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Editor Tools

Use the Editor Tools to switch between Select, Add, Erase, Collision, and Color Drawing modes.

By default, your project's properties are shown in the Editor Sidebar on the right. Here you can set the project name and choose the starting scene.

To look at project properties again from the Editor Sidebar, click on any empty space between scenes.

Select tool

Clicking any scenes, actors, or triggers will update the Editor Sidebar to show the properties and scripts for the item you selected. You can switch back to the Project's properties by clicking outside of a scene.

Scene Multi-Select

If you hold Shift while clicking on scenes you can add and remove them from your selection. This allows you to drag multiple scenes together or right click to delete multiple at once. You can also hold Shift while dragging to create a box selection.

Scene box selection

Multi-Select Actors & Triggers

You can select multiple actors and triggers within a single scene:

  • Ctrl/Cmd + Click — Add or remove individual actors/triggers from the selection.
  • Shift + Drag — Draw a selection rectangle to select all actors and triggers it intersects.
  • Ctrl/Cmd + A — Select all actors and triggers in the focused scene.
Multi-selecting actors with Shift+drag

With multiple entities selected you can:

  • Drag any selected entity to move all of them together, maintaining relative positions.
  • Shift + Arrow keys — Move all selected entities by one tile.
  • Delete — Remove all selected entities at once.
  • Ctrl/Cmd + C — Copy all selected entities.
  • Right-click — Choose "Delete Selected (N)" to delete the group.

Selected actors show a dashed purple border, and selected triggers show a dashed orange border.

Add tool

You are given the choice of adding a new Actor, Trigger or Scene. After clicking any of the 3 options, your mouse cursor will be loaded with a new item. You can place the new item by clicking inside the Project Editor, and cancel the action by pressing Escape or selecting another tool from Editor Tools.

Erase tool

All collisions, actors, and triggers will be removed when clicked. Erase actions can be undone by pressing Ctrl / Cmd + Z.

Scenes are not affected by Erase mode. To delete a scene either:

  • Select the scene in Select mode then in the Editor Sidebar click the down arrow at the top and choose the "Delete Scene" menu item.
  • Select the scene and press the Backspace key on your keyboard.
  • Right click on the scene and click "Delete Scene" from the menu.

Collision tool

Allows you to add collisions to any type of scene using MD Engine's Drawing mode.

Palettes & Priorities tool

Allows you to change the priority or palette in your scene. The Palettes & Priorities tool also uses MD Engine's Drawing mode.

Tile Grid

The Tile Grid overlay displays a semi-transparent grid on the selected scene, helping you align actors, triggers, and collision tiles to the hardware tile boundaries.

To enable it, go to View > Show > Tile Grid and choose a grid size:

  • 8x8 — Shows individual hardware tile boundaries.
  • 16x16 — Shows metatile/block boundaries (useful for collision alignment).
  • None — Disables the grid (default).
Tile Grid 8x8 overlay on a scene

The grid appears only on the currently selected scene and does not affect gameplay or exports.

See the documentation on Keyboard Shortcuts for editor tool shortcuts.