Main Window

Main

The main windows contains icons representing common maintenance functions and buttons representing available editors.
A tray of icons provides access to app settings and help.
Hovering over the editors will display a status tip at the bottom of the screen, briefly describing the editor.

icon-tray]=[

Icon Tray

The gear icon accesses application wide settings.
See App Settings for more information.
The book icon accesses help (if available).
F1 invokes help for the page, Shift+F1 for the focused control if available.
The question icon opens the About window.

import-dat]=[Import FFHackster DAT

Bring in Hackster's DAT settings

Allows importing of content from an FFHackster DAT file.
Also allows importing labels, values, and dialogue INI from another project.

NOTE: Content imported from another project will overwrite content drawn from the DAT file.


revert-archive-clone]=[Revert, Archive, and Clone

Revert, Archive, and Clone

Overwrite the working file(s) with the clean copy/reversion file.
For assembly projects, it will replace the contents of the asm folder with the clean copy files.
Archive the project to an archive file (a ZIP file with extension .ff1zip).
Presents a dialog allowing the selection of a filename for the archive.
Clone the current project to a new folder.
Select a parent folder, then specify a name for the new cloned project that will be created there.
For example:
  1. Select parent folder C:\PROJ\FF1\WIP\_clones
  2. Specify the name NewClonedProject for the new project
  3. Clicking OK generated the folder path C:\PROJ\FF1\WIP\_clones\NewClonedProject
  4. If that folder is empty or nonexistent, then the project is cloned to that path
    All files from the original project are copied to this folder.
    All files then have their names and references changed to reflect the new folder.

publish-compile-run]=[Publish, Compile, and Run

Publish, Compile, and Run

Copies the working ROM to the publish path.
Assembly Projects Only
Compile the assembly source, which updates the working ROM.
Runs the working ROM with the program specified in App Settings.

NOTE: the App Setting "Compile before Run" is on by default. if turned off, then you MUST compile an assembly project before running it to see the updated changes in the game.
The compilation produces the working NES ROM image that's used with the Run button. When you click Run, the working image is run by the EXE specified in App Settings. If you forget to compile it after making assembly changes, then you'll run the old copy of the working ROM.


edit-labels]=[Edit Editor Labels

Edit Labels

Edit the labels used throughout the editor.
The count variable associated with each group of labels is shown above the list of strings.

Press CTRL + Numpad Plus Sign (+) to autosize the columns; (each column resizes to fit to its content.


edit-values]=[Edit ROM Values

Edit ROM Values

Edit the values used in the game and associated tools.
Add, Remove, or Revert the values in a given group.
Revert will attempt to roll back to a clean copy of the values (from when the project was created) - be careful when using this.

Press CTRL + Numpad Plus Sign (+) to autosize the columns; each column resizes to fit to its content.

Items in blue are reserved and cannot be deleted.
Hidden items are shown in orange.

ButtonAction
Show Hidden Items Check the box to show hidden items in this group (if any).
Items are sometimes hidden by extensions to avoid destroying original values when overriding editors.
This allows you to see any such values here instead of having to crawl through the values file manually.
[ + ]Adds a value to the current group.
Invokes a dialog to collect the name and type of the new value.
[ - ]Removes the selected value.
Revert
Attempts to restore the values to their initial settings at project creation time.
Typically used if values have been trashed and you want a fresh start without recreating the entire project.

Values can have one of the types in the table below.
Some of the values work out to be the same type of data, but have different semantic meanings that can be used by the editor.
e.g. byte and uint8 are both unsigned 8-bit integers, but the editor or an extension can treat the two differently (e.g. use uint8 strictly as an integer and not as bit flags).
Not much of this has been thoroughly used, so results may vary, and there may be some changes here in the future.

TypeDetail
byteAn 8-bit hex value.
wordA 16-bit hex value.
bwordA 24-bit hex value (byte + word).
dwordA 32-bit hex value.
addrA 16-bit hex value, used for RAM addresses.
Formatted as $12AB.
rgbA 24-bit hex value that encodes red, green, and blue.
Invokes the Color editor.
strA string, used in the values and labels files.
boolA boolean value, true or false.
str[]Array of strings, used in the project and values files.
Invokes the array editor.
bool[]Array of booleans (true/false), used in the project and values files.
Invokes the array editor.
byte[]Array of hex bytes, used in the project file.
Invokes the array editor.
intNA signed 8, 16, 24, or 32-bit integer.
uintNAn unsigned 8, 16, 24, or 32-bit integer.
hexNAn unsigned 8, 16, 24, or 32-bit integer.
Formatted as hexadecimal 0x12AB.

edit-ram]=[Edit RAM Values

Edit RAM Values

Edit the RAM values used in the game.
Add, Remove, or Revert the values.
Revert will attempt to roll back to a clean copy of the values (from when the project was created) - be careful when using this.

Press CTRL + Numpad Plus Sign (+) to autosize the columns; (each column resizes to fit to its content.

Items in blue are reserved and cannot be deleted.


project-settings]=[

Project Settings

See Project Settings for more info.

manage-editors]=[

Manage Editors

Manages the order and source of editors.
Extensions can add custom editors, as well as override or hide existing ones.
Type Detail
EditorThe internal name of the editor.
StatusThe action the editor's selected source will take.
An editor can be shown or hidden.
DisplaynameThe name displayed on the main window for editor's selected source.
Level The level (or context) where the editor's selected source is found.
Built-In editors are the standard editors inherited from FFH.
Custom editors are loaded from DLLs.
Missing editors have a filepath, but the file isn't found there.
Excluded editors are intentionally hidden/disabled.
App editors are in the program folder.
ProjExtFolder editors are in the project's Additional Modules folder.
Project editors are in the project folder.
SourceThe name of the editor's selected source.
Folder The path of the editor's selected source.
*builtin for the standard built-in editors.
*excluded for hidden/removed editors.
Move the selected editor up or down, which changes its position in the main window accordingly.

For more info on extensions, see Extensions.