The Options
In the options is where you configure most of the settings for the puzzle.
Net Title: The name of the puzzle. This shows up at the top of the network window. You may want the title to help you have a clue about what the puzzle is about. For example, one of the built-in puzzles is named "Bad DHCP." That lets you, as a teacher, know what the puzzle was about when you go to give it to your students.
Display Titles: This is a checkmark, stating whether the puzzle should load with all the machine names, IP-Addresses, and other information shown underneath the respective items.
Network Size: This allows you to change the size of the image on which things are printed. This is a visual thing. If you increase the size, then things look like they shrink a bit. Increasing the size will decrease the visible size of the computers, etc, as well as shrink the font for the "Display Titles." If you make it smaller, everything grows. It is safe to leave it alone.
Item Size: This is the size of an individual computers, switches, etc. If you want to make a bigger network, you may want to set this to 75 or 50. It gives you more room on the map.
Message given when network loaded: When a puzzle is loaded, this message is popped up on the right of the puzzle in a separate window. Use this to explain the puzzle, give any additional help, or whatever you think will make the puzzle helpful. It may be instructions for what to do, or information on what the puzzle is about.
Tests for Puzzle This is where most of the work in making a puzzle lies. A test is something that must be done, or changed, before the puzzle is considered complete. Because this is a bit topic, we have made a page just for network tests
Tags for puzzle Puzzles with a tag on it will have a "help" button on the window that will allow the user to pop open a window describing the topic of choice. If you have a puzzle about DHCP, you may want to tag it with DHCP. That allows the user to open up the help page to read about DHCP.
The built-in puzzles can also be searched by tag. You can type in "DHCP" in the puzzle search box and see all the puzzles having to do with DHCP.
Level This is mainly used for the built-in puzzles, where the puzzles are sorted by level.
Sort Order This is mainly used for the built-in puzzles, where the puzzles are sorted by level, and then this sort-order beneath that.
Starting Help Level This is where the radio-button showing help gets initially put at. Most people will move the help-level up to something reasonably right away. But, it is a good thing to learn to do. Whenever I teach, I tell people that the first thing you need to do is ask a question of the users to understand what is not working. That is what this help-level is. If you never ask, then you never really know what they cannot do. So, I like to leave this at "none" and have them start out by moving it to "full."
VLANs Enabled VLANs make switches more complex. At earlier levels in the puzzles, I did not want people to accidentally mess things up by making a VLAN change. So I disabled them on the earlier puzzles. With this checked, a button appears that allows you to change VLAN settings on switches and servers.
Vlan Colored Packets If VLANs are enabled, you can decide if you want to have VLAN colored packets. As the packet travels through the VLAN, the color of the packet shows which VLAN it is on (using the colors defined when setting the VLAN name)