Settings

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Revision as of 06:25, 4 December 2012 by Saabie (Talk | contribs) (Library Settings - Loading items from a new library version)

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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

The "Forms 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.

Next are the settings for the dictionary that ADRIFT uses for automatic spelling correction.

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".

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.