Graphical editor - Overview

The graphical editor lets you create JDR-Bot scenarios without writing YAML by hand.

• Web: the Editor button in the site header.
• Desktop: the Editor button in the application.

The editor is split into several areas:

• Graph (centre) - a visual map of every room and their connections
• Inspector (right panel) - detailed editing of the selected room
• Globals panel - variables, global events, permanent timers, aliases
• Toolbar (top) - Test, Linter, Export, Undo/Redo and Save buttons

Two windows open on demand from the View menu:

• Text formatting (Ctrl+M) - inserts the text syntaxes into the field you are editing
• Quick search (Ctrl+K) - reaches a room, an event, an object, or runs an action

View > Open Editor Profile selects the fields shown in the inspector:

• Simplified - hides the advanced fields, for a first scenario
• Essential - the common features, without the rare settings
• Expert - every field visible, for complex scenarios
• Custom - you pick the families to display
• Discord and Terminal - only keep what these platforms can really display

The two platform profiles hide, for instance, videos and image buttons on Terminal, or video on Discord. Changing profile never modifies the scenario: incompatible features already written are kept, and the profile window lists them with their location.

It gathers every text syntax of the engine, sorted into five groups: formatting, variables and style, media, interactive elements and story blocks. Each button shows the name of the feature and a preview of what will be inserted.

Its behaviour depends on your selection:

• Selected text is wrapped by the syntax. Select a word, click Variable, you get v_word_v. Paste an address, click Image, it is wrapped.
• With no selection, the syntax appears around a sample word, itself selected so you can replace it right away.
• When you supplied the text yourself, the remaining parameter is preselected instead: the identifier of an event, the slicing of a tile.

Spaces sitting at the edge of a rough selection stay outside the syntax, and a story block always starts on a clean line. The window stays open while you write: it follows the active field.

Tools > Generate rooms… prepares a route using one of six structures. The result opens in a separate tab: fill in the text, test, then import the rooms you want into your scenario. See Room generation for settings, directions, numbered choices and optional models.

The editor works with the .jdrproj format (internal JSON). It can:

• Import an existing .yaml file (File > Import YAML)
• Export to .yaml (File > Export YAML)
• Export to standalone HTML5 or to a PDF gamebook

Fifty undo levels. Shortcuts: Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z (or Ctrl+Y).

When enabled and a save path exists, automatic file saving runs every five minutes. The local Web draft keeps the main scenario; save generated tabs separately as .jdrproj.

The editor uses its own confirmations when closing a document or changing scenarios, without adding the browser's native confirmation. Save your tabs before leaving or reloading the page.

The game interface and the editor come with palettes (colors) and styles (layout), freely combinable.

Palettes carry the colors, styles carry the layout: they combine freely.

Groups organise the rooms visually inside the graph, with no effect on the exported YAML.

• View menu > Manage groups… lists every group with its number of rooms
• Renaming a group to an existing name offers to merge the two
• Groups are purely visual: no impact on gameplay or on the export

• The room list shows the exported number next to the identifier (1 - start, 2 - corridor…)
• Drag and drop in the list changes the YAML export order
• Typing a number in the Position field moves the room and renumbers the others consistently

Web/Desktop forms support lists, collections and loops and keyboard, mouse and gamepad shortcuts. Large projects use pagination and search to limit the number of displayed fields.

During a test, Test data opens current values in a separate window. Diagnostics open the relevant field: see Linter and author tests.

In a model definition, insertion into the calling room corresponds to inline: true and requires one internal room. Each generic collection can also provide defaults for missing properties.

In objects, Display name is folded when empty. Secret item, near the location, simplifies the form while retaining furniture description and button. Hidden fields keep their values. Rename an item, in the Objects effect family, has separate object and new display-name fields; an empty value restores the identifier.

Every HUD panel offers Clear when leaving the room, unchecked by default. It exports scope: room; omitting scope preserves the historical persistent behaviour. These settings support undo/redo and FR/EN YAML import/export.

Structured data supports descriptions at every level and tags on roots. Names, values and descriptions remain grouped in the same form.