Manual

The manual for Block’Ed, a pixel editor for iPad and Mac that draws artwork for the ZX Spectrum, the Timex and the ZX Spectrum Next in the formats each machine displays.

The manual describes the development builds of Block’Ed; no release has been tagged yet. Start with Getting Started for your first drawing, or use the reference pages to look up a screen mode or file format.

About

What Block’Ed is, the machines it draws for, and credits.

User Guide

Drawing in Block’Ed, from a new document to an exported file.

• Getting Started: a new document, the editor, drawing and saving.
• Documents and Modes: machines and modes, canvas sizes, ULA+, half-width pixels and .blked files.
• Projects: screens, sprites and tiles as parts of one document, and the sidebar.
• Maps: maps, layers, tile properties, value layers, objects, target rules and exports.
• Drawing Tools: pencil, lines, curves, shapes, fill, airbrush and eraser.
• Brushes: brush size and shape, custom brushes, transforming and stamping, and pressure.
• Painting Modes: the nine painting modes and colour ramps.
• Colours and Palettes: INK and PAPER, foreground and background, and palettes.
• Fills: solid, pattern, gradient and brush fills.
• Selections: selecting, cutting, copying and pasting.
• Text: the text tool.
• Drawing Helpers: grids, snapping, constraints, symmetry and perspective.
• Animation: frames, onion skins and playback.
• Assets: several sprites or tile sets in one document.
• Importing Images: turning a picture into a document.
• Exporting: PNG, Timex screens, tiles and sprite patterns.
• Apple Pencil and Mac Input: the Pencil, pressure, the mouse and the trackpad.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: every shortcut, by menu.

Reference

Tables to look things up in.

• Target Modes: each mode’s size, colours, cells, palette and transparency.
• File Formats: the Block’Ed project and PNG, and every file Block’Ed reads or writes.
• Hardware Limits: tile and sprite capacity on the Next.

Release Notes

Where each release’s notes are published.