The Properties – Overview
Clickteam Fusion 2.5 relies heavily on properties. Properties are values, options, strings, numbers etc. needed by every element of the application. The properties are displayed and edited in the property toolbar. The first line of the property toolbar contains tabs, identified by icons : each tab corresponds to a group of properties. Once a property is set its effect is immediate, you can see this effect immediately on the screen. Every element of your application has properties : The application The frame The layers The objects The occurrences of the objects in the Frame If you select several items, only the common properties will be displayed in the Property window.
The Frame Properties
As every object in Clickteam Fusion 2.5, the frame has properties. They are listed in this page : Settings tab The settings folder contains the basic properties of the frame. Size Enter the size of your frame, in pixels. Warning, do not confuse the size of the frame and the size of the application window : the size of the frame is the actual size of the ground where your characters will move. Virtual Width Very useful for huge scrolling games: defines the virtual width of the frame. A large virtual width allows you to scroll on a large surface, larger than the frame itself. If the Wrap option is selected in a layer, the background of this layer will wrap automatically when it reaches the real width of the frame. For example, a frame size of 640×480 and a virtual width of 10000 will enable the player to scroll up to the position 10000 on the right without being stopped. If you enter -1 in this field the scrolling is quasi-infinite. Virtual Height Same as above, vertically. Background color Allows you to choose the background color of the frame. Palette The edit button opens a box to edit the 256-color palette of your frame. This palette is used either if your application is in 256 colors, or when you launch your true-color application under a 256-color Windows : all the colors will be remapped using this color palette. Don’t include at build time [Todo] Transitions Fade In Defines the fade in transition of the frame : the effect used to make the frame appear. Click on the Edit button to open the transition setup box. Fade Out Defines the fade out transition of the frame : the effect used to make the frame disappear. Click on the Edit button to open the transition setup box. Effect Effect The simple effect list of the normal version of Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is replaced by a dialog box that displays standard effects as well as the content of the Effects sub-directory of your Clickteam Fusion 2.5 folder. In Clickteam Fusion 2.5, each effect is represented by a text file that contains pixel shader instructions. Note that these effects are available only in Direct3D mode, the standard software mode can display only standard effects, the ones that are also available in the normal version.In the Effects dialog box, the list contain the following items : None = select this to remove the effect from an object. Standard folder = the standard effects that also work in software mode. Other folders and effects = pixel shaders that work only in Direct3D mode, they depend on the shaders installed on your machine. Visit our web site and/or forum to get more shader packs. with 3 information columns per line : Sw = contains a ‘x’ if the effect works in standard software mode. Hw = contains the minimum version of Direct3D required by the effect (dx8 = can work with Direct3D 8 and Direct3D 9, dx9 works only with Direct3D 9). Ps = minimum version of pixel shaders required by the effect. For example a shader with a Ps 2.0 won’t work on a graphic card that supports only pixel shaders version 1.4. Recent video cards support at least version 2 of pixel shaders. Semi-recent support version 1 only, very old cards don’t support pixel shaders at all. This dialog box also contains 2 other buttons : Refresh Re-loads all the effects from the effect files. To use if you have installed or modified an effect while Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is running. Editor Opens the Effect Editor, which allows you to edit existing effects or create your own effects. Blend Coefficient Unlike software graphic modes of Clickteam Fusion 2.5, in Direct3D mode you can apply a semi-transparency coefficient as well as an effect (in software mode, semi-transparency is an effect like others). This coefficient goes from 0 (no semi-transparency) to 255 (fully transparent). Note: the Blend coefficient is ignored in standard software graphic mode if you have selected an effect other than None or Semi-transparency. RGB Coefficient You can also apply a coefficient to each R,G,B component. In Clickteam Fusion 2.5 you select this parameter as a RGB color value. For example if you select (255,0,0) the green and blue components of each pixel in the image will be set to 0. If you set it to (255,128,128), they will be divided by 2. Note: the RGB coefficient is ignored in standard software graphic mode. Demo recording Demo file Indicates the name of the demo file in which to record the keypresses and mouse movements. Random Generator Seed [Todo] Record demo Launches the frame, recording all the key pressed and mouse movement in the given file. This file can be later replayed with the Play demo file action of the Storyboard object. Include another frame Frame Select a frame to include in this frame when the application is built. Runtime options tab The runtime option folder contains settings used by the runtime for this frame. Grab desktop at start If this option is selected, the background of the frame will be a snapshot of the desktop. You can use this option to make transparent screen-savers. Keep display from previous frame If this option is checked, the background of the frame will be the display left by the previous frame. Handle background collisions even out of window If you make a scrolling game with a large playfield, you might want to check this option : the collisions with the background will be handled even far from the window. Display frame title in window caption Check this option and the frame title will be displayed in the caption area of the window. Resize to screen size at start If this option is selected, the frame will be resized to the size of the screen, for example 1024×768 if your screen is in that resolution. Useful for example for screen savers or for resizable applications. Direct3D: don’t
