Balloon help now exists in parts of the program; specifically menus and dialogs. As always, balloon help can be turned on from the Help menu in the upper right corner of the screen. You can also turn balloon help on and off using the "Help" key on the extended keyboard (or "control e" if you prefer). You should be able to enter that keystroke at any time.
Dialog Conventions
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All dialogs will have a default button. This default button is surrounded with the usual black border. Pressing Return or Enter from the number pad will automatically select this button.
Some dialogs have "Cancel" buttons, with which you can cancel the action in question. You can press this button from the keyboard by pressing Escape, or by pressing . (period).
Lastly, you can select any button by pressing the first letter in it's name. For example, you can press an "OK" button by pressing "O"; you can press a "Yes" button by pressing "Y"; and so on.
File Menu
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"Open Scenario…" (O)
This command is used to open scenarios for Ultima III. The Ultima III Editor can edit the Ultima III application as well as its own scenario files. Noted that the scenario files are not used by the Ultima III application directly; for more information on working with scenario files and Ultima III, see the "Install…" and "Extract…" commands in the File Menu.
Once the scenario file is loaded, "Open Scenario…" will open the Scenario Window, displaying a list of Maps that can be edited. For more information on the Scenario Window, see below.
The "Open Scenario…" command can be invoked by pressing O on the keyboard. Scenario files can also be opened by dragging their icons onto the Ultima III Editor icon in the Finder.
"Close" (W)
This command can be used to close open windows. If the scenario window is closed, the "Close" command will also close the map window. Also when closing the scenario window, if any maps were changed but not saved, an alert will appear asking if you want to save changes before closing the scenario window.
The "Close" command can be invoked by pressing W on the keyboard.
"Save" (S)
This command saves the scenario file or Ultima III application you are working with. This action is not reversible, so be sure to modify only copies of important files.
This command is only enabled when a scenario file or Ultima III application has been opened with the aforementioned "Open Scenario…" command.
The "Save" command can be invoked by pressing S on the keyboard.
"Save As…"
This command allows you to save a scenario file under a different name, and then continue working with the new file. For example, if you use "Save As…" to save the scenario file "Default Scenario" as "Hellbound", all future "Save" commands will save to the "Hellbound" file, not to "Default Scenario." This feature is fairly standard among Macintosh programs.
The "Save As…" command is only enabled when working with a scenario file; the command will be dimmed when working with an Ultima III application, or when no scenario file is open.
"Save a Copy As…"
This command is identical to "Save As…" in every respect except that after saving a scenario file under a new name, you continue working with the original file. To continue our example, if you use "Save a Copy As…" to save the scenario file "Default Scenario" as "Hellbound", all future "Save" commands will save to the "Default Scenario" file, not to "Hellbound." This feature is also fairly standard among Macintosh programs.
Again, like "Save As…", this feature is only enabled when working with scenario files.
"Revert"
The "Revert" command throws away all changes made to the scenario file or Ultima III application, "reverting back to" the last saved version. This is especially useful if you've just made a catastrophic change to a map (say, filled the entire map with water, turned all the people in Lord British's Castle into Balrogs accidentally, etc) and you want to go back to the way the file was after you last saved it.
Note that Ultima III Editor will verify that you really want to revert before wiping out your changes.
"Install…"
The "Install…" command is used to install scenario files into Ultima III applications. The command installs from the active scenario file. If you don't have a scenario file open, the "Install…" command will first prompt you for the scenario file or Ultima III application from which you want to install; note that scenarios selected in this way will not be loaded in the same manner as the "Open Scenario…" command, the scenario window will not appear. If it is your intention to work with a scenario file after installing it into Ultima III, first open it using the "Open Scenario…" command.
Note that though you can install Ultima III applications into other Ultima III applications, this command only copies scenario files. All other information remains unaffected.
"Extract…"
This is a handy utility that lets to extract scenario information out of Ultima III applications and into Scenario Files. Ultima III Editor will prompt you to select the Ultima III application from which you wish to extract scenario information. Once selected, there will be a brief pause as the scenario information is read from the file. After it has finished reading in scenario information, Ultima III Editor will prompt you to save the resulting scenario file. Finally, the "Scenario Window" will appear, allowing you to work with the scenario file.
Note that if you already have a scenario window open, the Ultima III Editor will close it for you before continuing with the extraction process.
"Page Setup…"
This command allows you to change the settings for your selected printer. It's common between all Macintosh Programs.
"Print" (P)
This command is not currently active.
"Quit" (Q)
This command quits the Ultima III Editor application. Before quitting, all open windows are closed. If the active scenario file has unsaved data, the familiar Save/Don't Save/Cancel dialog will appear.
This command can be invoked by pressing Q from the keyboard.
Scenario Window
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The Scenario Window contains a list of all the items in the scenario. Currently, the list includes Castle, Towne, and outside maps; in the future, it will also include Dungeon maps, monster dialogs, and more. The window is movable and resizeable, though the window will not grow beyond the area of the scenario's item list.
Items on the item list can be selected by clicking them with the mouse. Alternatively, items can be selected using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Items can be edited by double clicking them, or similarly, by pressing return from the keyboard.
