A long while ago, I started tinkering with a way to visually edit XNA Framework game components in Visual Studio. I later put the project’s source code on Codeplex, but it wasn’t really suited to use as a product. It was just a bunch of code, and without confusing manual set up, you couldn’t even use it for anything. Later still, I rewrote my component model and developed an SDK for it. Then everything stalled as I tried to figure out what to do with it.
I spent some time figuring out whether it was okay for me to release my updated source code under an open source license. Later, I tried to decide whether I even wanted to release it that way. After a while, I stopped thinking about it and forgot all about it. That was like six months ago. So yesterday I decided to get off my ass and submitted all my changes and new source code to Codeplex, and put the SDK installer up on its release page.
Download the release here: Ferpect SDK Beta 1
The release is more or less a demo. I’ve personally started making a couple games with it for testing purposes, but I don’t recommend it for that purpose yet. There are still a lot of experiments and unfinished classes in there, and the rest may not be well tested. Still, for the motivated tools developers out there who might be interested (probably less than six of you in all), the source code demonstrates how to create an integrated design view for game components. For the rest of you, it still might be neat to play with.
For me, the highlight is the WYSIWYG design view of Screen classes, particularly the ability to position, scale, rotate, and anchor sprites. Anchoring is probably my favorite feature, since it allows you to create a HUD that renders correctly independently of the viewport dimensions (good for resizable windows, cross-platform, or split-screen games). I also think the Color property editor demonstrates a good start – allowing you to see the color as you modify it – but it’s missing support for named colors.
Please refer to the documentation for details on how to use the SDK. Since the documentation is wiki-style, it appears as I write it. I decided to post the release first, then write the documentation, so if you look at the documentation very soon after this blog post is made, there might not be much there. However, I did make it a point to create a Getting Started page before posting this to my blog.
If you want to report a bug or make suggestions, please do so through the Discussion or Issues pages on the Codeplex site.
WARNING
If you are a member of the XNA development team, you should not download the source code for this project without reviewing Microsoft’s open source policy. Due to the subject matter of the project, I advise members of the XNA development team to not download the source code at all (even though I am myself a member of the XNA development team).
