Workshop - Schritt 4 - Sector edit window

# Usage of sector edit window

Sektorfenster

### Usage of sector edit window

After you have mangaged the first steps to setup the general settings (textures, colors, ...) now it is time to build our first rooms !

The sector edit window is the most important tool for building up the room architecture. Select [Edit][Edit sector] in the menu:

Puh ! It'll take some time to get familar with this window and its capabilities. In fact, you can almost edit every thing you can see in a Running level. There are five different modes. Each mode addresses a different part of the level:

- Walls
- Sector fields
- Doors and lifts
- Items and Buttons
- Motion lines of enemies and trains

Change mode by pressing function keys F1 - F5 or use the Edit menu.

General mouse usage in all modes:

- Pressing the right mouse button: context menu
- Pressing the left mouse button ...

  - ... select points, which are under the mouse pointer; the selected points are represented by a colored rectangle

  - ... and SHIFT key: insert a point

  - ... and CONTROL key: select lines, which are under the mouse pointer ; selected lines are represented by a thick line. Important: you can select more than one line at a time ! Just hold the CONTROL key.

  - ... and SHIFT and CONTROL key holded down: scroll the level view in the window

Context menu. Activate the context menu with the right mouse button. You always will find there a menu item to delete the selected object.

Green arrow. The green arrow is important for the preview mode. In that mode you can take a look at your sector - the engine renders 3D pictures of the current sector which resemble the sector look on the Falcon. The arrow represents the spectator's position and viewing direction. Hold the CONTROL and ALT keys down and press the left mouse button, setting the position of the spectator at the current position of the mouse cursor. Pressing the right mouse button to rotate the viewing direction of the spectator.

State bar. There is a state bar at the bottom of the sector window that shows the following states:

- X, Y coordinates of the mouse cursor
- Edit mode (wall, sector field ...)
- Zooming
- Grid width
- Snap for the grid
- Amount of points for the current sector
- Amount of lines of the current sector

You can select fields of the state bar to edit settings. You can edit the zooming for example, or maybe the toogle the snap mode on/off. The snap mode uses a default value of 8 pixels. You might want to change this value - just open the settings dialog in the [Options] [Extras] menu.

Shortcuts. To speed up the edition procedures for power users for some menu items there are shortcuts:

- CONTROL-A: complete level redraw
- CONTROL-W: draw all visible sectors (from the current sector)
- CONTROL-E: change sector (the current sector will be saved before !)

The shortcuts will appear on a lot of other places in the tutorial to improve your learning rate.

Now it is time for you to play around with the sector edit window. Feel free to insert and delete points and move around the sector view. But don't panic, you will get a lot of training in the next parts of this tutorial.

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