field

+finger/fields lists the fields, which command shows each one, and what you have in it:

> +finger/fields
===============================< Finger fields >==============================
Field           Key         Shown by    Yours
Full Name       fullname    +finger     set
Alias           alias       +finger     worked out
Age             age         +finger     set · hidden
Species         species     +finger     set
Occupation      occupation  +finger     set
Quote           quote       +finger     set
Pronouns        pronouns    +oocfinger  set
Time zone       timezone    +oocfinger  set
Last on         laston      +oocfinger  worked out
Usually on      playtimes   +oocfinger  set
RP preferences  rpprefs     +oocfinger  set
==============================================================================
+finger/set <field>=<text> sets one · +finger/set <field>= clears it ·
+finger/hide <field> keeps it to you and staff
==============================================================================

Hiding a field

+finger/hide <field> keeps a field you have set to you and staff. Everyone else’s +finger leaves it out, and yours marks it:

> +finger/hide age
[FINGER] Done: Only you and staff see your Age now.
> +finger
===================================< Wren >===================================
Full Name: Wren Ashdown                  Species:    Human
Alias:     Wr                            Occupation: Lighthouse keeper on the
Age:       27 (hidden)                               Shale Coast
===================================< Quote >==================================
The lamp does not care who is lost. It burns for all of them.
==============================================================================
+oocfinger Wren · +finger/set <field>=<text> · +finger/fields
==============================================================================

+finger/unhide <field> shows it to everyone again:

> +finger/unhide age
[FINGER] Done: Everyone sees your Age again.

A hidden field stays hidden when you change it, and a field you clear and set again starts out shown.

Each field is an attribute on your character, PROFILE`<KEY>, and hiding it clears the attribute’s visual flag. @set me/PROFILE`AGE=!visual does the same as +finger/hide age.

Staff

Staff with the softcode.finger.edit permission look after profiles. The package gives it to nobody but the administrator, so a game hands it out. To every wizard, through their role:

> @role/allow wizard=softcode.finger.edit
Role Wizard: allows softcode.finger.edit.

Or to one player:

> @permission/allow Tomas=softcode.finger.edit
Tomas: allows softcode.finger.edit.

They can:

set or clear anyone’s field with +finger/set <player>/<field>=<text>. The player is told who changed it.
see every field of anyone’s profile, set or not, with the hidden ones marked.
set the fields only staff set. See Settings.

> +finger/set Wren/occupation=Lighthouse keeper on the Shale Coast
[FINGER] Done: Wren's Occupation: Lighthouse keeper on the Shale Coast

Wren hears, if she is connected:

[FINGER] God changed your Occupation.

Anyone else who tries is refused with Only staff change someone else's fields.

Running the package

Installing

The finger package ships with the server but is not installed on a new game. An administrator installs it from the portal:

Open Packages in the admin area and choose Browse.
Install finger. It needs plus-help and plus-config, which a new game already has.

It adds the commands +finger and +oocfinger for everyone. They are game commands, which are matched before softcode $-commands, so a +finger your game already has in softcode stops running once the package is in.

See Softcode Packages for how installing, upgrading and rolling back work.

Choosing the fields

The fields are attributes on the Finger object in the master room. Find its number with @find:

> @find Finger
Finger(#15TW)
Finger Help(#16T)
*** 2 objects found ***

The numbers on your game will differ. Each field is one attribute named FIELD`<view>`<order>`<KEY>, with its label as the value:

<view> is IC for +finger or OOC for +oocfinger.
<order> sorts the fields. The shipped ones count in tens, so a new field fits between two.
<KEY> names the player’s attribute, PROFILE`<KEY>, and is what +finger/set takes.

The package ships these:

Attribute	Label
FIELD`IC`010`FULLNAME	Full Name
FIELD`IC`020`ALIAS	Alias (worked out)
FIELD`IC`030`AGE	Age
FIELD`IC`040`SPECIES	Species
FIELD`IC`050`OCCUPATION	Occupation
FIELD`IC`060`QUOTE	Quote
FIELD`OOC`010`PRONOUNS	Pronouns
FIELD`OOC`020`TIMEZONE	Time zone
FIELD`OOC`030`LASTON	Last on (worked out)
FIELD`OOC`040`PLAYTIMES	Usually on
FIELD`OOC`050`RPPREFS	RP preferences

To add a Height field after Age, set one attribute:

> &FIELD`IC`035`HEIGHT #15=Height
Finger/FIELD`IC`035`HEIGHT - Set.

Players can fill it in at once, and it shows in +finger:

> +finger
===================================< Wren >===================================
Full Name: Wren Ashdown                  Height:     Tall for a Coaster
Alias:     Wr                            Species:    Human
Age:       27 (hidden)                   Occupation: Lighthouse keeper on the
                                                     Shale Coast
===================================< Quote >==================================
The lamp does not care who is lost. It burns for all of them.
==============================================================================
+oocfinger Wren · +finger/set <field>=<text> · +finger/fields
==============================================================================

To take a field away, clear its attribute: &FIELD`IC`040`SPECIES #15. What players typed into it stays on them, so putting the field back brings their values back too. To rename one, set its label again.

Fields the game works out

A field with a SHOW`<KEY> attribute beside it is worked out instead of typed. The attribute is evaluated with %<target> the player whose profile it is and %<viewer> the player reading it. An empty result leaves the field out for everyone but the player and staff.

For example, the month a character was made:

> &FIELD`OOC`015`SINCE #15=Playing since
Finger/FIELD`OOC`015`SINCE - Set.
> &SHOW`SINCE #15=timefmt($B $Y,csecs(%<target>))
Finger/SHOW`SINCE - Set.
> +oocfinger Wren
================================< Wren · OOC >================================
Pronouns:      she/her                   Last on:    17s ago
Playing since: October 2026              Usually on: Weeknights after 7pm
Time zone:     UK (GMT)
==============================< RP preferences >==============================
Slow scenes and long poses. Happy to play with newcomers; ask me on page. No
graphic violence, please.
==============================================================================
+finger Wren
==============================================================================

The shipped SHOW`ALIAS is alias(%<target>). Change it the same way.

Another package can add fields the same way: it puts its own FIELD and SHOW attributes on the Finger object, and they go away when that package is uninstalled.

Settings

+config finger lists the settings and +config finger/<setting>=<value> changes one, with the config.admin permission. See Game Settings with +config.

Setting	What it is	Default
`sections`	Keys shown under the rest, each below a line with its label, for text longer than a line.	`QUOTE RPPREFS`
`locked`	Keys only staff set.	none
`columns`	How many columns the other fields are dealt into, 1 to 4.	2
`length`	The longest value, in characters.	1000

sections and locked take only keys the game has fields for. For example, to let only staff set Occupation:

> +config/add finger/locked=occupation
[CONFIG] Done: finger/locked is now occupation, was none.

A player who tries is told so:

> +finger/set occupation=Smuggler
[FINGER] Error: Only staff set Occupation.

The portal’s profile page

A player’s values are their PROFILE`<KEY> attributes. The profile-handler package, which serves the portal’s profile page, reads the same attributes for any field a game adds to its schema, so that page and +finger show the same text.

Drawing your own screen

+finger builds its screen with lfields(), which takes the labels and the values as two lists, so the number of fields can come from the attributes. The same works in your own code:

> think lfields({{"width":40}},Full Name|Origin,Mannaz Byron|Super Robot Wars AG,|)
Full Name: Mannaz Byron
Origin:    Super Robot Wars AG