RealWorld Icon Editor 2006.1 - User Guide and FAQ

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Creating New Documents

New documents are created using document prototypes in an empty window of the application. To view available templates, switch to the correct section using the 'Create New' button. If there is no empty window, open a new window using the main menu (File->New) or toolbar.

Double-click a template to create new document. In some cases, additional information must be specified before the document is created.

Application allows adding custom prototypes. All files placed in directory %APPDATA%\RealWorld\RWIconEditor\Templates (typically C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\RealWorld\RWIconEditor\Templates) will be displayed on this page. You may for example prepare an empty image in desired file format, color depth and size, with given background and then use it to quickly create new files.

Opening Documents

There are several ways to open a file in RealWorld Icon Editor.

• Opening a recently used file
  
  Switch to a 'Recent Files section' in any empty window and double click an item in the list or select the item in File menu. The 16 recently used files are listed here. For each of these files, name of the last used window layout is remembered and will it will be used again.
  
  
• Opening from command line
  
  To open a file from command line run RWIconEditor.exe with the name of the file to open as the first argument. Be sure to specify full path to RWIconEditor.exe.
  
  
• Opening from a file manager
  
  You can drag and drop a file from a file manager to any RealWorld Icon Editor window. If the window was empty, the document is opened in the target window, otherwise it is opened in a new window. In some cases the drag and drop operation may have special meaning, for example when dropping an image file on raster image editor it is pasted as a new selection into the current image. To avoid these issues, it is best drop a file on the caption of a window.
  
  
• Opening from RealWorld GUI
  
  Switch to the 'Open File' section in any empty window. If there are no empty windows, click File->Open or the toolbar button.

Saving Documents

To save a document click File->Save or a toolbar button. Note that some document types do not support saving (currently, you cannot save a 3D Studio file).

The lower part of the dialog may contain additional saving options. Select a property in the left box, then set its value using the control next to it (type of control depends on property type). The available properties may change as you modify their values. If for example you switch to JPEG image format, a "Compression" property becomes visible.

Configuring Application Options

To configure application options click Tools->Options from main menu.

The main application supports two languages, English and Czech. But because RealWorld Designer is an open and configurable system, there may be third-party components or layouts that support different languages. You may select any language preference you have, the components will fallback to English if the selected language is unavailable.

Using Undo mode options allows you to force all documents to use selected undo behavior. Each document type uses its default undo mode (usually Multiple undo steps), but you can override the default by selecting an undo mode here. You can conserve memory by disabling or limiting undo to one step or do the opposite by allowing all operations to be undone.

The Start page option controls what page is visible when new application window opens.

Understanding View States

What is a view state and why should you care?

Views (parts of the main window) in RealWorld Designer communicate using view states. Undestanding this mechanism helps you to work more efficiently in complicated situations. View states are used for example to synchronize selection between different views. When a grip point is selected in the 3D view, this view modifies defined state. Other views are notified about the change and update their selection and for example select the item in tree.

Some view states are lost when a window is closed, some are remembered for recently used files. View states are not shared among different application windows. Beside its main purpose (selection synchronization), view states are also used for color and edit tool synchronization in raster editor, camera position in scene browser, and toolbar visibility. Document operations can also access view states.

When configuring a custom layout, it is necessary to configure the view states correctly. Otherwise the usability of the layout will be limited. To synchronize two or more views, set their synchronization group ID to the same value. There usually is a reasonable default value, but since the views are relatively independent, it is not always possible to use the default. Be sure to check the configuration yourself.



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