This lesson is a tour of the program's interface so you can start creating or installing mods as soon as possible. Think of it as a reference, you don't need to memorise it, just come back whenever a later lesson mentions a button or window you're unsure about.

This window will tell you everything AnvilToolkit is doing, including when something goes wrong.
When unpacking or repacking files, you should wait for the console to display a message saying the unpack/repack process was successful.

This element contains all of the currently loaded game entries, to open the Game Explorer, double click on one of the entries.
If you add more than 10 items, you can scroll down to see the rest of the added entries.

Clicking this will open the Game Editor for the selected Game Entry.

This will add a blank Game Entry and open the Game Editor for it.

As the name suggests, this will open the Settings window.
If you plan on creating mods using the toolkit, it is recommended to enter your name or nickname in the "User nickname" field, as it is used in the data file signing.

This button opens a pop-up menu containing additional utilities the toolkit has.
Currently the utilities are: "Hash Converter" and "Export FGFL". However, there will probably be more utilies added in the future.
The Hash Converter can be used to hash any string using various different algorithms, or to access the toolkit's hash database, which can turn a numerical value into its original string, granted the toolkit has that numerical value in its database.
The Export FGFL utility serves for exporting FGFL files, which can be found here, into human readable text files. These text files can then be used to find files and their duplicates in the game by just simply searching by the file ID.

As the name suggests, this opens a window containing the information about the program and a special thanks section.

Provides basic presets to fill the rest of the values with default ones.

This is the name of the entry, which will apear under the image in the Game Selector.

This field contains the path to the executable of the game you are planning on editing, to change the path, click on the three dots next to the text box and navigate to the game directory, then double click on the executable file.

This field contains the path to the icon that will appear on the Game Entry in the Game Selector, to edit the path, click on the three dots next to the text box and navigate to the directory containing the desired image, then double click on the image.

This allows you to visualise the icon as it will appear in the Game Selector.

Searches the folder for the specified text, same as Windows Explorer search. To search for mutiple terms, separate each term with an asterisk (*).

Same folder navigation functionality as Windows Explorer.

Reopens the Game Selector window.

Opens the game directory in Windows Explorer.

Runs the executable you have specified in the Game Entry.

As the name suggests, this will open the Settings window.
If you plan on creating mods using the toolkit, it is recommended to enter your name or nickname in the "User nickname" field, as it is used in the data file signing.

This button opens a pop-up menu containing additional utilities the toolkit has.
Currently the utilities are: "Hash Converter" and "Export FGFL". However, there will probably be more utilies added in the future.
The Hash Converter can be used to hash any string using various different algorithms, or to access the toolkit's hash database, which can turn a numerical value into its original string, granted the toolkit has that numerical value in its database.
The Export FGFL utility serves for exporting FGFL files, which can be found here, into human readable text files. These text files can then be used to find files and their duplicates in the game by just simply searching by the file ID.

As the name suggests, this opens a window containing the information about the program and a special thanks section.

Closes the entire program.

Contains file specific actions and some basic file manipulation actions.

Contains all information about the currently selected file or folder.

Displays a set of buttons, each corresponding to an action which can be executed on the selected file or folder.
The exact buttons change depending on what you have selected:

• Forge / Data files show Unpack and Repack.
• Most game files (BuildTables, EntityBuilders, AnimSets, materials, tables, and many more) show Export and Import, this converts the file to an editable XML and back again. This is the workflow used all through Lessons 3-5.
• Texture files open the Texture Viewer; Mesh files open the Mesh Viewer.

When you export a file to XML, AnvilToolkit can write it in one of two formats:

• Standard - friendly, human-readable tag names. The default for older games (AC2 through Syndicate) and for a limited set of file types only.
• Schema-Based - mirrors the engine's internal structure. The only option for Origins and newer, and also available for older games for other file types.

To reveal the alternate format, hold Shift while right-clicking a file, an extra "Schema based export" (or "Standard XML export") entry appears in the context menu. Both contain the same data, they just look different. You'll see this distinction referenced in the later lessons and in the BuildTable deep-dive.