Visual Editor

The Visual Editor is the recommended way to author dungeons in Dryad Engine. It's an in-editor popup that turns DryadScript's line-based markup into editable block cards.

Opening the editor

  1. Navigate to the Dungeons tab and pick a dungeon (or create one).
  2. Go to the Config subtab.
  3. Click the Content Editor button in the subtab header.

Auto-open: Toggle Auto-open inside the popup to have it open automatically whenever you land on a dungeon's Config subtab. The preference is remembered across sessions.

Structure at a glance

Each block type has its own card layout:

  • ^ Room – a section banner (blue). Rooms act as grouping headers; encounters and scenes that come after a room belong to it until the next ^ block. When you add a room, an @description encounter is auto-inserted below it so you can start writing immediately.
  • @ Encounter – a purple card. Contains the encounter's id, optional params, any number of !choice rows, and a single prose content area. Choice rows have a "+ Scene" button that creates a matching #scene for the choice.
  • # Scene – a green card. A scene is a grid: rows are numbered automatically (1, 2, 3…); each row holds one or more columns that are either % (unnamed block) or ~choice (named). Each column has its own prose content area.
  • $ Template – a gray card. Reusable content blocks referenced by name. Quest templates (title, main stage, goal, goal stage) get distinct accent colors.

Checks

The editor checks your content as you type, against the game's data, its scripts and every dungeon. A typo is underlined – amber for a warning, red for an error – and the toolbar counts them (1 error · 3 warnings). Click the count for the list:

  • Did you mean – one click replaces forrest with forest.
  • Ignore here – stops reporting that value in this block. The Ignored tab lists everything a dungeon ignores, with Stop ignoring, and any ignore that nothing reports any more, with Remove.
  • Whole game – runs the same checks over every dungeon; click a problem to jump to it.

Saving always works. Only errors – content the game would stop or skip on – ask first. Live checks in the list turns checking-as-you-type off; checks then run on save and from the toolbar button.

The checks know what every action takes because each action describes its own value – see Registry.

Suggestions and hover

  • Suggestions open by themselves inside {…}, if{…}, and after |, [[ and [: actions with their help line, then whatever the action takes – assets with thumbnails, characters with faces, slots after ->, attribute values after =, scenes and &anchors, flags, conditions, placeholders. Ctrl+Space suggests anywhere, including a speaker at the start of a paragraph. ↑↓ choose, Tab or Enter insert (Ctrl+Z undoes it), Esc closes the list.
  • Hover an id for a moment to see what it is: its name, picture, and where it comes from.
  • Ctrl+click an id to go to it: a scene, anchor or room scrolls to its block; an asset, character, item or record opens its tab (the dungeon is saved first).

Suggestions can be switched off under Typing in the toolbar, next to curly quotes and en dashes.

Exporting to Google Docs

Two copy buttons in the top toolbar:

  • Copy text – plain DryadScript source. Paste anywhere (editors, chat, email) to share raw dungeon text.
  • Copy tables – Google-Docs-ready HTML tables with matching colors, fixed 500px width, and <h3> headers. Paste directly into a Doc; the layout survives, so collaborators can comment / suggest in Docs without losing structure. When you're done in Docs, import back via gdoc_id – see Google Docs Integration.

Next Steps