Stalky <Stalker> Cheeeeeese *-*

Transformice MapPad Documentation (V. 0.64)

Home > Transformice MapPad > Documentation

Index

  1. Getting Started
  2. User Interface
    1. Menu
      1. File
      2. Create
      3. Select
      4. Edit
      5. Arrange
      6. Snapping
      7. Code
      8. View
      9. Window
      10. Help
    2. Viewport
      1. Navigation
      2. Element Interaction
      3. Selection
      4. Drag and Drop
      5. Context Menu
    3. Code Box
      1. Context Menu
    4. Toolbars
      1. Properties Panel
      2. Templates Panel
      3. Manipulation Toolbar
      4. Map Information Toolbar
    5. Status Bar
    6. Miscellaneous Hotkeys
  3. Command Line Arguments
  4. System Interaction

Getting Started

To create objects either use the Create-Menu in the menu bar or right click the viewport to choose what you want to create. You can select objects in the viewport and edit them in the properties panel which is located on the right by default. To change the map settings go to Edit -> Map -> Settings.... To copy the map code choose Code -> Copy Map to Clipboard.
Those are the most basic things you will need to know, for more information just read the respective section on this page.

You can also edit the map more directly by altering its code which can be found in a text box below the viewport, you should know a few things about the code that can be used to describe a Transformice map if you want to do so. There is a section on XML map editing in my map making guide, if you do not understand everything right away check all the links that can be found in the section as well.

User Interface

User Interface

The user interface consists of several parts: Menu, Viewport, Code Box, Toolbars and Status Bar.

Menu

File

New Loads the default map to a new tab. If the default map has not been set the code of an empty map will be loaded.
New Window Opens a new window with the default map.
Open... Opens a map from a file and opens a new map tab. You can also paste URLs into the file name field.
Import Map From Clipboard Creates a new map tab and replaces the code with the contents of the clipboard if possible.
Save Saves the map; if no path has been specified yet a dialog will open where you can choose the location.
Save As... Saves the map; will always prompt the user for the save location.
Close Closes the current map.
Reload Map Reloads the map file, can be useful if it was edited outside of the MapPad.
Default Map
Set This Map as Default The map will be stored as the default map to load when the user clicks on New or New Window.
Reset Resets the default map to the plain code of an empty map.
Map Information Allows you to save map information like title, authors and IDs in *.t4mmp files. The default map can also contain map information.
Save Map Picture... Exports a PNG picture of the map. The user needs to specify the scale which is factor applied to the picture's dimensions. The standard size (scale factor = 1) for a map picture is 800 x 600 pixels. Note that too high values are likely to take a long time to render or may crash the application.
Exit Closes the application.

Create

Allows the user to create grounds, markers and objects in the viewport. After clicking the respective menu item the cursor will be marked with a circle to indicate that the element can be placed.
Hold down Ctrl when placing an element to stay in create-mode and place multiple elements of that type.

The circle creation feature lets you create full and partial circles. The angles are measured from the top of the circle going in the clockwise direction, so if you want to create a half circle that is like a bowl you should enter 90 as the Start Angle and 270 as the Stop Angle. If Add End Cap Element is checked an additional element is created at the end, for full circles such an element would mean a duplicate so this should be used for partial circles. The end cap element is not included in the Element Count.

Select

Select All Selects all map elements in the viewport.
Filter Selection Lets you deselect map elements by their type or reduce the selection to elements of a single type (Ground, Marker, Object).
Select From List...

Opens a list of all the map elements in their XML representation. Select a node by clicking on it, add or subtract from the selection by holding down the Ctrl-key. Holding down the Shift-key will select the whole range between the last selected node and the one that has been clicked.

There are buttons on the right that have certain effects on the elements selected.

Hide Hides the selection, those elements can not be selected in the viewport and are invisible.
Unhide Unhides the selection, the elements become visible again if they were hidden and can be selected.
Freeze Freezes the selection, frozen elements can not be selected in the viewport but are visible.
Unfreeze Unfreezes the selection, the elements can be selected in the viewport again.

Edit

Mostly lets you edit attributes of the selected elements or a subgroup of the selected elements. All elements share the position attributes, rotation can be set for grounds and objects.
The edit dialog of some attributes contains a measurement drop-down box. Relative means the value entered is added to the value the respective elements already have. If set to Absolute the old value is replaced.

Freeze will make elements unselectable in the viewport, they will also be translucent which allows for editing elements behind the frozen elements, Hide will make the selected elements completely invisible.

The Polar Coordinates menu item allows the user to either enter polar coordinates which will directly be converted to cartesian coordinates or to set the respective attributes of the selected elements. The center values will be stored in X and Y, while the distance is stored in D and the angle in A. Using this option will automatically turn on polar elements preview.

The Add/Edit/Remove/Rename Arbitrary XML Attribute functions should only be used if the user knows what he or she is doing since the dialog will not stop the user from entering invalid or nonsensical data.
Those functions are meant to provide a quick way to change a single attribute for all the selected elements at once.

