The Layout View

The Layout View is a visual designer for your objects. It allows you to set up a pre-arranged layout of objects, such as a game level, menu or title screen. In other tools, layouts may be referred to as scenes, rooms, frames or stages. See also the manual section on layouts.


The dotted rectangle in the top left indicates the window size in the layout.

Adding, modifying and deleting objects

Double-click a space in the layout or right-click and select Insert new object to add a new object type. This will bring up the Insert New Object dialog.

To create new instances of an existing object type, another object can be control + dragged, copy and pasted, or dragged and dropped from the Project Bar or Object Bar. (Make sure you're clear on the difference between Object Types and Instances as described in Project Structure.)

A shortcut for importing image files as Sprite objects is to drag and drop image files from Windows Explorer to the Layout View. This automatically creates a new Sprite object type with the dragged image. If multiple image files are dragged, the Sprite is assigned an animation with the dragged images as animation frames.

Instances can be moved by dragging and dropping them with the mouse. Hold shift to axis-lock the drag to diagonals. Alternatively they can be nudged 1 pixel at a time with the arrow keys (hold shift to nudge 10 pixels), or co-ordinates can be typed in directly to the Properties Bar.

The Delete key or right-click Delete option deletes instances. Deleting all instances of an object does not remove the object type from the project. To entirely remove an object from the project it should be deleted via the Project Bar.

Click objects to select them. Objects cannot be selected if their layer is locked. Hold control while clicking to select multiple objects, or click and drag a selection rectangle to select all objects in an area. The Properties Bar displays properties for all currently selected objects, so changing a property sets it for every selected object.

When a single object is selected it appears with resize handles around it:


Click and drag the resize handles to stretch the object. Hold shift to proportionally resize the object. The size of the resize handles can be changed in Preferences.

Rotatable objects like Sprite also have an angle handle originating from the object's origin. This can be clicked and dragged to change the object's angle. Alternatively an angle can be entered in to the Properties Bar.

Scrolling and zooming

There are three ways to scroll in the Layout View:
- The vertical and horizontal scrollbars at the edges of the view
- Hold the middle mouse button and drag the mouse
- Hold space and move the mouse (useful for laptops with track pads)
On desktop systems, middle-mouse dragging is probably the most convenient way to move around the layout.

Zooming is useful to focus on a small area or see an overview of the entire layout. There are several ways to zoom:
- The Zoom buttons on the ribbon in the View tab (hold shift while clicking to adjust the zoom amount)
- Hold control and scroll the mouse wheel. Hold both Control and Shift to zoom in integer steps (e.g. 100%, 200%, 400%...)
- + and - on the num pad (hold shift to adjust zoom amount)
The current zoom is displayed in the Status Bar. Press Control + 0 to return to 100% zoom.

Other

To go to the associated event sheet, press Ctrl + E or Ctrl + Tab or right-click and select Edit event sheet.

The Z order of objects within a layer can be adjusted by right-clicking and selecting Z Order - Send to top of layer or Send to bottom of layer.

Objects can be snapped to a grid for tile placement. This can be enabled in the View tab of the ribbon.

The image or animation editor can be brought up by double-clicking objects with images or animations like Tiled Background and Sprite.