Read what Asterobot says about a bot, what its script writes and the game chat as the game draws it, in one timeline you can filter, search, copy and write in.
The Console tab is where you follow a bot minute by minute. It puts three sources in one timeline, ordered by time: what Asterobot does with the bot, what the bot's script writes, and the game chat, drawn as the game draws it. Below the lines sits the game's chat box: its channel filter, the channel to write in, and the smiley window.
What the console shows
| Source | Lines |
|---|---|
| Asterobot | What Asterobot does with the bot: connecting, changes of state, errors. For example Relaying a game session when a MITM bot picks up your game. |
| Script | What the bot's script writes with botDebug(), botInfo(), botWarn() and botError(). |
| Chat | What the game prints in its chat: what players say in the channels your character is on, the private messages it receives and sends, the chat errors, the game's information lines, such as the experience it gains, the errors about items, such as a full inventory, what living items say, the game's calendar date, and the game's line when your character's status changes. |
Every line starts with the time of day, in your browser's time zone. Asterobot and script lines then show their level, DEBUG, INFO, WARN or ERROR, and their text.
Chat lines read as in the game, each in the colour of its channel:
- A message shows the speaker's character name in bold, then what they said:
Sender-Name: hello. - A private message your character receives reads
from Sender-Name: hello, and one it sendsto Receiver-Name: hello. - An item link shows as the item's name in brackets, such as
[Snailmate]. - The chat errors, the item errors and the information lines are the game's own, such as "You must be a subscriber." when a channel needs a subscription.
- A living item speaks in General, under its owner's name, and the game's date reads as in the game, the day, the month's name and the year, followed by the server's time in UTC.
- When your character's status changes, the game's own line shows in Information, such as "Away status activated.", whether the change comes from the status menu or from your game client on a relayed bot. As in the game, a status that doesn't change prints nothing.
- Once your character ignores a player, from a chat profile's trigger or from your game client on a relayed bot, that player's lines no longer show until the character leaves the game, as in the game. The lines already there stay, and a member of staff's always show.
The game's words, the channels' names and the names in item links come from the bot's game version, in the bot's language. Hovering over a chat line shows its channel's name.
The panel holding the lines stays dark in Asteroboard's light theme too: the game's colours are made for its dark chat window.
A script can also write with asterobot:console. Those lines don't appear here: they go to Server > Console, without saying which bot wrote them. See Status and console, and, for script authors, Logging and debugging.
The colours
The colours are the game's default ones, which Asterobot reads from the game's own files when it extracts a game version: General in white, Trade in light brown, Guild in purple, private messages in blue, information lines in yellow, and so on. Lines from a member of the game's staff and the game's error lines are orange, as in the game. A colour you changed in the game's options doesn't show here.
If every chat line shows in the same colour, the game version was downloaded or extracted before Asterobot read the colours. Use Download more files in the version's menu, then extract it again: see Manage game versions and Extract the game data.
What's kept
Asterobot keeps the last 200 Asterobot and script lines of each bot, and its last 500 chat lines. When you open the tab, the console starts with those lines, then new ones arrive as they happen. Asterobot follows the chat from the moment the character enters the game, whether or not the console is open, and keeps it from one game session to the next. Both are kept in memory only, so they're gone after Asterobot restarts. Asteroboard shows up to 500 lines of each per bot while it stays open.
Channels and filters
Channels, at the far left of the chat box, is the game's chat filter. It lists the game's channels by their names in the game, followed by their shortcut, such as Trade (/b), each with a dot of its colour. The channels the game doesn't let your character use, such as the administrators' one, aren't listed, as in the game.
Warning
Like the game's own filter, ticking or unticking a channel changes it in the game: your character subscribes to it or unsubscribes from it, and the server starts or stops sending it that channel. The lines of an unticked channel disappear from the console. In MITM mode it's the same setting as your game's, and the game seems to keep it with your character from one session to the next.
The channels can only be changed while the bot is in a game, once the game has listed them as the character enters it: until then they're greyed out, and the console shows every chat line. If the change can't be sent, the alert Couldn't change the channels appears with the reason.
The second group of the list, Asterobot, holds Asterobot and Script. Unticking them only hides those lines in the console. When a script writes a lot, unticking Asterobot makes it easier to follow.
