CapStudio

Abstract

Programmers write and edit their source code in a text editor. However, when they design the look-and-feel of a game application such as an image of a game character and an arrangement of a button, it would be more intuitive to edit the application by directly interacting with these objects on a game window. Although modern game engines realize this facility, they use a highly structured framework and limit what the programmer can edit. In this paper, we present CapStudio, a development environment for a visual application with an interactive screencast. A screencast is a movie player-like output window with code editing functionality. The screencast works with a traditional text editor. Modifications of source code in the text editor and visual elements on the screencast will be immediately reflected on each other. We created an example application and confirmed the feasibility of our approach.