File menu
The File menu contains the usual entries: New, Open, Save, Save As, and Exit. There is also Revert, which discards any changes made since the last change. Run FreeSpace, surprisingly enough, runs FreeSpace. Finally, there is a list of recently-opened files.

Always save before doing something you're not sure about!

You can't revert by selecting from the list of recently-opened files; you have to use Revert. This is not Volition's fault, but rather a bug in one of their programming tools, which was written by Microsoft. We're pretty sure Microsoft is working with the Hammer of Light.

Edit menu
These items are fairly self-explanatory.

Delete Wing deletes the entire wing containing the selected object. If you want to keep the ships but not have them in a wing anymore, use the Disband Wing button on the toolbar.

Disable Undo does what it says; it can speed FRED up when editing a very complicated mission. (The saving of undo information is rather kludgy, and can slow things down in some cases.)

View menu
This consist mostly of things that are displayed when checked:

Toolbar

The row of buttons under the pull-down menus.

Status Bar

At the bottom of the screen, this shows things like the scale of the grid.

Does anyone have a full list of everything that is or can be displayed in the status bar?

Display Filter

This submenu lets you turn on or off display of ships, player starting locations, waypoints, and specifically friendly or enemy ships.

Hide Marked Objects

Makes the marked objects disappear, but does not delete them. This could be handy if you have two objects at the exact same location, e.g., a jump node and a waypoint.

Show Hidden Objects

Makes anything hidden disappear.

Show Ship Models

Renders each ship in all its glory. I like to keep this turned on, but you may want to turn it off if you've got a slow machine.

Show Outlines

Shows a wireframe outline for each ship. Friendly ships will be outlines in blue, hostiles in red, and player ships in green. Even if this is switched off, you get a gold outline for marked objects and a white outline for the selected object.

Show Ship Info

Shows the name of each ship, as well as some internal code (e.g., "VFight7") for its class.

Show Coordinates

Shows the X, Y, and Z coordinates for each ship.

Show Grid Positions

If there are any objects above or below the grid, this draws a line connecting each one to the grid.

Show Distances

If more than one object is marked, this shows the distance between marked objects.

Show Grid

This shows a grid of squares, useful for judging distances. The Misc menu lets you adjust the grid.

Show Horizon

This draws a line at the level of the horizon.

Has anybody found a use for this one?

Double Fine Gridlines

This makes the small, unit gridlines appear farther out. Turn it on if you've got the resolution for it.

This one seems to turn itself off between FRED sessions.

Anti-Aliased Gridlines

For a small price in computation speed, this makes the gridlines look smoother. Again, turn it on if you've got the processor speed for it.

This one seems to turn itself off between FRED sessions.

Show 3D Compass

The 3D Compass, at the upper right of the screen, shows which directions the axes point. I don't find this terribly useful.

Show Background

This shows any nebula, stars, or sun you have installed. If you've got a really slow machine, this is another thing to turn off.

Viewpoint

This lets you choose whether you want to see things from the camera or the currently selected ship. The latter might be handy for setting up a picturesque opening vista.

When using a ship viewpoint, the movement controls move the ship. Also, you may see parts of the ship you are "flying" in front of you.

Save Camera Pos

You can save one camera position in memory, so you can go back to it without scrolling across the map.

Restore Camera Pos

This puts the camera back where it was when you last saved it.

Editors menu
This allows access to the various editors, which are explained in the next section.

Speed menu
This lets you control the speed at which the movement keys move the camera or current object.

Groups menu
Setting a group remembers which objects are marked. You can remember up to nine groups. As the original documentation points out, this could be useful when you don't want to (or can't) turn the group in question into a wing.

Misc menu

Level Object

Causes the camera (or an object, if controlling it) to become level to the grid.

Align Object

Causes the camera (or object) to align to the axes, with as little rotation as possible. Remember auto-levelling from Descent? Same deal.

Mark Wing

Marks all ships in the same wing as the currently selected ship.

Control Object

Makes the movement keys move the selected object, rather than the camera. You still see from the camera's point of view.

Next Object

Cycles the selection to the next marked object (or the next object period if only one is marked).

Previous Object

Cycles the selection to the previous marked object (or the previous object period if only one is marked).

Adjust Grid

Lets you change the plane and position of the grid. Since new objects are placed on the grid, this is useful if you're going to place several ships in another plane, to take advangate of FreeSpace's three-dimensionality.

There are quite a few activities in FRED which will cause the grid to return to its default state.

Error checker

Checks for inconsistencies and other problems with your mission. It is run automatically when you save or load a file.

There are a number of things which the error checker won't catch. This may improve with future patches to FRED.

Help menu
This isn't terribly useful, since there are no Windows help files for FRED. You want to have Show Sexp Help turned on at all times; it displays useful information at the bottom of those editors (e.g., the Event editor) which involve Sexps.

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