The Application Properties
The properties of the application are as follow : Settings folder This folder contains all the properties to build the application. Graphics Graphic mode Choose the graphic mode used by your application. 256 colors save a lot of memory, but restrain the number of colors displayed by the application. Build Build Type Indicates the type of application to build when you select Build application from the file menu. Can be a Windows “Stand alone application” (a simple EXE file), a Windows screen saver (a SCR file), a sub-application (.CCN) to use in a sub-application object, or other types of applications (it depends on the modules installed on your machines). Build Filename Enter the name of the file to build. If you do not enter anything, the name of the application is used and the required extension is added (SCR, EXE, CCN, JAR, etc). Show deprecated build types [Todo] Build Options Compression level Choose between Normal and Maximum. Maximum might be a little slower to build. Compress sounds Use this option to gain space in your built application. If this option is selected, the uncompressed WAV samples of your application will be compressed to ADPCM format, reducing their size by 2 or 4. Display build warnings messages Uncheck this option if you want to hide the warning messages that are displayed when you build an application that contains events or objects that are incompatible with the build type. Compress the runtime By default, the runtime is compressed and extracted to a temporary folder when the stand-alone application starts. This can cause problems with applications that access the Internet, especially if a firewall is installed on the machine. For such an application, unselect this option so that the runtime is not compressed and always keeps the same pathname when you run it. Note: uncompressing the runtime will add about 300 Kb to the size of the stand-alone application. Run options Command line Enter here the options you wish to pass to the application when you run it from the editor. You can use the standard Clickteam Fusion 2.5 options like /NOF to prevent the application to switch to full screen, /DIB to force the application to use the standard graphic mode, etc. Of course these options won’t be saved in the stand-alone applications, they are only used when you run your application from the editor. Enable Debugger Shortcuts Allows you to enable the keyboard shortcuts of the debugger. Unselect this option if the debugger shortcuts conflict with yours. Show Debugger Allows you to show or hide the debugger. Crash: display last event line Select this option to display the number of the last executed event line when a crash happens (editor runtime only). Profiler Enable profiling [Todo] Start profiling at start of frame [Todo] Profile top-level condition only [Todo] Record slowest app loops [Todo] Optimizations Optimize events [Todo] Optimize image size in RAM [Todo] Optimize ‘Play Sample’ [Todo] Build cache [Todo] Window folder This folder contains the properties of the window in which the application is displayed. Size Enter the size of the application window. You can choose between preset sizes or enter your own. Warning, do not confuse the size of the window with the size of the frame! Border color Enter the color of the border drawn around the frame if the frame does not fill the window entirely. Style Heading Check this option and a title bar will be displayed on the top of the window. Heading when maximized Check this option to maintain a title bar when the application window is maximized Right-to-left reading [Todo] Right-to-left layout [Todo] Disable Close button Check this option and the close button of the window will not work. Warning, your application must contain a way out! No Minimize box Check this option to disable the minimize box. No Maximize box Check this option to disable the maximize box. No Thick frame Check this option and the application window will be drawn with a thin line instead of a thick line. If this option is selected, the window won’t be resizable. Maximized on boot-up Check this option and the application will be maximized on boot-up. Hidden at start Check this option and the application will be hidden on boot-up. Menu Menu bar Check this option to include a menu in the application. A click on the edit button opens the Menu editor. Menu displayed on boot-up If this option is checked, the menu bar is displayed in the window when the application starts. Window menu index (MDI) Used when creating a MDI application. Indicates the index of the menu where the list of MDI child windows is inserted. Full screen Change Resolution Mode When running the application, the resolution mode of the computer will change to match as best as possible the size of the window. For example, if your window is 640×480, the resolution mode will change to 640×480. Use this option to create full screen applications. Allow user to switch to/from full screen If this option is selected, the menu of the application will contain an entry to allow the user to switch between full screen mode and windowed mode. Keep screen ratio In full screen mode, the resolution mode of the computer will change to match as best as possible both the size of the window and the width/height ratio of the current screen. This option avoids your application window to get distorted on wide screens. Screen ratio tolerance (%) This option allows you to define a tolerance for the “Keep screen ratio” option. This tolerance is a percentage of the current screen ratio. It allows you to switch to a screen resolution close to the window size of the application even if its width/height ratio is not strictly identical to the current screen ratio. Quick example : Suppose that the current resolution of the user’s machine is 1440×900 (ratio = 1440/900 = 1.6), the window size of your application is 640×400 (ratio = 1.6) and the full screen
