The Ultimate Powder Toy Reference

  • Mrprocom
    16th May 2017 Moderator 8 Permalink
    This reference contains a bunch of useful things about The Powder Toy. People who are new to the game can learn new things from it and people who are already good at it can come back to it whenever there is something they need to remember. It even has the whole wiki embedded inside of it, so you can use this reference without needing to come back to the official wiki page.

    The reference is hosted on my website, here is a direct link to it:

    The Ultimate Powder Toy Reference


    image

    Features


    • You can get a URL that redirects to a specific part of the reference by clicking on its topic title from the column on the left side. For a link that redirects to a specific sub-topic of the reference, click on the title of that sub-topic.
    • Holding
      Ctrl
      and then clicking on a link in the reference will embed the contents of that page into the reference, this is useful for reading the contents of that page without leaving the reference.
    • Holding
      Ctrl+Shift
      and then clicking on a link in the reference will open up a dialog box containing the contents of that page, this is also useful for reading the contents of that page without leaving the reference. It is especially useful for reading more about an element in the Elements List page.
    • You can do a quick search using the Quick Search button in the Welcome page to quickly navigate to a specific topic or subtopic. Just click the button and enter some keywords that exist in the title or ID of the page you want to navigate to.
    • The reference uses a dark and simple design for easy use and navigation and to make it comfortable for the eyes when reading, especially at night.
    • The design of the reference is responsive, meaning that it can be viewed on phones without any problems.
    • The reference covers almost everything useful there is to know about the game. It even has the official wiki page embedded into it, so there is no need to come back to it.


    Main Contents


    • A list of useful pages related to The Powder Toy.
    • A detailed explanation of the interface of the game with an interactive version.
    • A list of all shortcuts and hotkeys of the game with an interactive version by @boxmein.
    • A list of all Powder Toy elements with links to their wiki pages (use the
      Ctrl+Shift
      shortcut when opening the links).
    • A sortable table of all Powder Toy elements along with some useful properties like ID, colour and heat conductivity.
    • A list of all console commands.
    • A detailed explanation of Powder Toy saves.
    • Information about The Powder Toy forum and a list of HTML tags that can be used.
    • A list of Powder Toy saves that explain various things about the game.
    • An embedded IRC client that leads to the official Powder Toy IRC channel.
    • A brief explanation of how to use IRC, a list of IRC channels related to the Powder Toy and a list of PowderBot commands.
    • A brief explanation of how to use mods and Lua scripts.
    • A list of Powder Toy mods.
    • An embedded version of the whole wiki page and @boxmein's Lua reference.
    • A C++ reference that includes lists of element properties, menu section and property constants, variables, functions and SCons flags.
    • A list of all rules related to the Powder Toy.
    • A list of moderators, developers and IRC channel moderators.
    • A list of useful tips and answers to frequently asked questions.
    • A list of rejected suggestions and why they are rejected.



    I got the idea of making this reference while I was working on an interactive TPT interface tutorial, when I shared it on IRC, @savask thought I was working on something that would show dialog boxes containing tutorials when clicking on an element. Although the main goal was to make tutorials with GIF animations, I got unmotivated and scrapped the idea and ended up with this reference.

    If you have any suggestions or if you have noticed any typos, feel free to report them in this thread. Note that there is a huge chance that I will not work on anything big related to this reference.
    Big thanks to the people over IRC for answer a few of my questions about the game and special thanks to @jacob1 for taking the time to inspect my reference.
    Edited 8 times by Mrprocom, jacob1. Last: 22nd Jun 2019
  • docRoboRobert
    16th May 2017 Member 0 Permalink

    Wow, that's really usefull! Good work. 

  • tptquantum
    16th May 2017 Member 0 Permalink

    actually you killed the wiki.

  • docRoboRobert
    16th May 2017 Member 0 Permalink

    @tptquantum (View Post)

     R.I.P -TPT wiki [']

  • danieldan0
    16th May 2017 Member 1 Permalink

    This is much better than the wiki.

  • jacob2
    16th May 2017 Member 2 Permalink
    You guys do realize this uses the wiki for many pages, don't you?

    But since it includes the wiki itself and adds on a ton more if it's own content on top of that, then yeah I would say it is better than the wiki.
  • Mrprocom
    26th May 2017 Moderator 0 Permalink
    A new major update to the reference:
    • Add a startup guide, which is a dialog box that only appears once and briefly explains how to use the reference.
    • Add a button in the Welcome page that shows the startup guide again.
    • Add a Quick Search button in the Welcome page to easily navigate to specific topics/subtopics.
    • Add a line of text in the Welcome page showing the last modification date.
    • Add a feature that makes clicking on a channel in the Channels List table change the IRC client to join that channel.
    • Add a new subtopic in the Forum page called "HTML Entities".
    • Add a new subtopic in the FAQ page called "Modding FAQ" taken from the Modding FAQ thread.
    • Add a new subtopic in the FAQ page called "Rejected Suggestions List" taken from the wiki page, but with more stuff.
    • Add an example for making HTML tables in the Forum page.
    • Add five more saves to the Tutorials page: GOLD, QRTZ, EXOT, Flags and Textures.
    • Add a link to @boxmein's Quote Database (qdb) to the Useful Pages list.
    • Add a link to Skylark's old profile (from powdertoythings.co.uk) in the Notable Users page.
    • Add a drop-shadow effect to the calendar image in the Forum page.
    • Change the Mods List a bit and sorted it into four categories by version number: v90.0+, v85.0+, v75.0+ and older mods.
    • Change the background colour of some elements to make them brighter so that they stand out.
    • Change the ID and URL of the Tutorials page from #tutorials to #savetutorials.
    • Fix a bug where the Welcome page does not get highlighted when opening the reference.
    • Fix a typo in the code example of HTML colours in the Forum page.
    • Remove four questions from the FAQ page (movable solids, 3D TPT, useless items and STKM suggestions).
  • Schicko
    27th May 2017 Member 0 Permalink

    Cheers for the useful resource, I can see this will make it much easier for new players to learn about the game. Also your website looks really slick, nice work!

  • Mrprocom
    27th May 2017 Moderator 0 Permalink
    @danieldan0 (View Post)
    Thanks, I merged it. I haven't done an in-depth revision of the reference after completing it, so typos are to be expected.

    Also thanks everyone for the positive feedback. I'm open for suggestions (reasonable ones of course), even small things like what other saves to add to the Tutorials page.

    @jacob2 (View Post)
    Although I said it on IRC before, might be nice to mention it here as well. It only has the wiki embedded, got inspiration from the wiki for the Saves page and got a lot of things from there for the Rejected Suggestions List. Also some minor stuff like technical names for the Interface page. So I wouldn't say that it heavily relies on the wiki.