Object Type Properties (Sprite and Text)

Each object have their own properties. When you click on the object, properties window will appear on your left side screen.

*Sprite properties window (left), text properties window (right).

The different between them is only on their “Properties”. Maybe it will make you confused “So which one is the properties?” The answer is simple, there is an “Object Type Properties”, and we have a “Properties” inside it. I will explain some things you need to know about Object Type Properties.

1. General Information
Name : Is the name of your object.
Plugin : Type of your object.
UID : Unique IDentity, every object have their own UID that can not be changed by user. This number will always be different compared with the same sprite if you have 1 or more copy in the project.
Global : This setting will let you make all object by the same sprite name have the same properties. So, turn it “NO”.

2. Common
Layer : Change object location by layer (upper / lower / middle / somewhere else).
Angle : Angle of your object in degree (xxx°).
Opacity : Transparency of your object.
Position : Position of the object at current layer in pixel. For the best result, use this properties to place your object smoothly.
Size : Size of your object.

3. Properties (Sprite)
Animations : Editing your animation can be access by here or just  right clicking on the object and choose “Edit Animations”.
Size : It will make the image size scale by 1:1 to the layer size
Initial Visibility : You can change the visibility of your object at the beginning and later on “Event Sheet”. But, usually turn it to “Visible”.
Initial Animation : Which “type” of your animation appear for the first time in the layout. (Default is “Default”, you can change it but, not really important for now).
Initial Frame : Which “move” of your animation appear for the first time in the layout. It is not really important if the animation run fast, people will not recognize it.
Collisions : Each object have their own collision point, just turn it to “Enable” for now, you will know the usage later.

4. Properties (Text)
Text : Type your text here.
Initial Visibility : (same as sprite type properties)
Font, color and alignment : (I think it’s already familiar with you).
Hotspot, Wrapping and Line Height : (better not to change this one, keep it default).

5. Instance Variables and Behaviors will explained separately. There is no difference of usage and meaning between sprite and text on these properties. Click on link above for details.

Creating Object (Text and Sprite)

There are so many types of object that contributes in your application. In this tutorial we will try to input “text” and “sprite” objects into our project.

1. Have you ever seen an application without a text? I don’t think so XD . In this first section we are going to input a “text” into our project. Right click on a blank area (no object selected), and see these options below and choose “Insert new object”.

2. A new window will pop up. Like I said before, there are a lot of object type there. One of them is “Text” object type, but I prefer to choose “Sprite” instead of “Text”, why? Because I am going to use unsupported font style. It will impact the result when rendering. If you use unsupported font, a font that you have selected will go back into it’s basic font “Times New Roman”.

You can named your object on “Name when inserted” properties (from picture above). Press “Insert” and click on an empty space where you want to drop the sprite.

3. Another window will pop up after you click “Insert” button.

Import your “text” object by click on an object by red mark from picture above (Load an image from a file). Actually, you can make object directly on this window, but I not recommended you to do that. For the best result,  I use “Adobe Photoshop CS 6”  to create what we called as sprite. Close “Edit image” window and the text sprite will appear on your layout.

4. Repeat step 1 up to 3 in order to insert new object into your layout. To Import another graphical object (It can be another text, sprite, background, button, etc.) No matter what type of object you want to input, as long as you choose “sprite” it will treat it as a sprite.