MapEd v0.98 Quick Start
Coding:  _Nessie_ (Jeff Dischler)
Contact:  gba_dev@yahoo.com

Donations  - If you use the tool and would like to see more features and fixes continue, perhaps consider making a donation.  Naturally, any donations are 100% voluntary and of course, are not a substitute for obtaining a proper commercial license if the tool is being used to develop a commercial product.  Credit card based PayPal donations will probably be denied on my end as I don’t want to have to upgrade the account to a Premiere Account.  The MapEd site has a donation button that can be used to make a donation.

End-User Agreement - MapEd is free for non-commercial use.  The current version is pre-beta and I can’t guarantee that it will fully work for you.  As such, the MapEd tool is released “as-is” with no user warranty and no support.  By using this tool you agree to the conditions listed herein.  

Basic Map Building in 14 Steps

1) Create a new map – File -> New Map Wizard OR Ctrl+N
Just use the defaults for now, except unclick ‘Has Collision Layer’.  

Collision layers are not supported by GBA hardware.  Your program must interpret the collision data and respond accordingly if you need collision support.

2) Enable Map Grid – Press ‘G’
If you do not see a grid in the MapView workspace window, toggle it ‘on’.
If you don’t like hotkeys, right click in the workspace window:  Visual Aids->Grid.

3) Get Some Tiles – The samples.zip in the MapEd download contains some tiles you can use.  Extract them to a location you can remember.  

Supported formats are 256 colour PCX and BMP and 16 colour BMP.  BMP formats must be uncompressed.

MapEd supports GBA 16 colour tile mode.  Colour 0 of your tiles is interpreted as the transparent colour.  As is, colour 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, etc.

4) Load a Tileset – File -> Open Tilesets OR Ctrl+T
If you extracted the tiles in step 3, browse to that location and select a tileset to use.  You can select multiple tilesets by Shift+clicking on each file to add to the load list.  Click ‘Open’

5) View Tilesets – View -> Toggle Map/Tile View OR Press ‘Space’
We have just switched from MapView to TileView.  All loaded tilesets display across the top of the workspace window.  Click on a tileset name to switch to that tileset.  

Ignore the collisionTileset for now as they can only be used on a collision layer.

6) Enable Tile Grid – Press ‘G’
If you do not see a grid in the TileView workspace window, toggle it ‘on’.
If you don’t like hotkeys, right click in the workspace window:  Grid.

7) TileView Zoom – Press ‘1’-’9’ & ‘0’
The numeric keypad is used for something else, so use the numbers at the top of the keyboard.  This provides instant zoom from 1x to 10x.
If you don’t like hotkeys, right click in the workspace window:  Zoom->1x, 2x,. etc.

There currently is no way to scroll TileView.  This limitation will be fixed in a future version of MapEd.

8) Make a Brush  - Slow but Precise
Move to the tile(s) you would like to select, then left mouse click.  Left click, hold, and drag to select multiple tiles.  

If you want to add additional tiles to an existing selection, hold Shift+Left click
If you want to subtract tiles from an existing selection, hold Ctrl+Left click

9) Make a Brush  - Faster but Less Precise
Move to the block of tiles you would like to select, then middle mouse click, hold, drag to create a block selection.  Release middle mouse button.

If you want to add additional tiles to an existing selection, hold Shift+Middle click
If you want to subtract tiles from an existing selection, hold Ctrl+Middle click

10) Trimming a Brush  - Press ‘T’
Brush ‘trimming’ strips any transparent tiles from the current brush selection.

Depending on how your tiles are set up, quick trimming may or may not be a useful feature.  It works in both MapView and TileView.

11) Drawing on the Map
Switch to MapView by Pressing ‘Space’. If you have a brush selected, you should see it following the cursor.

Left click on the map grid to draw that brush.  
Left click and drag to make a brush stroke.  This is not overly useful, so Step 15 will offer an alternative.

