The client user interface consists of the following major components:
Most of these components can be hidden by dragging the borders with the mouse. This way the user can customize the sizes of each component and can even hide those that are not needed.
Almost all components have tooltips, just move with the mouse to the item you want help on and wait for a few seconds, a help text will soon appear. Just move away with the mouse to make the tooltip dissappear.
The information interface displays status information of the user element. This includes energy status as well as current position.
In addition the element hierarchy is displayed. The ID of the parent element is shown as well as a list of child elements. The ElementID shown between parent and children list is the ID of the user element.
At the bottom the ID of the connected element is shown. Every element can be connected to exactly one other element which accounts for a special relation between those elements.
The 3D view at the top renders the content of the G Universe in a three dimensional way.
It is currently capable of rendering spheres (generic forms) as well as complex 3D models in the X3D format. Such models can be created with 3D modeling tools like Blender.
The OpenGL Frame currently shows some extra information like camera parent element (top left corner) as well as frames per second (top right corner). Additionally, owners of elements are rendered as text which identifies other users.
If this frame has focus for keyboard input it can be used for navigation purposes. Arrow keys turn the camera around the user element, which is shown in the center. The spacebar can be used to give an impulse into the current direction. This allows for basic navigation.
The user element is usually shown in the center of the frame. The camera distance to the user element can be changed with the slider on the left side of the 3D view. The higher the slider value, the further the distance of the camera to the user element.
The slider on the right side of the 3D view can be used to throttle rendering speed which can be useful to save CPU time when smooth frames are not required.
There is some initial throttling set, which can be further reduced by moving the slider down to get slightly faster rendering.
The action interface which is on the right can be used to perform various actions that the user element is capable of. These actions are provided by the agents of the user element.
To perform an action, do the following:
Below the 3D view is the communication interface. It can be used to chat directly with other users.
The users are listed in a list on the right, you can click on a user to set him or her as a communication partner.
Left of the communication partner setting you can type the message that should be sent.
After typing the message, sending can be done by hitting the return or enter key.
The message is sent to all recipients and appears in the communication log of sender and recipients.
You can use the asterisk/star character * to send broadcast messages.