This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Managing Miis
When your Miis are populating your Mii Plaza, you have a few ways to manage them, keep track of them, and generally manipulate them. The basic way to identify an individual Mii is to move your cursor over the Mii and then press the A button on your Wii Remote; a bubble pops up that shows the Mii's name, and the Mii turns toward you so that you can see its face (Figure 4.20).
)
Figure 4.20 Clicking a Mii causes it to face you and display its name.
The following sections discuss the various commands and techniques for managing Miis in Mii Plaza.
Zooming
Mii Plaza tends to be set at a particular magnification, allowing you to see just enough detail of the Miis to pick them out. If you click a Mii with the A button on your remote, the Mii's name appears above it, but to get a closer look at a Mii or a group of Miis, you need to press the plus (+) key on the Wii Remote to zoom in on the action, as shown in Figure 4.21. Not surprisingly, if you zoom in with the + key, you can zoom back out with the minus (–) key just as easily. These controls are duplicated onscreen, but it's easier to use the remote.
)
Figure 4.21 A group of Miis in close-up mode after you zoom in with the Wii Remote.
Grabbing Miis
If you want to pick up a Mii in Mii Plaza, put your cursor over the Mii and simultaneously press the A and B buttons on the Wii Remote. The Mii gets picked up by its head, and its arms and legs flail dramatically (Figure 4.22). Even the Wii Remote gives you physical feedback that you are holding a squirming entity! When you have the Mii in your grasp, you can move it to the Wii Friend, Edit Mii, or Erase Mii button.
)
Figure 4.22 You can pick up a Mii by simultaneously pressing the A and B buttons on the Wii Remote.
Arranging Miis
If you click the Arrange button—the whistle icon—all the Miis immediately move into a grid, standing at attention so that you can inspect them (Figure 4.23). When the Miis are in this grid, you can arrange them alphabetically, by their status as favorites, by the color of their clothing, and by gender.
)
Figure 4.23 Miis being arranged.
Sending a Mii to a friend
If you want to send a Mii to a friend, you need only click the Wii Friend button (the envelope icon). Then pick up the Mii you want to send (refer to "Grabbing Miis" earlier in this chapter), and drag it to the envelope icon at the top-center of the screen, as shown in Figure 4.24.
)
Figure 4.24 Drag the Mii you want to send.
After you've moved the Mii to the envelope icon, you get a list of Wii owners to whom you can send the Mii (Figure 4.25). Click the appropriate name, and you're done. You return to Mii Plaza, where the Mii you just sent lands unceremoniously in the middle of the Plaza, and you get a message saying that the Mii was sent to the person you chose. The process is easy, requiring only that you already have your Wii Friends listed in your address book (see the sidebar "The Wii Address Book").
)
Figure 4.25 Click a button to pick the lucky recipient of your Mii.
The Wii Address Book
Although emailing is covered in detail in Chapter 6, it's worth mentioning the Wii Address Book here to show you how to figure out your Wii's number and how to get names into the address book.
I suspect that Wii newbies may have trouble finding their Wii's 16-digit Wii Number. Most people start looking in the Settings area, but you actually find the Wii Number by clicking the Wii Message Board icon in the bottom-right corner of the Wii's main screen and then clicking the Create Message button, as shown in Figure 4.26.
)
Figure 4.26 To get to the Wii Number, you first have to get to the address book through the Create Message button.
When you're in the Create Message area, simply click the Address Book icon, shown in Figure 4.27, and you see the Wii Number for your device. The Wii Number always appears on the front page of your address book so that you can get to it quickly and easily. I recommend, however, that you write this number down, because it's common for people to ask you for this number via email (on your computer) or through other non-Wii means.
)
Figure 4.27 A unit's Wii Number is displayed on the front of the Wii Address Book.
To enter a new name into your address book, you need that person's Wii Number. After you've done that, you can send messages and Miis to fellow Wii users with ease.
Transferring Miis
One of the great features of the Wii Remote is that it can hold as many as ten Miis in storage. These Miis can be transferred to other Wii units or held on the Wii Remote indefinitely.
To transfer one or more Miis to your Wii Remote, click the Transfer Mii button; when the screen showing the connected Wii Remotes appears, click the Wii Remote that you want to transfer the Miis to. Figure 4.28 shows this process for a Wii that has only one Wii Remote connected.
)
Figure 4.28 Choose the remote where you want to transfer the Miis.
The Wii Remote's Save panel opens, showing ten circles, each of which can hold and save one Mii. To save any particular Mii, place your cursor over the Mii; then pick the Mii up (by pressing the A and B buttons on the remote together) and drag it to the save spot, as shown in Figure 4.29. When Miis are saved on the Wii Remote, they stay there until you delete them.
)
Figure 4.29 You can save ten Mii characters on a Wii Remote.
To put saved Miis on someone else's Wii, you simply reverse the process. After the Wii Remote is connected to the machine, click the Transfer Mii button to get the Wii Remote's Save panel to appear; then drag the Miis from the Save panel to the foreign Wii's Mii Plaza.