12) Flipping Tiles- Press ‘H’ & ‘V’
The GBA supports Horizontal and Vertical tile flipping, you’ll probably use this a fair amount, so learn the hotkeys.

If you don’t like hotkeys, learn them anyway, but flipping them from a menu is also possible.  Right click, Brush Options->Flip Horizontal, etc.  

One use for the menu version is that you can see what the H & V flipping status currently are in the editor.

13) Map Scrolling
Middle mouse click and the cursor changes to a ‘hand’, grabbing the map.  Moving the mouse will pull the map around.

The numeric keypad, keys 1-9, will also scroll in 8 cardinal directions.

Scrolling happens at a 1:1 ratio for the active layer parallax.  If it didn’t work this way, scrolling a layer with a parallax of 0.1 would be painfully slow…moving at 10% of the normal scroll speed.
 
14) MapView Zoom – Press ‘1’-’9’ & ‘0’
The numeric keypad is used for something else, so use the numbers at the top of the keyboard.  This provides instant zoom from 1x to 10x.
If you don’t like hotkeys, right click in the workspace window:  Zoom->1x, 2x,. etc.

Intermediate Features

Additional Brush/Painting Options

15) Tiling Drawing on the Map
If you have a brush selected, you should see it following the cursor.

Press and hold both Shift+Control…the mouse cursor should change.  As you hold and scroll (without mouse clicking), you should see your brush selection ‘Tiling’. 
Left click in ‘Tiling’ mode and drag to make a brush stroke.

The location where you press Shift+Control to activate the mode determines, the ‘Tiling’ base.

18) Fast Brush Clear – Press ‘Esc’
If you don’t want a brush following you around in MapView, clearing the brush is one way to stop that.

17) Switching Brushes in MapView – Press ‘<’ & ‘>’
If you haven’t already noticed, mapEd allows a separate brush selection for each loaded tileset.  This means you can potentially create multiple brushes in TileView and then cycle through them in MapView.

Cycling through the brushes in TileView will cycle through viewing each tileset.

18) Directional Paint Locking
Making perfectly vertical or horizontal brush strokes is easy.

UpArrow toggles vertical paint mode.
LeftArrow or RightArrow toggles horizontal paint mode.
DownArrow disables paint locking.

If you don’t like hotkeys, Right click in MapView, Paint Locking -> etc…

Editing Multiple Layers

19) Add a Layer to the Map – Layers -> Add New Layer…
Make sure you are in MapView, then add your layer.

Change the parallax value to 0.5 to create a new layer that moves half as fast as the existing layer.  Otherwise accept the defaults and click ‘Ok’.

A new ‘Tab’ will display on the right side of the screen.

20) Selecting the Active Draw Layer
Drawing always happens on the Active layer.  Click a layer in the MapView layer tabs section.  The layer name will change to red when it is active.

PageUp and PageDown will cycle through all layers in the current map if you prefer hotkeys.

21) Layer Options
Each layer tab has a set of icons that can be clicked to toggle the state of that option.  

Eye – toggle layer visibility (Ctrl+V).  Invisible layers are auto-locked and cannot be drawn on.

Overlapped Boxes – toggle layer alpha (Ctrl+A).  Edit tool that allows you to see through a layer, but not completely hide it.

Padlock – toggles layer locking (Ctrl+L).  Locked layers cannot be drawn on.  Invisible layers are auto-locked.  If you have a brush on a locked layer, the brush will draw red showing that it cannot be used.

22) Change Layer Name
Double Click on a layer tab in MapView to access the Layer Properties page.  Make the desired name changes, then click ‘Ok’ 

Accessing the Layer Properties page is also possible from the MapEd Layer menu.  Layers->Active Layer Properties.

23) Quick GBA ‘Preview’ – Press ‘F’
This mode toggles a screen overlay ‘mask’ that is sized to the GBA screen dimensions (240x160).  This can be quite useful for getting a good idea of how your layers will look cropped to the GBA screen.

