The Sharendipity platform is feature rich, but can be misunderstood the first time you venture into the creation mode. At the core of it, however, there are just a few basic concepts, that once understood, provide a platform for quickly and easily making some very fun content.

Workspace Basics

The Sharendipity creator workspace is used for creating new applications. It's interface is driven through the character set at the bottom of the screen.


Clicking on each of them reveals a set of menus to access Sharendipity's features...

The Director will help guide you through management of high-level application actions. This includes saving, sharing, and opening applications as well access to achievements and properties that are stored for the respective application.



The Astronaut provides access to all of your properties and behaviors for the active World being edited.




The Builder provides access to the basic building tools for creating actors in the World including circles, rectangles, and lines. It also provides access to the zoom and pan tools.




The Explorer acts as a gateway to the entire Sharendipity community. Using the explorer, you can search for reusable images, actors, behaviors, actions, and types. It also gives you access to specific objects you've created within your application that have not been shared out.

Creation/Editing Workflow

Keep in mind that the workspace is ''alive'' by default. That is, application construction can happen while it is being executed. There is no compilation step! This can lead to lots of fun and even a few serendipitous moments. But it can lead to some confusion as well. If you'd like to get out of (or into) play mode, toggle the play/pause control located just above the Director character in the lower left-hand corner.

Everything is accessible regardless of the mode. For instance:

• You can draw new objects using the Builder's drawing tools while other objects are bouncing around.
• You can modify an object's properties as it is bouncing around.
• You can change the World's gravity, background color, or apply a background image
• You can drag in objects from the search results and they immediately interact with the objects around them.
  

Some of the important properties that will affect all objects in the workspace are the gravity and boundary rules. These (and others) can be found in the World->Properties... menu within the Astronaut.

• Physics properties determine the gravity in the World. You can control whether gravity is on or off, its direction, and its strength. (the latter two are controlled by the single vector property,Gravity. The default (0,-981) points down.
• World Boundaries controls the behavior of objects when they reach the perimeter of the world. By default, object are destroyed.

Community Explorer

The Explorer character in the lower right-hand corner is the primary interface to the assets shared throughout the Sharendipity community. Use this gallery to search for game characters, graphics, sounds, behaviors, and action sets. If you'd like to open an Application, use the Director menu.

Use the horizontal tabs to apply filters to the search results. This will help narrow down the results by type. You can also search for particular terms as well. The search will use names, descriptions and tags to find the assets you are searching for. Just remember that the "type" filter is always being applied when you are searching. You need to drag and drop the results out of the explorer window to use them in your application.

Use the "Local" tab to access the assets that are local to your application. Note that this tab will also list remote assets that have been loaded as well. And if you edit them, you will be editing the remote copy - NOT the local copy.

Any asset within your Sharendiptiy creation (objects, behaviors, images, functions, etc.) can be shared back using the share option on the respective asset's menu. If a complete application is saved, it too will be available in the community gallery for others to access. In all cases, you control the public visibility at the time you save your work.