There are two ways to get into designer's mode; you can either specify `-design' on the command line, or else enter the long command `design'. When you do either of these, several things will happen: the side list will mark your side as a designer, the "see all" button in the view control panel will be enabled, and you will get a popup with designer's tools. The popup applies to all maps equally.
The identification in the side list is for the benefit of other players, since it is actually possible to enable designing in a multi-player game.
The "see all" view control allows you to see everything accurately. It is switchable so you can compare what things look like to the player vs what they are in reality.
[should include info about designer's dialog]
In addition, there are keyboard commands that you can use.
set-unit-type) Sets the unit type that you would like to be the
current type to create.
add-unit) Add a unit of the current type to the current location.
set-terrain-type) Sets the terrain type you would like to paint.
The prefix argument sets the radius of the area to paint.
The default radius is 0, which just paints a single cell.
paint-terrain) Applies the current terrain type to an area with the
current radius around the current location.
X11 Xconq can use images in either its portable image family format, or as bitmaps. However, since images in portable format will work with other interfaces, you should only use bitmaps while prototyping, and translate them into portable form using `x2imf'.
To translate image families into bitmaps, use the tool `imf2x'.
The program `xshowimf' displays image families.
Control the display of three-color images (mono+mask) with the resource `maskColor' (see `XShowimf-co.ad' or with the command-line argument `-mc'.
To edit the image families, do something like
mkdir tmp xshowimf [imf/xbm/xpm files...] -o tmpdir & (cd tmpdir; xpaint) &