PGE Editor, Basics Lesson: GUI, Items manipulating, clipboard and history (Tutorial)

PGE Editor's interface have a draggable and sizable toolboxes and toolbars. You can drag and drop any toolboxes and toolbars wherever you like.

Toolbar of the Editor
Most of features you will find on the toolbar of the editor window.

I'll explain about each feature in next lessons.

Workspace
Workspace - is a part of editing window where you see current state of your level or world map. You can scroll it with:
 * arrow keys and with SHIFT key faster
 * mouse wheel Vertically and Horizontally with holden 'CTRL key
 * by hand-drag when you will toggle the hand-drag mode (click on the toolbar a hand icon or click on empty space with middle mouse button)

Basic item manipulation
While you will build levels and world maps, you must know all basic item manipulations to make your game good and effectively.

Selection
To select item, simply click to them. To deselect it, click to any free zone or to another item to select it, or Esc key to clear selection.



Multi-Selection: rectanble
To select multiple items at one time, you have multiple ways. One of them is a rectangle selection.

Click and hold mouse button in any free area, then move mouse while you will don't select necessary item group, then release mouse button



Multi-Selection: per-item clicking
To select items, hold the CTRL (on Mac OS X CMD) key and click to items which you want to select. When you click to already selected item, you will deselect it.



Multi-Selection: multi-rectangle
You can select multiple rectangle groups when you will hold Shift key and then do rectangle selection multiple times



Moving
To move single item, click and hold left mouse button to any item and move mouse with item. When you will move item to necessary place, release mouse button



To move multiple items, you must select item group then do moving by one of items in group: entire item group will be moved.



Context Menu
Context menu - is a special menu which appears when you click something by right mouse button. This menu contains item specific features, options and operations which you can do with item(s).



Placing
Every time when you choice item from special item boxes (or tileset itembox), you going into placing mode. In the placing mode you will have access to special "Placing toolbar" which allows you change placing options and open/close properties toolbox if it available for specific item type:



Brush placing
By default working the brush placing: to place item(s) move your mouse to necessary position on the workspace

Rectangle placing
Allows you to draw rectangle filled by chosen item.

Line placing
Allows you to draw a line of chosen placing item.

Flood fill placing
This placing option fills closed area of any difficulty. If you accidentally filled open area, you will have a huge rhombus after 3 seconds. Don't worry, you can press Ctrl+Z on keyboard to undo this mistake.

Overwrite mode
Allows you to place item over another item(s). Items collided with placing item will be removed.

Deleting
You can remove junk or useless items by various ways:
 * by Rubber tool which you can select on the toolbar. When you clicked to item, you will remove them via brush way. When you move your mouse with button pressed, all elements appearing under the mouse cursor will be deleted.
 * By DEL key if you have selected item group. Entire selected item group will be removed.
 * By "Delete" Context menu option on selected item group



Clipboard
Clipboard allows you to move data between sections or different files and also helps you to save a time while you making a level or world map.


 * To copy item group, press the CTRL+C on keyboard or choice "Copy" context menu item.
 * To cut item group, press the CTRL+X on keyboard or choice "Cut" context menu item, and selected item group will be moved into clipboard.
 * To paste item group, press the CTRL+V on keyboard or press "Paste" on the toolbar and then click to a place on the workspace to choice where clipboard content must be pasted. All items will be placed relative to left-top corner at mouse cursor position
 * To duplicate selected item group use middle mouse button, and all selected items will be duplicated to mouse position with aligning by left-top corner. Note: if no selected items, you will turn into hand-drag mode, or if one item is selected, you will turn into placing mode of selected item.

History
History remembers all your modifications since file was opened or created. If you made some mistake(s), you can undo action(s) by CTRL+Z key combo, by toolbar Undo icon. Also you can redo undone actions again by clicking CTRL+Y. Note: When you did any modification since you undone your recent changes, you will remove all history actions at your current history position

Next lesson
Next: PGE Editor, Level items