Scrolling Game Development Kit Project Window

This is the main window for the program. Closing this closes all other windows and exits. The view menu (or the third section of toolbar buttons) is the access point to reach all other dialogs in the project. The content of the window displays a hierarchy of the project to give a better visual representation of how the objects in the project are related. Note that the hierarchy is not always the internal hierarchy (for instance, paths do not "own" sprites) -- it's just a convenient view of the data relationships in the project.

The hierarchy is only updated when a project is loaded, when "Refresh Tree" is selected from the context menu (right mouse button) on the tree, or when importing project data from XML, which can occur after playing the map (to restore the project's original state). Other than that, the data displayed in this tree are static. The tree can also be used to navigate to various elements. By double clicking on an element or right-clicking and selecting "Go to Item", the appropriate dialog for editing the item will come up and load the specified item.

The File menu allows you to:

• Create a new project (erase the current project from memory)
• Open an existing project
• Save the current project (and its dependencies)
• Export the project (GDP file and MAP files) to an XML file. If you plan to later import the XML file, note that it expects the tilesets and media files to be in the same relative path when it is re-imported. (These are not part of the XML)
• Import the project from XML.
• Play the current game/project. As of version 1.2, this can optionally save the current state of the project in memory (as an XML string) and restore it while returning to the editing environment. (This is the default action.)
• Create a shortcut to run the current project
• Exit the program

When saving the project, all dependencies must already have a filename or a dialog will be displayed requesting that you save them first to assign them a filename. The project save command will not display dialogs to save all the dependencies, only save them if they already have assigned paths. This save command always prompts for the filename, filling in the current filename by default.

The contents of the view menu are as follows:

• Tilesets: Displays the Edit Tilesets dialog.
• Maps: Displays the Edit Maps dialog.
• Tile Matching: Displays the Tile Matching dialog.
• Tile Animation: Displays the Tile Animation dialog.
• Tile Categories: Displays the Tile Categories dialog.
• Sprites and Paths: Displays the Sprites and Paths dialog.
• Collision Definitions: Displays the Collision Definitions dialog.
• Player Settings: Displays the Player Settings dialog.
• Media Clips: Displays the Media Manager dialog.
• Controller Configuration: Displays the Controller Configuration dialog.
• Options: Displays the GameDev Options dialog

The help menu contains commands to display this help file and the program's about box. It also provides access to two tutorials. At any point in the program you should be able to press F1 and bring up help applicable to the active window.