Arrange

Lower Selection Lowers the selected elements in the Z-order.
Raise Selection Raises the selected elements in the Z-order.
Align This function lines up all the elements at a specific line.
There two reference modes, one aligns with the element in the selection that has the highest value of all or it aligns with the last element that was added to the selection.
Spacing Redistributes the elements between the two outermost elements. Either based on the gap distance or the distance from center to center.

Snapping

Snap to Grid When enabled elements will snap to an invisible grid when created or dragged in the viewport.
Grid Spacing... Sets the distance between the grid lines, default is 1.
Grid Offset... Sets the offset of the snapping grid, only affects absolute operations like the creation of elements.

Code

Copy Map to Clipboard Copies the map to the clipboard without any spaces and line breaks so it can be loaded in Transformice. It also removes the attributes for hiding and freezing.
Paste Code from Clipboard Replaces the code of the current map with the text in the clipboard.
Auto-Format Map Code Formats the map code in the code box to be indented and with one element per line.
Round Floating Point Values Rounds the floating point values of the position, size and rotation attributes of all elements in the map.
Rounding Digit Count... Sets the digit count that is used for rounding.

View

Reset Scaling and Translation Centers the map in the viewport and resets its scale.
Hide All Overlay Elements Makes all the frames, including shades and feed area invisible if checked.
Hide Shades Makes the dark areas in the chat box and top bar invisible if checked..
Shade Color... Changes the color of the shades, the alpha channel is important for their opacity.
Manipulation Tool
Use Manipulation Tool Enables or disables the manipulation tool.
Show Move Center Element If checked a cyan colored crosshair will be shown which allows the user to move only the manipulation tool to set the center for scaling or rotation.
Scale Sets the scale of the manipulation tool.
Use Glow Effects If checked map elements may have certain glow effects to indicate their state, if unchecked those glows are replaced by a simple tint pixel shader that should be rendered faster than the glows.
Preview Mirror Previews what the map would look like if it was mirrored. The preview updates only upon certain changes since it takes a lot of time to calculate.
To apply the mirroring use the respective option in the edit menu (Edit -> Map -> Mirror).
Preview Polar Elements Previews where the polar elements would be placed. The preview updates only upon certain changes since it takes a lot of time to calculate.
To convert the coordinates to X and Y use the respective option in the edit menu (Edit -> Map -> Convert Polar Elements to Cartesian Elements).
Viewport Background Color... Obviously sets the colour of the viewport background.
References... Opens a dialog in which the user can add images to the viewport.
Underlay references are behind the map elements, overlay references are in front of them, in most cases you will want to turn down the opacity of overlay references.
To add images you can either click the Add-button or drag and drop the files onto the list on the left side.
To reference an image on the web you can click the Add-button while holding Ctrl to open a simple text box dialog in which you can paste the URL.
If you paste an URL into the normal open dialogue's path field the file will first be downloaded to a temporary folder and then this file will be referenced.
(Further you can use the simple text box dialogue to reference images within the application, this is kind of pointless and more of a "fun fact", an example URI would be: pack://application:,,,/ImageResources/Objects/Anvil.png)

Important: References are not saved if you do not use the native MapPad File Format (*.t4mmp) in the save dialogue.

Window

Properties Panel Displays or hides the properties panel.
Update Properties Panel on Change If checked the values in the porperties panel will update while changes are being made (interaction while the mouse-button is pressed), if it is unchecked the values will only update after the mouse-button is released.
Templates Panel Displays or hides the templates panel.
Manipulation Toolbar Displays or hides the manipulation toolbar.
Map Information Toolbar Displays or hides the map information toolbar.
Edit Toolbars Docking... Changes where the various toolbars are placed in the window.
Band and Band Index can be thought of as columns and rows of the side areas, only makes sense to change those if there is more than one toolbar on one side.
Map Tabs Makes the map tabs bar invisible even if there is more than one map opened in the editor if unchecked.
Layout Style Lets you choose to either display only the viewport or the code box or to show both with a split view.
Toggle Layout Orientation Changes the orientation of the viewport/code box split.
Appearance Allows the user to change the colours of the code box.
Miscellaneous
Feed Section Shows the feed section located in the area where the chat box would be in-game if checked.
RSS-Feed URL... Changes the feed URL, if the feed can not be read or some other error occurs the box will be blank (like when it is hidden) and the user will be notified.

Help

View Online Documentation... Brings up what you are looking at now.
Check for Updates... Checks if a new version of MapPad is available.
View Version Log... Displays a list of all the released versions and their respective changes in detail.
Contact... Opens up a forum page where you can PM me.
About... Shows an about-dialog, displaying the author and the version number.

Viewport

The viewport displays your map and allows you to edit and create elements.

Navigation

Panning: Click and hold the middle mouse button and drag the mouse.
Zooming: Move the mouse wheel up to zoom in and down to zoom out.

