Getting started
There are three ways to run scmJS, each covered in docs/installing.md:
- In the browser at scmjs.dev/editor. Nothing to install, and your maps stay on your own disk.
- As a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, from the releases page. It finds a StarCraft installation on its own and opens a map on a double-click.
- In a container, for a server on your own network:
docker run --rm -p 8080:80 ghcr.io/scm-js/scm-js:latest, then openhttp://localhost:8080.
On first use the editor asks where to get StarCraft's graphics, which do not ship with
it: a free download from Blizzard, or the StarDat.mpq and BrooDat.mpq of a classic
installation. See The graphics. Without them the editor
still runs, with terrain in flat colours and units as coloured markers.
Opening a map#
Ctrl+O opens a file, and so does dropping one on the window. A map opens beside the ones
already open, in its own tab (see The editor window); the one
exception is the blank map the editor starts on, which the first map opened takes the
place of. File ▸ Open Recent lists what you have had open before; in Chrome, Edge and the desktop app it reopens the file
from disk directly. File ▸ Find on scmscx.com… searches the community map archive and
opens the map you pick (see Plugins); a link like https://scmjs.dev/editor/scmscx/35b32Dsq, the id taken from the map's address on the site, opens the editor with that map picked in it. File ▸ Open from scmjs.dev… lists the maps kept on your scmjs.dev
account, every revision you saved there (see Your scmjs.dev account).
The Repair plugin checks every map as it opens, the way the game reads it. When something is missing, damaged or repeated, as it often is in a protected map, it makes the repairs that only write what the game already does, or put back what the editor needs, such as the terrain record a protector stripped. These do not mark the map as changed, and Save writes them. Anything that is a judgement call, such as a player slot with a race the game does not have, is left alone: a cell in the status bar (Repaired 3 · 1 to review) opens a list that says what the game does about each one and what the repair would change, and Undo there puts the file back as it opened. Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Plugins ▸ Repair can make it ask before repairing anything, or not check at all; Tools ▸ Repair Map… runs the check again. Section Explorer, from Plugins ▸ Browse Plugins…, shows the file section by section and byte by byte. See Protected and damaged maps.