Web Host Instructions:


Introduction:  You will be using two files when you run a game with with 
webhost; a question file and a game settings file.  The question file will
be a text file that you write in word pad or notepad or some other word 
processing software.  The game settings file is a file that you will build 
using the webhost program box.  I haven't found anything (yet) that webhost 
won't work with, it is usually just a matter of finding the correct 
combination of keystrokes for pasting that work best with your
communications program or browser.

Key strokes to paste:
Ctrl + V, shift + insert, clicking edit/paste, right clicking the mouse and 
wlicking paste
There could be more, but these are the ones I've run across.


Building a Game Settings file:

Game settings are your buzzers, get ready's, rules etc.  These are things
you use over and over and may or may not be specific to a certain type of game.
 
For instance if you run a game that has five categories, your game settings 
will be different from a game you run that has no categories, so you will 
want to build a game settings file for each type of game that you may run.

Open webhost. Under View, click on game settings pane.  In the bottom half
of the webhost box you will see Game Settings, followed by twelve options.  
Below the options is a text box.  To create a setting, mark the option you 
want to type in, and type it in the box.  You do this for each option that
is necessary to your game.  Then, you click file/save game settings, and in 
the dialog box type the name of the game settings file, so you know what kind 
of game it is for.  The .whg extension will be automatically added.  For each
of the game settings, I will give you an example:


Welcome Message:

***WELCOME TO TRIVIA WITH LIZ AND MANNY***

            or

*** WELCOME TO PEOPLES' CHOICE TRIVIA***
*** ******WITH LIZ & MANNY*************

You can have multiple lines on your welcome.  It is helpful to put a blank 
line at the end of your welcome macro so it will all go to the screen more 
smoothly.


Game Rules:

Keep your game rules short and simple.  4 or 5 lines is plenty, and if they 
are simple, someone might actually read them.

**********RULES***********
1. ANSWER ONE TIME, ON SCREEN, BEFORE THE BUZZER.
2. SPELLINK DON'T KOUNT.
3. ITS OKAY TO COPY.
4. THE HOST'S SCREEN IS CONSIDERED FINAL.
5. HAVE FUN.

Again, a blank line at the end of your rules macro is helpful.


Halftime Bonus Rules:

If you don't have a special bonus question, you can skip this part.  If you 
do, put in your rules for the question:

*****HALFTIME BONUS RULES*****
** 2  ANSWERS ON THE SAME LINE**
* 1 PT FOR ONE 3 POINTS FOR BOTH * 
****EXTRA TIME WILL BE GIVEN****

Again, a blank line at the end of your rules macro is helpful.


Final Bonus Rules:

Same as above, only for your final bonus question.


Upcoming Question Category:

If you DON'T have separate categories this field will contain just a normal 
get ready.

@@ GET READY THE QUESTION IS NEXT @@

If you have categories you will use the field placement holder of %i (for 
this field and any others that need it) in the place  you want the category 
name to be inserted.  When webhost sees the %i it substitutes the correct 
string of text in that position.  So for a categorical game:

@@ GET READY A QUESTION ABOUT %i IS NEXT @@

Note:  for the upcoming questions, question formats and buzzers, DO NOT hit 
the enter key at the end of your line of text.  You will hit enter to send
it to the screen after you paste it to your chat window, browser or typing 
screen.


Upcoming Question Value:

Most of you will skip this field.  If you run a game where questions have 
variable point values you will use it.

@@ GET READY A QUESTION WORTH %i POINTS IS NEXT @@

Upcoming Bonus Format:
 
@@ GET READY THE BONUS QUESTION IS NEXT @@

Question Format:

Many people use some sort of symbols to set off their questions from the
rest of the chat going on in the room.  Even though the questions are in all
caps, the extra symbols sometimes help.  This field is simply your symbols, if 
any and the %i.

##### %i #####
Webhost will put the question  in for the %i and when your question goes to 
the screen it will look like:
##### WHAT COLOR IS THE SKY? #####


Bonus Question Format:

Same as above unless you want to decorate your bonus questions a bit 
differently.

>>>>> %i <<<<<


Buzzers:

You may wish to have three or four (or more) different clever buzzers. You 
can have as many or few as you like.  Put each one on a line by itself, but 
make sure that after you type the last one in, you do not hit enter at the 
end of your line of typing.  Otherwise webhost thinks that the last blank 
line is a buzzer and every so often when you click your buzzer, you will get

a blank line on screen.

Examples:

***STOP TYPING THE  TIME IS UP***
#### COPY NO MORE THE TIME IS OVER ###


Answer Format:

##ANSWER: %i ##

This field is put in here so when you are creating your question file, you 
don't have to type the word answer fifty times.  Just remember to use the %i
where you want the answer to be filled in.


Bonus Answer Format:

Same as above only you may wish to put

## BONUS ANSWER:  %i ##

Remember if you don't use a field for your game you don't need to put 
anything in it.


Special Customize section:

Click view/categories window.

At the bottom of this box are 6 text fields, 3 under menu item name and 3 
under value.  This area allows you to create 3 personalized game settings.  
One of the most common ones people will use will be to display their 
categories for a particular game.  

To do this, in one of the boxes under menu item name type CATEGORIES    
Under value type  
TONIGHTS CATEGORIES:  ARTS, MUSIC, GEOGRAPHY, SCIENCE AND SPORTS

When you are done creating customized categories click ok.  The customized 
categories are stored under the Rules/Welcome button.

