Bulletin boards

A player double clicks a bulletin board, reads what others wrote on it, posts a message or a reply and removes its own. Every board has its own messages: what is written on the board of Britain’s bank is not on the one of Minoc, nor on the other board of Britain.

The boards are the ones .decorate places in the towns (the entries of type BulletinBoard of the decoration files), and any board a game master adds with .add bulletin_board.

Moongate’s own: how long a thread lasts and how many messages a board holds are settings; a full board never refuses a post; a thread is removed with its replies. ModernUO deletes a thread six hours after its last reply and leaves the replies of a removed message behind; Sphere keeps 32 messages and no threads; UOX3 lets only a game master remove.

Read

Double click a board from two tiles or closer. The client shows the board and the list of its messages: who wrote each, what about and on which day. Replies are listed under the first message of their thread, in the order they were posted.

Open a message and you see its text and its poster as it looked when it posted: its body, its colour and what it wore.

Post

Post on the board opens an empty message: type a subject and the text. Reply, on a message, posts under the thread of that message; a reply to a reply goes under the same first message.

A post needs a subject and at least one line of text; otherwise nothing is posted.
The subject is cut at 60 characters, a line at 80, a post at 32 lines. Control characters are taken out and the empty lines at the end dropped.
You wait between two posts on one board: thread_seconds between two new threads, reply_seconds after any post before a reply. Too soon, you read You must wait 90 seconds before posting again. and nothing is posted. If the server is busy you read The board is busy: post again in a moment. (message 30157): post again. Game masters and above do not wait. Removing your own post does not shorten the wait.
A reply to a message that was removed meanwhile becomes a new thread.

Remove

Remove, on a message, takes it off the board. You remove your own messages; a game master removes any. Anyone else reads That message is not yours.

Removing the first message of a thread removes its replies with it.

How long a message lasts

A thread goes expire_days after its last reply: a thread people keep answering stays. With expire_days = 0 nothing expires.
A board holds max_messages. A post that goes beyond them makes the board let go the thread left longest without a reply, with its replies. The thread you just replied to is never the one that goes: on a board with that thread alone, its oldest replies go.
The server looks for expired threads when a board is opened and once an hour. That hourly look also drops the messages of a board that was deleted.

Messages are kept in the table world.bulletin_messages and written by the world save, so a restart forgets none.

Who may

Every request of the client is checked again by the server: the item is a bulletin board, your character is on its map and within two tiles of it, and the message asked for is one of that board. A request that fails is dropped without a word, as the other emulators do: walk away from a board with its window open and its buttons do nothing. Game masters and above read and remove from anywhere.

Settings

[ultima.bulletin_boards]
expire_days = 7        # A thread goes this many days after its last reply; 0 keeps it.
max_messages = 50      # The messages a board holds; the oldest thread goes when it is full.
thread_seconds = 120   # The wait between two new threads of one character on a board.
reply_seconds = 30     # The wait between two posts of one character on a board.

expire_days goes from 0 to 3650, max_messages from 1 to 200, the two waits from 0 to 86400.

The board item

File	What
`templates/items/decorations.toml`	The item `decoration_bulletin_board`: graphic 0x1E5E, not movable, no decay, `script_id = "bulletin_board"`
`templates/items/building/decs/misc.toml`	`bulletin_board` and `bulletin_board_2`, the two facings, with the same script
`scripts/items/bulletin_board.lua`	Its `on_use` opens the board

.decorate gives a BulletinBoard entry the template decoration_bulletin_board with the graphic of the entry, and turns a board placed earlier as plain decoration into one. A BountyBoard stays a thing to look at: bounties do not exist yet.

A board shows the name of its item, or bulletin board when it has none.

For scripts

The board module opens a board on a player, and lets a script write on one, read it and remove from it:

function bulletin_board.on_use(serial, user)
    board.open(serial, user)

    return true
end

Any item whose template has script_id = "bulletin_board" is a board. board.open does not check the distance: on_use already asks for two tiles and sight.

local notice = board.post(notice_board, "The town crier", "Hear ye", {
    "The bank of Britain is closed today.",
    "",
    "Come back tomorrow."
})

for _, message in ipairs(board.messages(notice_board)) do
    log.info(message.name .. ": " .. message.subject)
end

board.remove(notice)

board.post(board, name, subject, lines [, thread]) posts in the name given and gives the serial of the message, or nil when nothing was posted: no name, no subject, no line of text, an item that is not a board, or no serial ready for the message (the same call works a moment later). The lines end at the first nil among them. With thread, the serial of a message of that board, it is a reply. A script’s post does not wait and has no poster: the message shows a bare body beside its text, and in the board’s window only the staff removes it. The name is cut at 30 characters; the subject, the lines and the size of the board follow the rules of a player’s post.
board.messages(board) gives the messages as an array of { serial, thread, poster, name, subject, lines, posted_at }, the threads from the oldest, each followed by its replies. thread is nil on a first message, poster is nil for a message a script posted, and posted_at is in seconds, as world.now().
board.remove(message) removes a message, and its replies when it starts a thread; false when there is none. It asks nobody: a script that removes for a player checks poster first.

The module does not check who calls it: a script for the staff checks world.is_staff first. A player who has the board open sees what a script posted or removed when it opens the board again.

The packets

All of it travels in packet 0x71, with a sub-command:

Sub-command	From	What
0x00	server	The board and its name. The messages follow as the content of a container (0x3C), each an item 0x0EB0 inside the board
0x01	server	The summary of a message: poster, subject, date and the thread it replies to
0x02	server	A message in full: poster, subject, date, how the poster looked, the lines
0x03	client	Asks for the text of a message
0x04	client	Asks for the summary of a message
0x05	client	A post: what it replies to, the subject, the lines
0x06	client	The removal of a message

A new message enters the poster’s list as an item added to the board (0x25) and a message that goes leaves it with 0x1D. The date is the day only, in English: Oct 05, 2026. The packet reference has every field.

What it does not do yet

Bounty boards, the boards of houses and the escort posts of UOX3.
Moderation beyond removal: no locked thread, no pinned message, nobody banned from a board.
A record of the messages removed.