Settings

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To change the major settings of the ADRIFT developer, open the main menu by clicking the round button in the top-left corner of the screen and click "Settings...".

This will open the Settings dialog box, which currently contains two pages, one for general settings and one for listing all of the library files that will used in new ADRIFT games that you create.

Main Menu Settings.JPG

General Settings

GeneralSettings.jpg

Appearance

The "Window theme" allows you to customise how adrift developer will look.

Each item (object, character, task etc) has a unique identifier within ADRIFT, known as a key. Certain functions use these keys to reference the item unambiguously. "Show keys on edit forms" displays this key in the title bar of the form when editing the item. You only need this if you are making extensive use of functions which require keys as parameters.

"Show all open windows in taskbar" should normally be selected as it prevents confusion from losing dialog windows behind other windows.

"Simple mode" hides many of the more complex features of ADRIFT.

Spell Check

The settings for the dictionary that ADRIFT uses for automatic spelling correction.

  • Dictionary Language - The language that you are using.
  • Main dictionary location - This is initially blank, which will cause ADRIFT to use a default U.S.A. english dictionary.
If you download an alternate dictionary, then put its location here.
  • User dictionary location - This is where ADRIFT will store any words that you add to the dictionary.
This MUST be a folder that you have permission to write to! If the file does not exist then ADRIFT will create it.

Prompts

  • Copy reciprocal links/restrictions indicates whether, when you add a link to another location on the directions page of a location, ADRIFT should automatically create a link back in the opposite direction from that location.
If you always use simple bidirectional links between locations then set these to "Always".
If you often use one-way links or twisty passages then set this to "Never".
  • Replace character names - Replaces the name of a character with the %CharacterName% function.

Text Boxes

Enable Graphics - The "Graphics" tab of all text boxes is available and can be selected to add images to the game.

Enable Audio - The "Audio" tab of all text boxes is available and can be selected to add sounds to the game.

Enable Preview - The "Preview" tab of all text boxes is visible (but does nothing in version 5.0.27).

  • If you un-check all 3 of the above options then the tabs down the right-hand side of every text box will be removed and you will have more space to type your text.

Other

Default task messages to output - Whenever you create a new task, the "Display completion message before/after executing actions" setting on its "Advanced" page will be set to this value. Set this to whichever option you use most often.

Check for new version on startup - When this is selected, whenever the ADRIFT developer is run it will automatically check with the adrift.co web site to see if a new version of ADRIFT is available and give you the option to open the download page in your default browser if there is.

Library Settings

LibrarySettings.jpg

This page lists all of the library files that you wish to use with your game, and where they are located on your hard disk. The ADRIFT installer should have automatically placed the location of StandardLibrary.amf on this list. As of Sep 2011 this is the only library file that exists, but in the future there may be special libraries that can be added to extend the capabilities of ADRIFT for particular types of games. You can also select that only specific libraries are to be used with the next game created, using the checkbox next to each entry.

The "Hide Library Items" checkbox removes the Standard Library from the "Folders" list in the main window.

The following dropdown list controls how a new version of a library will affect an existing game.

SettingLoadingLibs.jpg

  • Prompt per Library
When a new version of the standard library (or any other loaded library) is installed, you will be asked if you want the newly updated items in that library to overwrite the copy in your .TAF fles.
  • Prompt per item
When a new version of a library is installed you will be prompted for each item in the new library that has been updated with a new version.
You will need to have a list of which items in the standard library you have altered, so that you can choose not to update those particular items.
- Only recomended for very advanced users.
  • Always overwrite
If you never directly alter any part of the standard library then this option will ensure it is kept up-to-date with all new releases.
Note that you can still alter the functioning of the standard library by:
  1. Use copy/paste to create a duplicate of a standard library general task.
  2. Edit the copy to do what you want.
  3. Ensure it has a higher priority than the standard library task, so it overrides it.
  • Never overwrite
Only use this option if you have made extensive modifications to the standard library in your .TAF files, and do not wish to risk overwriting your changes when a new library is released. If you use this option then you are responsible for manually making corrections and additions to the standard library in each of your .TAF files.
  • If you have more than one library and want to prevent particular one's from being overwritten, just remove the tick alongside the name of those particular libraries.

The main library used with most ADRIFT games is The Standard Library, which is included with the Developer.

Other ADRIFT Libraries and modules can be downloaded from the ADRIFT game downloads site, by selecting the "Modules" category.

IconWarning.png ADRIFT does not currently handle multiple libraries correctly! If you need to open a game in the developer that uses a different library than the last game you opened, then you will need to manually change the selected libraries BEFORE you open the new file.

IconWarning.png Before playing any ADRIFT 4 (or earlier) game in the runner, you will need to open the developer, ensure only the standard library is selected, close the developer, then open the game in the runner. To switch back to your own libraries you will need to double-click dev500.exe to open the developer, change the library settings back, then open your game.

Advanced Settings

AdvancedSettings.jpg

  • Generate key names from item names
The Keys of Properties, Locations, Objects and Characters etc. are created from the name of the item with spaces and other special characters removed, and truncated at 10 characters. If you create a property called "fire magic" then its key will be "FireMagic". This makes it much easier to read Item functions.
If this is NOT selected then keys are created from the item type and a number, so the seventh property created would have the key "Property7".
Note that if a "Key Prefix" has been specified on the "Advanced" page of the Options dialog, then that prefix will be prepended to all keys when they are created.


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