Filter, at the top, keeps the lines that contain what you type, ignoring upper and lower case. For a chat line, it looks at both the speaker and the message. The cross in the box clears it.
While anything is hidden, the top of the console shows how many lines you see out of how many, such as 12 of 340. When nothing matches, the console says "Nothing matches the filter." An empty console says "No log messages yet."
Copy
The copy button, Copy what's shown, copies the lines you see as text, one per line, such as 14:03:12 [info] Relaying a game session or 14:05:40 Sender-Name: hello. A notification confirms how many lines were copied.
Follow the newest lines
While you're at the bottom, the console scrolls down with each new line. Scroll up to read something, and it stops following so the lines don't move under your eyes. A Follow button then appears at the bottom right: click it to jump back to the newest line and follow again.
The dot next to the bot's name, at the top left, pulses green while Asteroboard is connected to Asterobot. If the connection drops and comes back while the tab is open, the console loads the kept lines again.
Write in the chat
The box at the bottom of the console writes in the game chat, as the game's own chat box does.
Warning
This really sends the message in the game, as your character: the players on that channel can read it.
- Pick a channel with the channel button, between Channels and the box. It lists the channels you can write in, each with its colour, General first.
- Type your message in "Write in General...".
- Press Enter, or click the send button.
The rules are the game's:
- Shortcuts. A message that starts with a channel's shortcut and a space goes to that channel, for that message only:
/b selling wheatgoes to Trade. The channel button shows that channel while you type. The shortcuts are the game's, such as/sGeneral,/bTrade,/rRecruitment,/gGuild,/pGroup,/aAlliance and/wPrivate. - Private messages. On the Private channel, the first word is who to send it to:
Receiver-Name hello. From any channel,/w Receiver-Name hellodoes the same. Clicking a character's name in a chat line starts one: it writes/w Their-Namein the box. - Spaces. Line breaks and repeated spaces become single spaces.
- Length. The box takes 256 characters, as the game's does.
Other commands that start with a /, such as /ping, are run by the game itself, and the console doesn't run them: it says so instead of sending them.
Your message goes through the bot's chat guard, the queue every message the bot says goes through, its scripts' included. Yours go before the others, and only the game's cooldown on a channel holds them back. When the game answers that a channel is restricted ("You will be able to post again in 37 seconds"), the guard waits exactly that long and sends your message once more. It then appears in the chat by itself, and a console line says the wait. The bot's Chat tab shows where the guard stands, and its Stop sending button holds back every line but yours and the alarms' (The chat module).
The box empties once the message waits its turn. The character must be in the game. If the message can't be sent, the alert Couldn't send the message appears above the lines with the reason, such as chat: the character isn't in the game. If the game refuses it, for example in the Guild channel without a guild, its error shows in the chat, as in the game.
The lines the bot says on its own, from its chat module or its scripts, show in the chat the same way, once the server says them back. A dry run writes them as Asterobot lines instead, such as Dry run: would say in Trade: Selling wheat, whisper me!. The module's own console lines say the rest of what it does, such as Trigger wtb: Buyer in Trade: wtb wheat.
Play a smiley or an emote
The smiley button, Emotes and Emoticons, between the chat box and the send button, opens the game's smiley window. Click a smiley or an emote and your character plays it, as in the game.
Warning
This really plays it in the game: the players around your character see it.
- Smilies shows the smileys of every pack your character has, each under its pack's name, the Generic pack first. Click one to show it above your character.
- Emotes lists the emotes your character knows, by name. Search keeps those whose name contains what you type, ignoring upper and lower case and accents. Click one to play it. You can't click it again until its cooldown, from the game data, has passed: 60 seconds for Protection, for example.
The names and pictures come from the bot's game version, in the bot's language. Asterobot follows the emotes your character learns or loses and the smiley packs it gets, so the window stays up to date while it plays.
The button only works while the bot is connected to a game. Right after the character enters the game, Emotes can say "The game hasn't listed this character's emotes yet." for a moment. If a smiley or an emote can't be sent, the same Couldn't send the message alert appears.
If the smileys and emotes show as plain icons instead of their pictures, the game version was downloaded or extracted before Asterobot needed those pictures. Use Download more files in the version's menu, then extract it again: see Manage game versions and Extract the game data.