<h1>Main Window</h1>

      <h2> Overview </h2>

      <p>
      The <b>Main Window</b> is where you modify a model.  The Main
      Window has a menu bar, a tool bar, a status bar, and a number of 
      viewports that let
      you see the model from various directions.
      There are also several dockable windows that are hidden by default.
      The <a href="olh_properties.html">Properties Panel</a>
      in particular can be very useful.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Main Window</b> has a menu bar that allows you to operate on the
      model in the window's viewports as well as creating new models and opening
      existing models.
      </p>
      
      <a name="toolbar"></a>
      <h2> Toolbar </h2>

      <p>
      The <b>Toolbar</b> has a set of tool buttons.  The tool buttons
      select tools that allow you to manipulate a model interactively.
      For example, you can select the &quot;Draw Cube&quot; tool
      and then click and drag the mouse in a viewport to create a cube.
      Each of the tools in the toolbar is also available in the Main Window's
      <b>Tools</b> menu.
      </p>

      <a name="menubar"></a>
      <h2> Menu Bar </h2>

      <p>
      The menu bar has several menus that provide other functions to
      modify or create a model.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>File</b> menu allows you to open and save models. There is also 
      an export option to allow you to save in experimental formats. If the
      file format you want to save as does not appear in the "Save As" dialog,
      try the Export function. The most recent files you have opened or saved
      are listed in the "Recent Models" menu. You can load one of these models
      by selecting the filename from that menu.
      Additionally, the <b>File</b> menu also allows you to view available
      plugins.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>View</b> menu allows you to change the number and layout of the
      viewports in the view window (you may have 1, 2, 4, 6, or 9 viewports).
      You can force the viewports to show the whole model or selected
      region by selecing either the <b>Frame All</b> or <b>Frame Selected</b> options,
      respectively.
      You can select how to display the model in the othographic (canvas)
      and perspective viewports based on four options.
      </p>

      <ul>
         <li> Wireframe - Shows the model as an outline of all faces. </li>
         <li> Flat - Shows the model as a set of flat polygons (with lighting). </li>
         <li> Smooth - Shows the model as a set of smoothed polygons (vertex normals
            are averaged between all polygons that share them; with lighting). </li>
         <li> Texture - Shows the model as a set of smoothed, lit polygons with
            textures applied. </li>
         <li> Alpha Blend - Shows the model as a set of smoothed, lit polygons with
            alpha blended (transparent) textures applied. </li>
      </ul>

      <p>
      There are also some rendering options in the <b>Render Options</b> View submenu.
      These options include
      how bone joints are displayed, whether or not texture projections objects
      are visible, how missing textures are rendered, whether polygon edges (3d lines)
      are displayed in the perspective views, and whether or not back-facing polygons
      are drawn.
      </p>

      <p>
      You can choose how you want bone joints to be displayed. Bones draw a 
      diamond-like object that is thicker toward the parent joint and thinner
      near the child joint. The Lines option just draws one line between each
      parent and child joint. The hidden option disables drawing of bone joints.
      </p>

      <p>
      The Error Texture options indicate how you want unloadable textures to be
      displayed. The Red Error Texture is a black 'X' on a red background. It is
      designed to be an obvious indication that textures are missing. If you do
      not care about missing textures you can use the Blank Error Texture which
      will render missing textures as if the mesh had no texture applied (material
      lighting properties will still apply).
      </p>

      <p>
      The Render/Hide 3D Lines option is used to enable/disable drawing of lines in
      the perspective viewports. This can be useful if you want to see selected
      edges in the perspective viewport.
      </p>

      <p>
      The Draw/Hide back-facing triangles option is used to enable/disable drawing
      of triangles that are facing away from the viewport camera. By default 
      these are rendered as darkened polygons. In some cases you may want to
      these polygons to be invisible if they are not facing the camera.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Tools</b> menu lists all the available tools. The options in this
      menu are also listed in the toolbar.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Model</b> menu has features that affect the model as a whole
      or large portions of the geometry.
      It also includes the <b>Undo</b> and <b>Redo</b> options.
      </p>

      <p>
      <b>Edit Model Meta Data</b> allows you to attach user-defined text values
      to the model as key/value pairs. In general these have no influence on the
      model or its geometry, the are just a place for you to store arbitrary
      information (such as author/artist information, copyright, URLs, etc.).
      </p>

      <p>
      <b>Transform Model</b> allows you to apply a transformation Matrix to the
      model. It opens a tab window with different types of transformations.
      There are tabs for translation, rotation, and scaling, as well as a tab
      for a user-defined matrix. In some cases the Matrix you want to apply
      may not be undo-able. If this is the case, the program will warn you
      before performing the transformation.
      See the <a href="olh_transformwin.html">Transform&nbsp;Model&nbsp;Window</a>
      for more details.
      </p>

      <p>
      <b>Boolean Operation</b> allows you to combine two object into one.
      See the <a href="boolwin.html">Boolean&nbsp;Operation&nbsp;Window</a>
      for more details.
      </p>

      <p>
      <b>Set Background Image</b> adds a
      <a href="olh_backgroundimagedetails.html">background image</a>
      to one or more of the six pre-defined orthographic projections.
      Background images can be useful as a modeling reference when attempting
      to create complex shapes.  See the modeling tutorial for more
      information.
      </p>

