Project

This page is early work in progress draft. Information may be incorrect or incomplete.

In PanelForge a Project is the main file that manages a series of Panels into an animated sequence. This is analogous to panels in a collection used in a complete television program or a feature film storyboard sequence.

A PanelForge project file is required to be open in PanelForge for its main functionality to operate. The Project file uses the ‘pfz’ file extension and in accompanied by a Panel and Asset directory located in the same directory as the Project file. These three items that compose a PanelForge project normal reside in a directory mirroring the name as the project file. Additional files and directories relating to a project can also be stored in this directory without affecting PanelForges operation. A project directory can be moved to another file system location, computer, compressed and decompressed or operating system and still be opened by PanelForge. The project directory and the following contents will be created with PanelForge’s New Project functionality:

Project File – A file that contains project information such as panel grouping and timings. This file type uses the ‘pfz’ file extension and is loaded by the PanelForge application as the primary document format.
Panels Directory – A directory that contains all the panels files used by in the projects animation sequence. These files use the ‘pfn’ file extension. A custom named ‘Panels’ directory can be specified during a Project creation in PanelForge.
Assets Directory – A directory that can contain asset files used by the current project. The PanelForge application refers to this as the ‘Local Asset Library’. Additional external asset directories can be referenced by a project document. Asset files that PanelForge can Import include image files for use in the Canvas view, geometry objects and image textures for use in the Stage and Panel files. A custom named ‘Assets’ directory can be specified during a Project creation in PanelForge.