WorldEditor - JakeJamesDev/formamorph GitHub Wiki

🛠️ World Editor

A guide to each tab in the World Editor: what it does, why it exists, and the settings that aren't clear from the screen.

On desktop, pick a tab from the rail on the left side of the list. Overview stands alone at the top. Lines split Entities, Locations, Traits and Stats from Dictionary and Placeholders.

Select Collapse at the foot of the rail to show only icons. Point at an icon to see its tab's name. The editor remembers your choice on this device.
When the list is narrow, in a small window or after you drag the divider, the rail shows only icons until there's room again.
While the Test Bench is in the list's place, the rail's tabs are unavailable.

On desktop, the bar at the top of the editor holds the controls that act on the whole world:

Where	What
Left	The back arrow, World Editor, and the world's name
Center	The Search World box
Right	The Undo, Redo and History controls, the mode select, Optimize Images (Advanced mode only), the Test Bench, and Save

Save has an arrow beside it. Select the arrow to open a menu with Export World and the Autosave checkbox, in both modes. The arrow works when Save is dim. In Advanced mode, Optimize Images is an icon button. It shows a spinner while it runs, and its tooltip shows the progress. The footer under the list holds only the tab's own actions, on Entities and Dictionary.

On mobile, the header holds the back arrow and the mode select. At the right are History, the Test Bench and Find and replace. Select Sections under the header to pick a tab. The list has the rail's order and lines: Overview alone, then Entities, Locations, Traits and Stats, then Dictionary and Placeholders. The footer holds Save to Library on Entities and Dictionary. At its right are Optimize Images (Advanced mode only) and the Save icon with its arrow. The arrow opens Export World and Autosave.

Each tab has its own page.

Page	Covers
🌍 Overview	The world's name, card, avatar, music and AI-facing text
🎬 Openings	The ways a playthrough can start, on the world, each location and each entity
📊 Stats	The numbers that describe the player
🎭 Entities	The people, creatures and things in your world
🗺️ Locations	The places, and how the story moves between them
🧬 Traits	The choices a player makes before the story starts
📖 Dictionary	Lore that reaches the AI only when a keyword brings it up
🧩 Placeholders	Reusable text that can change with each playthrough

To check a world before you play it, see 🧪 Test Bench.

How to Switch Editor Mode

Open a world in the World Editor.
On desktop, open the mode select in the bar at the top and pick Simple or Advanced. On mobile, select Simple or Advanced in the header.

The app remembers your pick for every world. You can't switch while the Authoring Tour runs.

How to Find and Replace Text

On desktop, type in the Search World box at the top of the editor, or press Ctrl+F to go to it. On mobile, select the magnifier button in the header.
Select Next match or Previous match to go through the results. The editor opens each one on its tab.
To narrow the search or to replace, select Show options and replace at the end of the box, or press Ctrl+H. On mobile, open the replace row.
Select Match case or Match whole word to narrow the search. Type the new text in the Replace box.
Select Replace for this match, or Replace all for every match.

How to Restart the Authoring Tour

Open Settings, then select the Data tab.
Under Authoring, select Start Authoring Tour.

The tour opens the World Editor on a new world. Your other worlds don't change.

How to Save or Discard Your Changes

Select the back arrow at the top left of the editor.
In the Unsaved changes dialog, select Save & Exit to keep your changes. Select Exit Without Saving to discard them.

To save and stay in the editor, select Save. On desktop it's at the right end of the bar at the top. On mobile it's at the bottom right. You can also press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac).

How to Undo and Redo

Press Ctrl+Z to undo your last edit.
Press Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z to redo it.

On a Mac, use Cmd in place of Ctrl.

You can also use the buttons. On desktop, select Undo or Redo in the bar at the top. On mobile, select History in the header, then select Undo or Redo.

To go back more than one edit, open the list. On desktop, select the arrow beside Redo. On mobile, select History. Then select a row. The editor moves your world to that point.

Undo, Redo and History

Every change you make to your world is a Step. The editor keeps your last 100 Steps for the world you have open.

What makes one Step

A run of typing in one field is one Step. A pause of one second ends it.
A drag is one Step from press to release. This covers boxes on the Locations Canvas, sliders and color pickers.
A change that touches several things is one Step. Removing a trait and its Links is one Step. So is Optimize Images.
A reorder is one Step.

What undo brings back

Undo covers every list in the world and the settings on the Overview tab. It also covers the images, thumbnails, 3D models and music you add or remove. An undone removal puts the item back in its old place in the list. An edit you made to another item since then is kept.

After an undo or redo, the editor opens the tab of the item it changed and selects the item. If the item is gone, the tab clears its selection. A Connection opens the Locations tab. A setting opens the Overview tab.

The History list

The list shows your edits from oldest to newest.

World opened is always the first row. Select it to return to the world as you loaded it.
Each row names the action, the type, the item and the field, such as Edit Stat Hunger: Description or Remove Location Docks.
Now marks the current Step.
Undone Steps show dimmed below it. Select one to redo up to that Step.
Saved marks the Step you last saved.

An edit after an undo erases the undone Steps. The list never branches.

Saving and history

Save keeps your history. You can undo past the last save. The world then counts as unsaved again, and Save turns on. Undo back to the saved point, and Save turns off.

An autosave doesn't move Saved and doesn't split a Step. Text you type across an autosave still undoes in one step.

Text fields

In a prompt field, Ctrl+Z undoes your typing in that field first. When the field has nothing left to undo, the next press undoes the world. A record's name is a prompt field too.

