Pudge Screen Designer Help Contents Page

Contents for Pudge Screen Designer Help

Welcome to the Pudge Screen Designer! This program makes it very easy to create new screens for Pudge. In fact it should be pretty much self-explanatory, but I thought I'd better write a help file just in case!

If you do design a number of new screens for Pudge I'd be interested in seeing them. (My address is in the Pudge help file under 'Registration'). Which reminds me - if you do use the Screen Designer you should really register Pudge.

How To Design Screens

Menu Commands
File Menu
Screen Menu


How To Design Screens

The Layout of the Screen Designer Window
Most of the window is used to show the screen currently being edited. This leaves a strip down the right side of the window which shows the screen number, screen password, and the palette of building blocks used to 'paint' the screen.

Editing the Screen
Using the mouse, select the block you want to place on the screen from the palette (it should now have a white border around it). Then select the position to place the block on the screen (or drag the mouse to 'paint' a number of blocks on the screen).

Erasing Blocks on the Screen
To erase a block on the screen move the mouse over it and click the right mouse button, or hold the right button down and drag the mouse over a number of blocks to erase.

Using the Keyboard
Instead of using the mouse you can use the cursor keys to position the cursor on the screen, then the spacebar or return key to paint the current position, and the tab key to cycle through the blocks in the palette.

Setting the Screen Password
Each screen after the first one should have a password, so that the player can skip to the screen at the start of the game. The password consists of up to 8 letters, and can simply be typed in while the corresponding screen is showing. The backspace key can be used to erase any mistakes.


File Menu Commands

New
Creates a new, untitled screens file with one empty screen.

Open
Opens an existing screens file.

Close
Closes the current screens file.

Save
Saves the current screens file.

Save As
Saves the current screens file to a new file.

Exit
Quits the Screen Designer.


Screen Menu Commands

Goto Next Screen
Cycles forwards through the screens.

Goto Previous Screen
Cycles backwards through the screens.

Goto Screen
Prompts the user for the number of the screen to display.

Clear Screen
Clears the current screen.

Create New Screen After
Creates a new empty screen after the current screen and displays it.

Create New Screen Before
Creates a new empty screen before the current screen and displays it.

Move Screen
Prompts the user for the new position of the screen.

Delete Screen
Deletes the current screen.

Verify Screen
Checks that the current screen doesn't break any obvious rules for designing Pudge screens (e.g. there must be exactly one Pudge in the screen, teleports must be in pairs, etc.). All errors are displayed in a dialog box. NOTE - Just because a screen is verified OK it doesn't mean that it can be finished!

Verify All Screens
As 'Verify Screen' except that all the screens in the current file are checked.