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Interacting with windows and toolbars

Interacting with windows and toolbars

 


Overview

In this document, we will cover details on how to navigate the most important toolbars within the editor, and also how to customize your editor layout 

Toolbars and additional windows

 

The View Tab

Firstly, lets have a look at the “View” tab. This tab allows you to turn on and off the various windows and toolbars you have access to. 

If you close a window and want to open it again, you can do that here. 


Lets open up a window. Go down to “Select Objects” and left click. 

Scaling and Moving Windows

 

This will open up a window somewhere on your screen. Ignore the contents, lets just resize the window. Move the mouse to the edge of the window, so the cursor turns into double ended black arrow, click and hold the left mouse button and move the mouse. 


Now, lets move the window. Left click and hold down the button in the titlebar of the window, and drag the mouse. 


Docking Toolbars to the side of the View Panel

 

You may have noticed that these buttons appeared as you moved the window around. 


Don’t panic, everything’s not as complex as it seems 

Lets “dock” the selection window to the left of the screen. Grab the window by its titlebar, and move it over to the left of the main view window, on to the docking button that will appear, and let go of the mouse button. 


Now, your window is docked! Now undock it, simply by grabbing the title-bar again and moving the selection window away (make sure you don’t accidentally re-dock it by moving it over a button). You may want to resize the window at this time. 

Docking a Window Within Another Window

 

Go back to the view tab, and open another window – Flow Graph, for example. 


Now, grab your selection window, and move it within the flowgraph window. The docking buttons will again appear. Use the lower central button to dock the selection window in the lower half of the flowgraph window. 


You can dock at the top and sides using the other docking buttons. The central button is explained in the next section. 

Now, as before, grab the titlebar of the select objects window that you just docked, and undock it. 

Docking a Window as a Tab in another Window

 

This is a great space saver, especially if you only have one monitor. 

You may have noticed previously, when you move a window within another window, there’s a new central circular button. 


This allows you to place the currently selected window as a tab within another window. 

Grab the selection window again, and move it into the flowgraph window, and on to the central “dock as tab” button. 


You will notice now that there are 2 tabs at the bottom of the window – Flowgraph and Select Objects 


You can select each window by clicking on its appropriate tab. 

You can undock a window by grabbing its tab, and dragging it away. 

Navigating the Rollup Bar

 

If the rollup bar isn’t already open, open it in the usual way, using the view tab. 


The rollup bar gives you access to many different functions of the editor. Here’s a brief overview on how to navigate round it. This section is covered in more detail elsewhere. 

Navigating the Rollup Bar Tabs

 

Here’s what your rollup bar looks like. 


There are 5 tabs at the top of the bar. 


You can switch between tabs simply by left clicking on its icon. 


Navigating within a Tab

 

Ok, go back to your Objects tab. 

Click the Entity button, and you’ll see something like the below, showing a list of all the entities available to you. We’ll go into this in more detail elsewhere. 


Click one of the folders in the browser window, to open it up or close it 


Tidying up the Rollup Bar

 

If your rollup bar becomes a little cluttered, or is too large to fit onscreen, there are a few ways to manage this. 

Firstly, you can collapse a section by clicking on its header, as shown on the left below. The result is on the right. 


Also, you can use the bar at the side to scroll up and down. Gab the bar and move it down, to get the result shown below. 


Show/Hide helpers

 

Every object in the game has a bounding box, or an icon which shows where it is and what its function is. With hundreds of objects in your level, this can become confusing. To turn all the helpers in your level off go into Display Show/Hide Helpers. 


Show Pivots

 

Using default control setup, pressing space down will show all the pivots for the objects in the scene. If you hold this down, you can also move your mouse over the objects and select them easily by the point that appears. 


 

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