Save your game settings by clicking file/save game settings and typing in 
your game settings name.

Please note:  Some people have found that if they don't put something in
each category box, they get an error when they try to open the game settings
file. 
 You may wish to put a number or letter, just to fill a space in any game 
settings fields you won't be using.


WRITING A QUESTION / ANSWER FILE

Introduction:  Your question/answer file has 3 parts; comments, questions & 
answers, categories.  There is nothing overly complicated about the format
of this file, it just has to be done correctly for webhost to work.
If you are going to have categories, decide what they are going to be and 
give each one a number 1,2,3,4,5,6.
You can have six categories or none, its up to you.  You need to write your 
questions in the order they are going to appear in the game.  That is why
you need to know what numeric value each category is going to be represented 
by.

Comments section:

This section is for your use only and is never seen by the game players.  In

this opening part of your file type in anything you may wish to remember 
about the game.  For example:

This game is a five category game: Arts, Science, Entertainment, Sports, 
Geography.  I wrote it on October 15, 1998 and re-ran it on August 3, 1999.

After your comments on a line by itself put the number 99.

If you don't put in any comments the first line of your file will be 99.


Question / Answer Section:

Your questions are constructed like this:

category #,space Question.
If you don't have categories, precede each question with the number 1.  Put 
your answers on the line immediately below your question.  You can have a 
blank line between your answer and the next question, but the answer MUST be
immediately following its question.

For example purposes, I'm going give examples for a 5 category game.


1, WHO PAINTED SUNFLOWERS?
VINCENT VAN GOGH
2, H20 IS THE CHEMICAL FORMULA FOR WHAT COMMON COMPOUND?
WATER
3, WHO WAS THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD?
HATTIE MCDANIEL
4, AS OF 1999, WHO HOLDS THE  RECORD FOR THE MOST HOMERUNS IN A SEASON, IN 
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL?
MARK MCGWIRE
5, WHAT IS THE CAPITAL CITY OF ITALY?
ROME
1, WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE?
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Since this is a five category game, you can see that I begin with the 
recycling of the categories again.  Note:  the numbers AREN'T numbering the 
questions, but are identifying the categories to which the questions belong.


Bonus Questions:  Bonus Questions are written using the number 7.  You can 
put the half time bonus halfway through your question/answer list or put
your halftime and final bonuses at the end of your list completely.

Bonus question example:  
7,  WHAT TWO BONES COMPRISE THE LOWER LEG?
TIBIA, FIBULA

Again, if you don't use categories, precede each question with 1, .

After all your questions and answers are typed in, on a line by itself put 
the number 99.

The last section defines your categories, it will look something like:

1, THE ARTS
2, SCIENCE
3, ENTERTAINMENT
4, SPORTS
5, GEOGRAPHY

If you don't have categories, you still need to put something in this area,
I just use:
1, NONE

Finally, run spell check or review everything and then save your file.
 Click 
file save, and in the dialog box type:

"gamename.whq"

Use the quotes or windows will default it to a text file or some other kind 
of document file.
Name your games using the date they were made, or by the type of game they 
are, or whatever works best for you.  Just remember the .whq extension and 
the quotes.


Running a game:

Open webhost, click file/read game settings and then click on the file name 
of the game settings you wish to use for this game.  Click file/import 
question file and click on the file name of the questions to be asked for 
this game.

Under view, make sure that always on top is checked, that question preview 
pane is checked, and that game settings pane and categories window are not 
checked.  

If you have loaded your question file correctly you will see the first 
question and answer in your preview box.

Here is the list of steps to run a question:

---Click upcoming/buzzer
---Click upcoming question
---put your cursor in your chat window, or the box you type into to send
text to the screen and use one of the paste commands listed at the very top of
the instructions.  Hit Enter.
---when you see the question on screen begin the timing for your question.  
As soon as you see the right answer come up, you can get your buzzer/answer 
in the buffer.
---click question/answer, click answer
---put your cursor in your chat window, or the box you type into to send
text to the screen and use one of the paste commands listed at the very top of
the instructions.  Hit Enter.


IMPORTANT:  one of the features of webhost is that when you click Answer,
the buzzer AND the answer come up.  So as soon as you see a right answer 
appear, you can go ahead and load the answer into your buffer, and just hit 
enter when time is up.

IF you don't see a correct answer:
Click upcoming/buzzer, buzzer and paste it to the screen.  You may need to 
give a hint.  When someone gets the answer right,  click question/answer, 
click answer and paste it to your screen.  Award the pat.

Run your rules at the beginning of the game and after halftime.  If several 
new folks come in at once, run the rules.  Run a welcome when new people
come in.  All the macros are sent to the screen in the same fashion.  Click 
the appropriate button, click the appropriate choice and paste it to the 
screen and hit enter.

You can practice in a room you set up by yourself on line or you can
practice by sending it to your word processing program.

If you want to practice online use the command /gprivate to make your room 
private so no one will bother you.

Finally, these are instructions, hopefully to save some time when it comes 
time to get together with new hosts.  It is still important that I get 
together with you online before you run your first game.  

If you have any questions about these instructions, or something doesn't
work the way it should, email me at 688_class@delphi.com.


 [rev. 30 Nov 1999]