Managing your avatar or "AV", the picture that represents you, is the first thing you have to learn in Virtual Places.   If you know all about that, you may want to skip straight to Getting and putting on new AVs

    The directions here work for a PC using Windows 95.   If you have something else then I hope this will help, but details are sure to be different.

Moving Around

    Jan_new wasn't lucky -- On her very first entry, her black-box newbie's AV landed plop atop Sexy_Betsy, and all the guys who'd been admiring Betsy yelled (in capital letters) for her to move.    Jan managed to do that, placing her mouse on her AV and dragging it to an empty place.   Betsy, however, was not upset.   "Double-click on yourself," she said to Jan through an IM box, "and now click on Change".   Jan chose what seemed to her the least silly from the choices presented -- Betsy promised her a much wider selection later.

    "Now," Betsy prompted, "Click on Avatars at the top of the screen. Now, see the two Flip controls? Try them out.."    Jan did, and was soon actually enjoying VP.

    Then suddenly every AV on Jan's screen disappeared!   "What happened?" she IM'd to Betsy.   But clearly no one else was disturbed, and when she described what had happened Betsy said, "You must have clicked on 'Show Avatars' by mistake.   If there's no check on that line, click it again."    And indeed, that brought all the AVs back.

    "Why would anyone want to do that?" Jan asked.

    "Sometimes the 'people' just get in the way.   Like when you visit an AV shop or a room where there's stuff to read.   Try 'Show Large Avatars' too."   Jan did, and decided she much preferred AVs in their larger size.   But even more, she wanted to shop for some AVs -- she might be a newbie, but she'd prefer not to look like one.

Getting and Putting On New AVs

    The newcomer immediately sees that a variety of AVs are in use, far beyond the meager selection VP provides.   I've listed a few of the hundreds of AV Shops, where tens of thousands of AVs are available free.   But before you rush to the store, it won't hurt to know what to do when you get there -- how to pick up, save, and use a new AV.   Here are a few to use for practice, lined up as you might find them in a shop.

Some Avatars by Gray

    Select an AV, place your mouse on it, and right-click.    This should bring up a menu like that at right.    This is the way it looks in Netscape 3 in Windows 95; in other browsers it will look slightly different. Click on the choice Save Image As.   The Internet Explorer equivalent is Save Picture As.   Just avoid any choice such as Save Location or Save Pointer.

    This brings up the file-save window.   Here the important thing is to check the folder name.   You want to save the AV in the folder Gallery.   The file name can also be read at this point; OldFash1.gif in this example.   All AVs are stored as .gif type files.   Now just click Save.

If the folder name at the top is not Gallery then we will have to find the correct folder.

    To use the AV just saved, Double-click on your current AV to bring up your ID card, then click first on Personal (the dot should move down) and then on Change.   This will show you your whole Gallery folder.   Using the slider if necessary, find the newly-saved AV, double-click on it, and then click OK.   (If your AV isn't there, don't despair. We just have some detective work to do.)

OK, so now you're ready to