If you don’t like hotkeys, right click:  Visual Aids->GBA Frame Mask

Advanced Features

Rubber Stamp Mode

23) Enable Rubber Stamp Mode – Press ‘F2’  
Rubber Stamp mode allows turning part of a map layer into a brush for painting.  To use it, we have to enable it first, so do that now, the cursor should change.  ..and switch to MapView if you aren’t there already.

Rubber Stamp mode is also available from the toolbar.

24) Create a Rubber Stamp Brush  
Make the layer you would like to copy from Active.  Then press and hold Shift. Unless you’ve changed the Auto-Hide properties in the Layer Menu, every layer except the Active layer should Auto-Hide so you can make a selection..

Holding Shift, middle mouse click and drag to create a rectangular brush selection.
Holding Shift, left mouse click and drag to add individual tiles to the selection.
Holding Control, middle mouse click and drag to subtract a rectangular brush selection.
Holding Control, left mouse click and drag to subtract individual tiles to the selection.

Releasing Shift and Control returns all layers to their current visibility settings and you should have a brush following your cursor.

At any point, you can go back and alter the brush selection.  And like any brush, it can be ‘T’rimmed… and Esc quick clears the selection..

25) Painting with a Rubber Stamp Brush  
Painting with the Rubber Stamp is basically identical to any other brush painting.  So, Tiling painting is possible…see step 15.

26) Exiting Rubber Stamp Mode  - Press ‘F1’
To get back to regular paint mode,  either use the hotkey or select it from the toolbar.

Advanced Layer Manipulations

27) Resizing a Layer – Starting the resize operation
A layer can be resized at any time in MapEd.  Make the layer you would like to resize the ‘Active’ layer, then use the MapEd Layer menu:  Layers->Resize Active Layer… 

Layer resizing can also be accessed by Double Clicking a layer tab in MapView to view the properties of the tab, then click ‘Resize’… OR access it from the MapEd toolbar.

28) Resizing a Layer – Specify a new size
Once you’ve accessed the resize mode, you’ll have one of two ways to resize your map, depending on the type of layer.

Primary (explicitly sized layer) – Enter the new height and width.
Secondary (size is a ratio of Primary layer size ) – Enter a new parallax value.

Resizing a Primary Layer triggers a resize of every other layer in your project!
Resizing to a smaller size will cause irreversible cropping!

29) Resizing a Layer – Map Anchor
You can exert some control over what data gets cropped (if making the layer smaller) or where the empty space will be padded (if making the layer larger) by using Map Anchor in the Resize Layer page.

I think of it like this:

The 9 Map Anchor buttons have a rectangular image stamped on them.  Each button touches 0, 1, or 2 edges on the stamped image.  

The center button touches 0 edges…middle buttons on the top, bottom, and sides all touch 1 edge…and the corner buttons touch 2 edges.

When the resize operation happens, it is allowed to grow or shrink in the direction of any untouched edges.

If I anchor to center (default), the newly created layer will also have the data centered, meaning that cropping or padding will happen around all 4 edges because the center anchor button touched 0 edges.

If I anchor to the Top Left corner, the newly created layer is only free to expand or shrink on the other 2 edges, the Right and Bottom.

If I anchor only to the Top edge, the newly created layer is free to expand or shrink on all other 3 edges…Left, Right, and Bottom.

30) Other Layer Operations
There are some other layer manipulation options in the MapEd Layer menu.  I’ll leave those as an exercise for the reader to explore, but I’ll list the other options available.

Delete – deletes the currently active layer from the MapEd project
Clone – duplicates the currently active layer, adding the copy to the project.
Shift – allows you to move the contents of whole layers around, with crop or wrap mode.
Flip ( H or V ) – allows flipping the contents of whole layers.

Shuffle Layer – allows changing the draw order of layers in the project.

Coding:  _Nessie_ (Jeff Dischler)
Contact:  gba_dev@yahoo.com