The
Layers Bar is used to add, edit and remove
layers in a
layout. A layer is like a sheet of glass objects are painted on to. This allows easy arrangement of which objects display in front of other objects, for example showing
foreground objects in front of the
background sprites. It also allows for interesting depth effects like parallax, and layers can be individually scaled and rotated as well.
Layers can be
dragged and dropped in the Layers Bar to change their order. Layers at the
bottom of the list are displayed
at the back (e.g. background objects), and layers at the
top of the list are displayed
at the front (e.g. HUD objects).
Selecting a layer displays its properties in the
Properties Bar and also sets it as the
active layer which new objects are inserted in to. See the
Active layer property in
layout properties for more information.
The Layers list
Each layer in the list has the following:
- A
checkbox to toggle whether the layer is
visible in the editor (this does not affect the game when previewing or exporting)
- A
padlock icon. Clicking this toggles the layer's
locked status. If a layer is locked, objects on that layer cannot be selected in the editor. This is useful to prevent accidental selections on rarely-used layers like backgrounds.
- A
number to the right. This is a
zero based index of the layer (the first layer is number 0, not 1). If you need to enter a layer number in the event system, this is the corresponding number. (You can also enter layer names in the event system which might be more convenient if you regularly reorder layers.)
The Layers Toolbar
The icons along the top provide shortcuts for editing layers. Layers can be added and there are alternative options for layer visibility and locking. There is also a
Rename and
Delete button (F2 and Delete on the keyboard respectively). Layers can also be renamed by single-clicking a selected layer, like renaming files in Windows Explorer. Finally, there are
Move up and
Move down buttons, which provide an alternative to dragging and dropping to reorder layers.