If you try to close the Scenario Window (either by clicking in the window's "Go Away" box, by selecting "Close" from the File menu, or by pressing W), all open Edit windows will be closed. If the scenario has been changed since it was last saved, a dialog will appear asking if you would like to save now, throw away changes, or cancel. Selecting cancel will prevent the Scenario Window from being closed.
Map Editor window
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Like the Scenario Window, the Map Editor window is movable and resizeable. The Map Editor window is composed of three main areas: the Tool Palette, the Tile Selection Popup, and the Map itself. You can adjust the view in the Map area using the Map Editor window's scroll bars. The Tool Palette and the Tile Selection Popup are described in more detail below.
Currently, there is only Map Editor window. If you open up one map from the Scenario Window, then go back and open a second map from the Scenario Window, the second map will replace the first map in the open Map Editor window. Future versions of the Ultima III Editor may allow for more than one map to be open at once.
The Tool Palette
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The Tool Palette can be found on the left hand side of the Map Editor window. It contains 14 different tools to help you in editing maps for Ultima III. To use a tool, simply click the tool on the Tool Palette, move the cursor over the Map area, and click the tiles you want to edit. As you move the cursor across the Map area, the cursor will transform itself, reminding you which tool is active.
Here's a complete list of tools as they appear in order - from left to right, top to bottom:
The Arrow
This tool is a dummy tool; it doesn't do anything. When this tool is selected, all clicks inside the Map area will be ignored.
The Rectangle Selector
This tool lets you select a rectangular area of tiles. This can be used in conjunction with the paint-can tool to limit the area you can fill in. For more information, see the description of the paint-can tool. The Rectangle Selector will not let you select an area made up of only one tile.
In the future, the Rectangle Selector might be used with Cut and Paste operations, allowing you to select areas of certain maps, and paste them into others.
The Eraser
This tool behaves slightly differently, compared to Erasers found in Macintosh graphics programs. Usually the eraser replaces the area it's dragged over with the background color (usu. white). However, the Ult. 3 Scenario Editor has no concept of an empty area, so the Eraser can't rub anything out.
Instead, the eraser reverts individual tiles back to the way they were when they were last saved. It has the effect of erasing recent changes to a map.
The Pencil
Perhaps the most intuitive tool in the Tool Palette, the pencil allows you to draw on the currently open map. It replaces every tile clicked on with the currently selected tile.
The Eye-Dropper
This tool allows you to set the selected tile from the Map, rather than from the Tile Selection Popup Menu. For example, to make grass the currently selected tile type, click on a grass tile with the eye-dropper.
A handy shortcut: While over the map area, you can turn the cursor into the eye-dropper by holding down the option key. So, while drawing, you can change the selected tile type simply by holding down the option key and clicking in the Map, rather than having to go out to the Tile Selection Popup Menu and back.
The Paint-Can
This tool allows you to fill areas with the selected tile type. For example, to turn a moat into a ring of lava, make sure lava is selected in the Tile Selection Popup and click in the water with the paint-can. The fill effect will only fill across tile boundary lines, it will not fill diagonally.
You can further constrain the fill area by using the Rectangle Selector. If an area has been selected, the Fill operation will not cross the selection boundaries. If you click inside the selected area, only the appropriate tiles in that area will be filled; if you click outside of the area, the tiles within the area will remain unchanged.
If this operation isn't done after half a second, the paint-can cursor will turn into a spinning watch cursor. That way you know the computer is honestly working on it, not frozen.
The Text Tool
This tool allows you to draw signs in Ultima III without having to resort to the pencil. When you click on the map using this tool, a 1x1 area will become selected. This is your text cursor. If you type a letter on the keyboard, the tile representing that letter will appear in the cursor, and the cursor will move one tile to the right.
Note that only certain letters are defined in Ultima III. Ultima III does not know how to draw the following letters: J,K,Q,V,X,Z. The Text Tool ignores these keystrokes.
The Monster Edit Tool
This tool looks like a magnifying glass. Unlike other tools, the cursor will not change when it is moved over the map edit region. Instead, the cursor will only change when it is passed over a monster (NOTE: the term "monster" includes all non-player characters, not just the creepy monsters).
When you click a monster with this tool, a Monster edit dialog will appear; from which you can edit the monster's characteristics: X position, Y position, Tile Type, the tile it's standing on, etc. Note that any changes made to the monster's location or icon will not be reflected in the Map; you will also need to edit the map directly. This is rather half-baked, and will change in the future.
Note: In the future, this tool will probably be re-written to be a Tile Info tool, not a Monster info tool. Maybe I'll do that in the next release.
All the other tools in the tool palette are as-of-yet undefined. They will have no effect on your Ultima Map.
The Tile Selection Popup Menu
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You can use the Tile Selection Popup Menu to change your selected tile type. The currently selected tile type is displayed in a box just below the Tool Palette; when drawing or filling, the tile used is the tile in this box.
To change the selected tile, click within the box. A popup menu will appear, allowing you to choose from all of the Ultima III tiles. You can also change the selected tile type using the eye-dropper tool, as described above.
