Safi Engine

    Editor

    SafiEngine ships with a Dear ImGui-based visual editor for building 3D scenes, managing assets, and testing gameplay. The editor is the primary way to work with the engine — you create projects, compose scenes from entities and components, attach native C++ behaviors, and iterate using built-in play mode.

    Two-Phase Launch

    The editor starts in two phases:

    1. Project Hub (1440×900) — A standalone window where you create a new project or select a recent one. Once you pick a project, the hub window closes.
    2. Main Editor (1280×720) — The full editing environment opens with dockable panels, a menu bar, and your project loaded.

    The Project Hub runs its own GLFW/ImGui context. When it closes, a fresh ImGui context is created for the main editor — GLFW is reused without calling glfwTerminate() between phases.

    Default Dockspace Layout

    On first launch, SetupDefaultLayout() builds a hierarchical dock node tree from the root EditorDockSpace:

    Model Loading

    The splits happen in order:

    1. Bottom — 25% of root height → Asset Browser + Console (tabbed)
    2. Left — 20% of remaining width → Scene Hierarchy
    3. Right — 25% of remaining width → Inspector + Stats (tabbed)
    4. Center — What remains (~55%) → Viewport

    All panels are dockable — you can drag tabs to rearrange, undock into floating windows, or collapse panels. ImGui's .ini file saving is disabled, so the layout resets on restart.

    The editor has a single File menu:

    ItemShortcutAction
    New SceneCtrl+NClear the scene and start fresh
    Open Scene...Ctrl+OOpen a .scene file from the project
    Save SceneCtrl+SSave to current path
    Save Scene As...Ctrl+Shift+SSave to a new path
    Exit—Close the editor (prompts if unsaved)

    Shortcuts are handled via ImGui's IO system after menu bar rendering (io.KeyCtrl, ImGui::IsKeyPressed()).

    Panels

    PanelPurpose
    Project HubCreate or open projects before entering the editor
    Viewport3D scene rendering via offscreen framebuffer with editor camera
    Scene HierarchyFlat entity list — create, select, delete, and duplicate entities
    InspectorEdit selected entity's name and components with colored drawers
    Asset BrowserTwo-panel file explorer with folder tree, file grid, and drag-and-drop
    ConsoleColor-coded engine log output with level filtering (1000-entry buffer)
    StatsFPS, frame time graph (120-frame rolling), and entity count

    Main Loop

    Each frame, the editor:

    1. Polls GLFW events and checks for close requests (intercepts if scene is dirty)
    2. Detects play mode changes — snapshots the scene on play, restores on stop
    3. Renders the 3D scene into the viewport framebuffer
    4. Begins the ImGui frame and dockspace
    5. Draws the menu bar and all panel UIs
    6. Shows the close confirmation dialog if needed
    7. Finalizes ImGui rendering and swaps buffers

    Key Features

    • Play mode — Snapshots scene state before play, restores on stop (details)
    • Drag-and-drop — Drag assets from the browser onto Inspector fields (model paths, audio clips, scripts)
    • Procedural primitives — Create Box, Sphere, Plane, Cylinder, and Capsule from the Scene Hierarchy context menu
    • Component registry — Extensible drawer system with 15+ registered components and colored headers
    • Dark theme — VS Code-inspired color scheme with sRGB→linear conversion for correct framebuffer rendering (details)
    • HiDPI support — Viewport framebuffer scales to native resolution on Retina displays