The Advanced settings are accessed from the Settings dialog.

Messages

This section allows you to choose which message file is currently in use. The most common type of message file is a language file which contains most of the Active Worlds text messages translated into a different language.

To change the current language or message file, simply click on the drop-down list and make your selection from the list.

Local Path

Warning: if you are using a CD-ROM distribution of Active Worlds (such as the Active Worlds "High Rez" CD), do not adjust the Local Path option or your CD-ROM may cease to function properly!

This option is typically only used by artists working on Active Worlds art files. However, it may also be in use if you are using a CD-ROM distribution of Active Worlds.

The Local Path specifies a directory on your PC where Active Worlds should look for art files before attempting to download them from the World Wide Web. If a file is found in the Local Path, it will always be used instead of the equivalent file on the world's object path.

The structure of the Local Path directory mirrors that of the World Wide Web. The top level of the directory contains one or more folders that are named after the web site they are overriding. There are certain characters that may be present in URLs that are not valid in file names; these characters should be replaced with a hyphen ('-'). Under each top-level directory should be a folder hierarchy that mirrors the web directory hierarchy exactly. In fact, if the objects in your world are hosted on your PC, the Local Path can be set to the same directory as the one serving your objects.

Example: say the object path of your world is "www.myisp.com/myobjects" and you want to use a Local Path to override some of these files. You could set your Local Path to "C:\awart", and in the folder "awart" you would create a folder called "www.myisp.com", and under that a folder called "myobjects", and under that, one or more of the standard Active Worlds object path folders ("models", "textures", etc.). Finally, each of these files would contain copies of the files that you want to override (e.g. "tree.zip" in the models folder, or "brick.jpg" in the textures folder).

The CD-ROM check box indicates that the Local Path is a CD-ROM. This will cause Active Worlds to search your system for a CD-ROM drive, and possibly change the Local Path automatically to reflect the current location of the CD-ROM drive.

Object Errors

If you are creating your own objects for use in Active Worlds, you may want to enable this option in order to help with debugging your objects. If this option is enabled and the object loader encounters a problem in an object, it will print a message listing the object name, the line number (if relevant) and a description of the problem to the chat history window.

Also, if this option is enabled the browser will print a message if it is unable to download a file that it expected to find on the object path. This is helpful for example if you forget to upload a file to your object path that the browser needs in order to display your objects.

Note that object errors will only be displayed for those users who have either caretaker or build rights in the world.

Toolbar

This section allows you select which toolbar theme you wish to use in decorating your browser's toolbar. Two themes are included with the default Active Worlds installation: classic and default. The "classic" theme closely resembles the toolbar of Active Worlds 3.4 and earlier versions, while the new default theme is more modernized and streamlined. The dropdown menu allows you to select among installed themes.

New themes may be installed by placing the correct file(s) in the default\toolbars folder present in Active World's installation directory (by default, C:\Active Worlds). For information pertaining to the creation of new themes, see the toolbar help page.