Layer Quick View Window

This is part of a series of pages describing the Edit Maps Dialog. This page describes the Layer Quick View Window.

The Quick View Layer feature is new as of version 1.3. To access it, select a layer in the Edit Maps Dialog and click the Quick View button. This allows quick access to just that one layer without bringing up the full screen map editor. It also allows you to zoom in and out and display path and sprite names.

Using the quick view window simply consists of scrolling around to see the entire layer and clicking the toolbar buttons to set options. So described here will simply be a list of what the toolbar buttons do, in order:

• Zoom in: Repeatedly clicking this will allow you to zoom in to the point where each layer pixel is represented as 64 screen pixels (8x8 pixels).
• Zoom out: Repeatedly clicking this will allow you to zoom out to the point where each screen pixel represents 64 layer pixels (8x8 pixels). No matter what the zoom level, scrolling always takes place at a resolution of 1 tile (unlike the full screen editor you, can't scroll by pixels in the quick view).
• Toggle function display: Click this button to show or hide special functions on this layer. They will appear as blue boxes with yellow names in the center just as with the full screen editor.
• Toggle sprite display: This allows you to show or hide sprite definitions. For each sprite definition on the layer, the first frame of the first state will be drawn at the first path point. There is no transparency in quick view so the sprite will not necessarily be drawn as it will *actually* appear in the editor or at runtime. Also, unlike the full screen editor, sprites are drawn regardless of whether they are set to create an "Initial Instance".
• Toggle path display: Clicking this shows or hides the paths defined on the current layer. Paths are simply drawn as lines from the first point to the last (passing through each of the intermediate points). The first point is drawn as a larger dot in order to make 1-point paths more visible.
• Draw method 1: Clicking this button sets the repaint mode so that tiles will always be drawn in order from top to bottom when repainting the quick view window. This is slightly slower, but may be more visually comprehensible than draw method 2.
• Draw method 2: Clicking this button sets the repaint mode so that tiles are drawn in order of tile index. For instance, if the first tile in the quick view is tile number 12, all visible instances of tile 12 will be drawn before painting the next tile. This is more efficient than draw mode 1, but may look too weird to handle when scrolling larger displays.
• Toggle names: Clicking this button allows you to show or hide the names of sprites and paths that appear in the quick view. Sprite names will be drawn at the top left corner of each sprite in the quick view. Path names will be drawn at the first point of each path in the quick view. Since path names and sprite names will always overlap, it is not recommended that names be displayed when both paths and sprites are visible.
• Text color: Use this to specify the color in which sprite and path names are drawn.
• Path color: Use this to specify the color in which path lines are drawn.

The position and size of the window, as well as all the options set by the toolbar, are saved in the registry when the window is closed and will be restored next time the window is displayed.