Element Interaction

Mouse-Over: Displays the underlying code and the edge coordinates as a tooltip.
Click: Selects the element.
Ctrl + Click: Adds/subtracts the element to/from the selection depending on whether it is selected already or not.
Click (Inside) + Drag: Moves the selection around if one of the selected elements is clicked, if the element is not selected the selection will be cleared and only that single element will be moved.
Shift + Click (Inside) + Drag: Like Click + Drag except that the movement will be restricted to either horizontal or vertical.
Click (Edge) + Drag: Resizes all selected ground elements if the clicked ground is in the selection, otherwise the clicked ground will replace the selection.
Shift + Click (Edge) + Drag: Similar to the Shift-less operation, it only changes the length or height, resizing thus is aligned with the center of the grounds.
Click (Corner) + Drag Rotates all grounds and objects in the selection.
Shift + Click (Corner) + Drag Rotates all ground elements around the corner opposing the one that has been clicked.
Shift + Mouse Wheel: Rotates the selected objects.
Right Click: The context menu provides the functions: Delete, Duplicate, Cut, Copy, Lower, Raise, Hide and Freeze.

Selection

Selected elements in the viewport are highlighted with yellow. Click and drag somewhere on the background to draw a selection rectangle. By default this selection replaces your old selection. The elements that are going to be in the selection are highlighted with white.

Ctrl Adds elements to the selection if held while releasing the mouse click.
Ctrl + Alt Subtracts elements from the selection if held while releasing the mouse click.
Alt Hold it to be able to drag a selection rectangle on elements.

Drag and Drop

Drag files onto the viewport to open them, the file extensions define how they are handled.

*.t4mmp Loads the MapPad file which includes the map code and data associated with the map such as references and map information.
*.t4m, *.xml, *.txt Assumes the files to contain plain map code which is then loaded into a new map tab.
*.bmp, *.gif, *.jpg, *.png, *.tif These image files can be imported as references, for each image a dialogue will show up asking on which layer to add the image.

Context Menu

The contents of the viewport context menu (right click) reflect those in the Create Menu, there are also elements from the Select Menu, View Menu and Edit Menu.

Code Box

The code box allows you to directly write XML map code. The changes will be displayed instantly if there are no syntax errors. If you have never edited XML code, check out the section on XML map editing in my map making guide and the links in it.

Context Menu

The code box context menu (right click) contains the items in the Code Menu.
Additionally there is an insert option that places the code of the selected element at the current caret position. Make sure to place the elements in the collections to which they belong. (Parameter attributes inside of <P ... />, grounds between <S>...</S>, markers between <D>...</D> and objects between <O>...</O>,

Toolbars

There are various toolbars that provide functions that should be more readily accessible, all toolbars can be hidden or shown via the Window-Menu.

Properties Panel

Via this panel the selected elements can be edited. All map elements have coordinates so changes in the Position section will affect all selected elements. The ground and object specific sections will only affect the selected elements of the respective type. All inputs have to be confirmed with Enter/Return, note that you can apply the entered value as an offset by holding down Ctrl while pressing Enter.
For example if you enter -40 in the Y-Field and hit Ctrl+Enter all selected elements will be moved up by 40 units. If you simply hit enter the centers of all elements will be moved to the absolute position -40.

Templates Panel

The templates panel can be used to store reusable structures and to load them into a map when they are needed. To create a template select the map elements that make up the template and click the Add-button. In the dialogue that opens you can give the template a descriptive title.
If you want to rename a template open its context menu by right-clicking it and selecting Rename..., to place one or more templates in the map select them from the list and click Place in Map, to remove templates select them and click the respective button, you can also reorder them by clicking the arrows at the side of the list.

Templates are stored in the settings file and are independent of the map.

Manipulation Toolbar

This toolbar consists of various textboxes that let you manipulate the selection like the manipulation tool but with numerical values. Press Return to cofirm in all textboxes except the ones for the manipulation center.

CX Directly sets the x-coordinate of the manipulation center.
CY Directly sets the y-coordinate of the manipulation center.
MX Moves the selection along the x-axis.
MY Moves the selection along the y-axis.
S Scales the selection using the input as scaling factor.
R Rotates the selection around the center, positive values mean a clockwise rotation.

Map Information Toolbar

Lets you edit the associated map information in a toolbar, its functionality is nearly identical to the Map Information Dialogue which can be opened via the File-Menu. Use commas to seperate items in the list fields (Authors, IDs).

Status Bar

The status bar displays information on map parsing errors and ground and object counts if there are no errors. Note that MapPad does not forcefully delete objects that exceed the limits, you need to keep track of that on your own.
Further it displays the selected elements count, the mouse coordinates and the current zoom factor.

Miscellaneous Hotkeys

Ctrl + Tab Switch to next map tab
Ctrl + Shift + Tab Switch to previous map tab
Middle Mouse Click on Map Tab Close respective map

Command Line Arguments

/feed=string Changes the URL of the RSS feed that should be displayed in the feed area.
/ls=string Specifies an URL or path to a file to load settings from.
/ws=string Specifies an URL or path to a file to write settings to.
/dauc Disables the automatic update check that takes place on startup.

System Interaction

The application only saves and loads settings from a folder that will be created in the application data folder. It does not interact with the registry or any other part of the system for that matter.