@The Basics of Using KevEdit $The Basics of Using KevEdit !movement;Movement and Plotting !sidebar;Getting to Know the Sidebar !color;The Color Selector !defc;Default Color Mode !uncommon;Uncommon Tiles !creatures;Editing Creatures & Objects !zzl; * Object Libraries !text;Placing Text on the Board !file;File Operations !transfer;Board Transfer !zzt;Working with ZZT :movement;Movement and Plotting You control the blinking cursor which can be moved around the 60x25 board with the arrow keys. Holding ALT with an arrow key will move faster. Notice that the cursor changes the colour of the tile under it. This is to help you find it when it gets lost. If you press the SPACEBAR, a white solid will be plotted where the cursor is. The TAB key will turn on or off drawing mode. In drawing mode, the cursor plots automatically when moved. !-kbackbuf:gradient;See Gradient Draw Mode To remove the tile under the cursor, press DELETE. If the tile is a creature with terrain beneath it, then the terrain will remain. If you create an enclosed area and want to fill it in with one type of tile, place the cursor inside and press lowercase 'f' to flood fill the area. !-kbackbuf:randfill;See Random Flood Fill :brdselect;Board Selection Dialog There are many boards in a ZZT world. Press 'b' to view the board list, where you can choose a different board to edit or create a new one. In the board selection dialog, boards may be moved using LEFT and RIGHT and deleted with BACKSPACE. All boards will be "re-linked" to reflect this change. To prevent linkage problems, the first board, the Title Screen, may not be moved, though it can be deleted. Alternately, pressing PAGEUP or PAGEDOWN on the main KevEdit screen will move cycle through the board list. :sidebar;Getting to Know the Sidebar The blue bar to the right of the screen is the KEVEDIT SIDEBAR. It displays information about the current state of the editor as well as keys for common actions. The top line of the sidebar looks something like this: (1, 1) 0/150 The numbers in parenthesis are the coordinates of your cursor, ranging from (1, 1) to (60, 25). The next numbers tell you how many PARAMETER RECORDS are stored on this board. Parameter records store information for configurable things: objects, scrolls, and enemies all have parameter records. ZZT has a limit of 150 records per board. Keep an eye on how many you have used so that you don't run out! The next line displays the title of the world, which can be modified in the !-kwldinfo;World Info Dialog. Unless you modify the title yourself, this will be the same as the world's filename. On the bottom of the sidebar are two horizontal bars. The first one has a gradient of a solid block to empty space, a line, and more empty space. This is the PATTERN SELECTOR. Press 'p' to move the arrow forward along the selector and shift+'p' to move it backward. In order, the tiles in the pattern selector are: * Solid Wall * Normal Wall * Breakable Wall * Water * Empty Space * Line Press space to plot any of these common patterns that the arrow is over. Next to the patterns is the BACKBUFFER. When you plot an uncommon tile (not from the pattern selector), it will end up in the backbuffer. To copy something from the board into the backbuffer, place your cursor over it and press ENTER or INSERT. It will appear in the backbuffer, where you can plot it like anything else in the pattern selector. More information is available on: !-kbackbuf;The Backbuffer :color;The Color Selector The horizontal bar below the pattern selector is the COLOR SELECTOR. Every tile you plot has a foreground and background color. The colors on the top are for the foreground, which you can switch between by pressing 'c'. There are fewer colors available for the background, which you can select by pressing SHIFT+'c'. To make the foreground color blink on and off, press 'v' before you plot. The color can also be selected with 'k', which brings up a dialog box for (possibly) faster color selection. :defc;Default Color Mode Next to the color selector lies the letter D. When it is bright and capital, DEFAULT COLOR MODE is on. When it is lowercase and dim, it is off. Default color mode (or DefC) is a great idea that I stole from MegaZeux 1.0. When it is enabled, objects get plotted with their normal colors. Ammo is dark cyan, torches are brown, objects in the backbuffer are their original color, etc. When you turn DefC off, anything you plot will be the color chosen in the color selector. This is a great way to customize game items and to change the color of objects. :uncommon;Uncommon Tiles Well, it's not that they're uncommon, just not used as much as the nice gradient on the pattern selector. To choose among items, creatures, and terrains, press F1, F2, or F3. If you want to plot any of these, press its corresponding letter (which will be displayed on the sidebar). !-item.hlp;Items !-creature.hlp;Creatures !-terrain.hlp;Terrain :creatures;Editing Creatures & Objects !zzl;Object Libraries If a tile has editable stats, such as a built-in enemy, object, or scroll, pressing ENTER will allow you to modify them. After you have done this, a copy will be placed in the backbufffer. !-kstats.hlp;Stats Editor To copy a tile to the backbuffer without editing it, press INSERT. To reveal hidden objects press CTRL-O. :zzl;Object Libraries Pressing 'o' will bring up the ZZT Object Library Menu. You will have the option of loading an object from a ZZL library, saving to the end of an existing library, or saving to a new library. When saving an object, you must provide a (hopefully) unique name for that object. :text;Placing Text on the Board To add readable text tiles to the board, press F4 to activate text entry mode. Every character you type will be written on the board. To add a non-typable character, press CTRL+'a' for the ASCII selection dialog box. Text will wrap past the end of the line, though it will not wordwrap. To leave text entry mode, press F4 again. :file;File Operations KevEdit can load and save normal (and abnormal) ZZT worlds. To load a world, press 'l' and you will be presented with a list of all world files in the current directory. To save your world, press 's'. You will be prompted for an 8 letter file name. :transfer;Board Transfer KevEdit has several options for transferring a board from one world to another. Pressing 't' will bring up the Board Transfer menu: * Import From ZZT World * Import From Board File * Export To Board File Import From ZZT World will prompt you to select a world and then a board within that world. Import From Board File will prompt you to select a .brd file. The chosen board will be inserted after the current board, without overwriting anything. To import a title screen, make the first board the current board, import, then use the board select dialog to delete the first board. Export To Board File will prompt for a filename to save the current board to. :zzt;Working with ZZT To aid in testing a game, pressing 'r' will run ZZT on the current world, jumping directly to the title screen. ALT-T may also be used to achieve the same effect. For this to work, zzt.exe must be in the same directory as kevedit.exe. zzt.dat and any other .hlp files should be kept in either the same folder as kevedit.exe or in the docs sub-folder. KevEdit now supports extended help systems when running ZZT. Simply extract an extended help package (such as Chronos's ZZTWeb) into the same folder as kevedit.exe and run the installation batch file. Feel free to delete any zzt.dat files from your hard drive except the one in the same directory as kevedit.exe (or the docs subdirectory). For the truly lazy, the ZZTUnder project does an excellent job of handling all of the above for you, plus more. Visit http://zztunder.tk/ for more information.