Some fields that hold world data are plain boxes, such as number boxes and the world's name and author. In these, Ctrl+Z undoes through the world. The field and the list then show the same text. In a filter box or Search World, Ctrl+Z works as it does in any browser box. While you compose text with an input method editor, the editor ignores Ctrl+Z.

When undo is off

The editor ignores Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y while a dialog is open over it.
While the Authoring Tour runs, the editor records your edits. Undo, Redo and History are off until the tour ends.

What undo does not cover

Editor preferences: snap, grid, pane widths, the rail, the mode and your selection.
Edits in the library's entity and dictionary editors.

History works while the editor is open during play. It clears when you close the editor or open another world.

Editor Modes

The World Editor has two modes. Simple is the default.

Simple shows the fields a new world needs. It hides the Placeholders tab, the placeholder bar and Optimize Images.
Advanced shows every field.

Simple mode also hides these panel tabs:

Panel	Hidden tabs
Entity	Traits, Placeholders, Openings
Location	Pins, Openings
Stat	Descriptors, Code
Trait	Pins
Dictionary entry	Matching
Dictionary book	Placeholders

Each tab's page says which of its fields Simple mode hides. When a world uses a field Simple mode hides, a dot shows on the mode control.

Switching to Simple mode doesn't remove anything. The hidden fields keep their values, and the AI still reads them.

Find and Replace

A search covers the whole world, on every tab the current mode shows. It matches chips by their label, name or values.

Enter goes to the next match. Shift+Enter goes to the previous one. Esc clears the search, or closes the bar on mobile.
On desktop, Show options and replace opens the full bar over the top of the editor. Collapse to search folds it back and keeps your search. Close Search clears your search and folds the bar back.
Select the X button in a box to empty it and keep typing.
Match case and Match whole word stay on when you fold the bar back. An icon in the box shows each one that's on. Select it to open the options.
Replace all asks first, and says how many matches and fields it changes.
A chip can't be replaced as text. Change it in its Chip Options.
A field that can't hold a chip is skipped when you replace text with a placeholder.

In Advanced mode, the replace row can put a placeholder chip in place of text. Select the swap button, then pick a placeholder in Choose Placeholder.

To undo a replace, pick an earlier row in History.

The Authoring Tour

The Authoring Tour builds a new world with you, one field at a time. It runs in Simple mode.

The tour first shows as an offer: Take the Authoring Tour? Select Start Tour or No Thanks.

Each step points at one field. Fill it, or select Use Example, then select Next. Next waits until the field has a value. On desktop, the In Game pane shows where the field appears in the game and what each prompt reads from it.

The tour goes through the tabs in order: Overview, Locations, Entities, Stats, Traits and Dictionary. Its last steps show the mode control and the Test Bench. Then select Finish, or Play to enter your world.

Each Next saves the world.
End Tour in the tour bar stops the tour. Back to Tour returns you to the current step.
If you delete an item the tour made, the tour goes back to the step that made it.

Saving and Discarding

With Autosave on, the editor saves your world by itself:

After about 300 characters of typing, or about 30 actions such as a toggle, an add or a delete.
After a pause with no edit, when any change is not saved. The pause is 30 seconds by default. To change it, use Autosave Pause in Settings. The pause can be 10 seconds to 5 minutes.

Save and Ctrl+S still save at once. A new world isn't stored until you save it once yourself. After that, it autosaves too. A world that comes with Formamorph also waits for one save by you. Until then, it keeps getting the updates that come with the app. Autosave waits while the Authoring Tour runs, because each Next saves the world.

Autosave is on by default and applies to every world. To turn it off, select the arrow beside Save, then clear Autosave. You can also clear Autosave under Authoring in Settings. With it off, your edits stay in the editor until you select Save.

If an autosave fails, a message says why and Save shows Failed. Autosave then stops until a save that you start works.

On desktop, Save in the bar at the top is on when you have changes to save and off when you don't.

Save shows how a save goes:

Save shows	Meaning
⏳ Saving…	The save is running.
✅ Saved	The save worked. After about 2 seconds, Save turns dim again.
⚠️ Failed, in red	The save didn't work. A message says why. Select Failed to try again. It stays until a save works.

On mobile, the Save icon changes the same way, without the words.

When you leave with unsaved changes, the Unsaved changes dialog asks what to do:

Save & Exit saves, then closes the editor.
Exit Without Saving discards every change since the last save.
Cancel keeps you in the editor.

Editing in Two Tabs

When you save a world in one browser tab, every other tab with that world open in the editor stops auto saving. The World Saved in Another Tab dialog asks which copy to keep. A tab where you play that world, or picked it on the Main Menu, asks when you open the editor.

Reload opens the other tab's save. It discards your unsaved changes in this tab, and History starts over.
Keep Mine keeps this tab's copy and turns autosave back on. Your next save replaces the other tab's copy.

A save that you start in this tab counts as Keep Mine once it works. Only one tab should edit a world, so close the other tab when you're done.

When another tab deletes the world, the World Deleted in Another Tab dialog asks instead:

Keep Mine saves this tab's copy back to your library.
Close leaves the editor. It discards your unsaved changes in this tab.

Help Buttons

Some sections have a ? button beside their name, such as Aliases and Dynamic Value Calculation. It opens a short help window for that section. Learn more opens the full page.

A ? you haven't opened yet shows in the accent color.

Overview

The world's own tab: its name, description, thumbnail and the AI-facing text that frames every turn.

➡️ World Editor: Overview

Openings

An opening is one way a playthrough can start. The world, each location and each entity can have their own. A playable entity can have Self openings for a player who plays it.

➡️ World Editor: Openings