Menus and the data-driven engine

Every menu shown to telnet / SSH / rlogin users is stored in the
database and editable from the web. There's no source code change
needed to add, remove, rename, or relink anything.

Where to edit

Admin → BBS Menus (/admin/bbs-menus/).

You'll see:

• Menu tree — entry-point menus and which submenus they goto
• All menus table with quick edit/delete

Anatomy of a menu

A menu has:

Menu items

Each item has:

• hotkey — single character or short sequence
• label — visible text
• action_type — what to do when picked
• action_args — passed to the action
• min_access — hide if user is below this
• sort_order, is_visible

Action types

A couple of action types in more detail

Most action types are self-explanatory from the table above, but two
are easy to underestimate from a one-line description:

• wall — the graffiti wall (anetbbs/features/wall.py). A
  shared, paginated bulletin board of short (1-2 line) messages any
  user can post to, rendered as an ANSI box that adapts its width to
  the caller's terminal (79 cols on standard 80-col, up to 131 wide).
  Posts support Synchronet/Mystic-style |XX pipe color codes, with
  an ASCII-only fallback for terminals that can't render CP437
  box-drawing characters. Sysops get an extra [D]el option to remove
  a post by ID. Not networked or moderated beyond that — it's a purely
  local, lightweight "who was here" wall, distinct from boards,
  echomail, and the shoutbox.
• ebooks — the ebook reader (slug ebooks, anetbbs/web/ebooks.py
  for the web version, show_ebooks() in anetbbs/features/bbs_ui.py
  for the terminal version — both share the same backend). Lets users
  search and read free public-domain books from Project Gutenberg via
  Gutendex (gutendex.com, a community JSON search API over Gutenberg's
  catalog), plus a curated "classics" shelf for browsing without
  searching first. Book text is fetched once per title and cached
  forever (EbookCache); per-user bookmarks and reading history
  persist across sessions. The terminal reader offers the same
  classics/search/history/bookmarks flow as the web version, paginated
  for the terminal. This action is gated per-Game row by a
  terminal_enabled toggle (Admin → Games) independent of the web
  version's own web_enabled toggle, so a sysop can offer one without
  the other.

Adding a sub-menu

Click any menu's edit page → "Add a sub-menu (one click)" card.

Fill in:
- New menu key (games_arcade)
- Title (Arcade Games)
- Hotkey on this menu (A)
- Label (Arcade)

It creates the child menu, auto-adds a Q key on the child to come
back, and links from the parent. You can deep-nest as far as you
like.

Tips

• The min_access field on items + menus implements
  Mystic/Synchronet-style tiers. Set a user's access_level in
  Admin → Users → Manage.
• Setting is_default=True on a menu other than main lets you
  override the entry point.
• The "Add sample items" button on the menu list adds a working
  weather door (curl wttr.in) + an ANSI replay so you can verify
  exec and ansi actions work without writing your own.

Behavior at the prompt

• Single-key hotkeys. The prompt reads one keystroke and dispatches
  immediately — no Enter required. Bare Enter just redraws the menu.
  Backspace, arrow keys, and Ctrl-C are silently swallowed.
• Screen is cleared between menus so the new menu doesn't render
  on top of the previous one.
• Q (logoff) confirms with Y/N so a stray keystroke doesn't
  drop your session.

Display codes inside ansi_screen

The menu's ansi_screen content runs through the same Synchronet
@CODE@ and Mystic |XX substitution as standalone ANSI screens.
See doc 4 — ANSI screens for the supported code
table. Color pipe-codes (|07 etc.) are unaffected.