      <p>
      <b>Merge</b> imports the geometry, materials, and animations from
      another model file into the current model. See the 
      <a href="olh_mergewin.html">Merge Window</a> documentation for details.
      </p>

      <p>
      <b>Import Animations</b> imports the animations from another model file
      into the current model. The skeletons of the two models must match.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Geometry</b> menu lists non-interactive operations that modify
      model geometry.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Materials</b> menu lists non-interactive operations that modify
      groups and materials.
      See <a href="olh_materialdetails.html">Material Details</a> for more information.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Influences</b> menu includes functionality for dealing with bone
      joints and how they influence the model geometry.
      See <a href="olh_jointdetails.html">Bone Joint Details</a> for more information.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Animations</b> menu provides functions to manipulate model animations.
      There are interactive and non-interactive functions provided by this menu.
      See <a href="olh_animationdetails.html">Animation Details</a> for more information.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Help</b> menu brings you to this documentation.
      </p>

      <p>
      The status bar contains text (on the left side) that describes the results of 
      recent operations on the model.  On the right side it shows you how many vertices,
      faces, groups, bone joints, points, and materials exist in the current model.
      If you have any vertices,
      faces, bone joints, or points selected
      the count will be shown with the selected separated from the
      total with a slash ('/').
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Viewports</b> in the center of the Main Window are where you 
      view and modify a model.  There are two types of viewport views:
      <b>Perspective Views</b> and <b>Orthographic Views</b>.
      In this documentation orthographic views are sometimes called 
      canvas views because those are the views in which you can use tools 
      to change the model (like a drawing canvas in a 2D paint program).
      The view type and direction is indicated
      in a combo box above the viewport on the left.  The field of view is
      indicated in a text entry box above the viewport to the right of the
      view direction.  Larger numbers mean you can see more of the model canvas (think
      of the opposite of zoom).  Three short colored lines indicate the origin.
      Each color extends in the positive direction along an axis.  The red line
      extends along the X axis, the green line extends along the Y axis, and the blue
      line extends along the Z axis.
      </p>

      <p>
      You can scroll the active viewport by clicking on the arrows in the upper-right
      corner.  The four-way arrow allows you to click
      and drag the viewport.  You can also use the middle mouse button to drag the viewport.
      You can zoom in and out by using the magnifying glass buttons above the viewport
      scroll buttons.
      </p>

      <p>
      Holding the Ctrl key and clicking on the pan arrows in the corner will
      rotate the viewport. Holding Ctrl and using the mouse scroll wheel
      will also rotate the viewport.
      </p>

      <p>
      The view type and direction can be changed to see the model from various
      angles.  In the <b>Perspective View</b> near portions of the
      model appear larger, far portions of the model appear smaller.  The 
      Perspective View
      may also have visible lighting and texture effects.  This view only allows
      you to view the model.  You cannot modify the model from a viewport in
      Perspective mode.
      </p>

      <p>
      By left-clicking and dragging your mouse pointer you can rotate the
      perspective view
      along the horizontal axis or vertical axis.  By middle-clicking and
      dragging you can move the viewport left, right, up, and down.  Using the
      scroll wheel will zoom in or out.  The
      right mouse button has no effect in the Perspective View.
      </p>

      <p>
      The <b>Orthographic Views</b> show the model from one of six directions:
      Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, or Bottom.  These views are a CAD-like
      projection of the model from the specified direction.  These views are
      not modified by perspective.  Two cubes of equal size will always appear
      the same size in this view regardless of how "far" they are from the
      viewing plane.  Each of the six orthographic views is a canvas view, where 
      you can create and manipulate model vertices and faces.  The othrographic
      viewports may also render the model as a wireframe, solid-flat polygons,
      solid-smooth polygons, or textured polygons.
      </p>

      <p>
      An orthographic viewport can be rotated by holding the Ctrl button
      and click-dragging with the left mouse button. You can toggle a
      viewport between orthographic and perspective by pressing the
      Left Quote (Backtick) key.
      </p>

      <p>
      If you want to be able to save your current viewport settings
      (pan, zoom, and rotation) and restore the settings at a later time,
      you can press Ctrll+[Num] where [Num] is a number key from 0 to 9.
      To restore the viewport, press the [Num] key.
      </p>

      <p>
      The effect of the left and right mouse buttons depends on the tool that is
      currently selected.  The left mouse button is the main tool button and
      the right button is an alternate button.  For example, using the
      select tool you can select vertices and faces with the left mouse button
      and unselect them with the right mouse button.
      By middle-clicking and dragging you can drag the viewport left, right, 
      up, and down.  Using the scroll wheel will zoom in or out.
      </p>

      <p>
      The active viewport (the viewport under the mouse) 
      will have a slightly lighter background color
      than the others.  Some keyboard shortcuts will modify the selected
      viewport.  For example + and - will zoom in and out.  0 (zero) will
      center the viewport on the origin.  The backtick (left quote) will
      flip an orthographic view to the opposite side (front view will become
      a back view).
      </p>

      <p>
      There are two modes for the view window.  The default one is the
      <b>Model Edit Mode</b>.  This is the mode you are in when you start
      Misfit Model 3D and are viewing a model.  In this mode changes you make
      affect the position of polygons and bone joints.
      The other mode is
      <b>Animation Mode</b>.  This mode is active when you have the 
      <b>Animation Mode Toolbar</b> open.  In this mode changes you make affect
      the current animation frame.
      </p>