Let's start with some basics that will help you get around Wing IDE while working with this tutorial.
Wing IDE's user interface is divided into an editor area and two toolboxes separated by draggable dividers. Try pressing F1 and F2 now to show or hide the two toolboxes. Also try Shift-F2 to maximize the editor area temporarily, hiding both tool areas and toolbar until Shift-F2 is pressed again.
Tool and editor tabs can be dragged to rearrange the user interface, optionally creating a new split. Right click on the tabs for a menu of additional options, such as adding or removing splits or to move the toolbox from right to left. The number of splits shown by default in toolboxes will vary according to the size of your monitor.
Notice that you can click on an already-active tool tab to minimize that tool area. Click again on any tab to restore the toolbox to its previous size.
By default, the editor shows all open files in all splits, making it easy to work on different parts of a file simultaneously. This can be changed by unchecking Show All Files in All Splits in the right-click context menu on the editor tabs.
Splitting your editor area makes it easier to get around this tutorial.
To do this now, right click on the editor tab area and select Split Side
by Side. On small monitors and laptops, it may be preferable to create a
new window for the tutorial by right clicking on its tab and selected
Move Wing IDE Help to New Window.
Use the Edit > Keyboard Personality menu or User Interface > Keyboard > Personality preference to tell Wing to emulate another editor, such as Visual Studio, VI/Vim, Emacs, Eclipse, or Brief.
The Configure Tab Key item in the Edit > Keyboard Personality menu or the User Interface > Keyboard > Tab Key Action preference can be used to select among available behaviors for the tab key. The default is to match the selected Keyboard Personality. When the Keyboard Personality is set to Wing IDE, the tab key acts differently according to context. For example, if lines are selected, repeated presses of the tab key moves the lines among syntactically valid indent positions. And, when the caret is at the end of a line, pressing the tab key adds one indent level.
Wing's cross-platform GUI adjusts to the OS on which you are running it. This can be overridden with the User Interface > Display Style preference. For example, to set a dark background display style select Match Palette and set the User Interface > Color Palette preference to either Black Background or Monokai:
The User Interface > Fonts > Display Font/Size and User Interface > Fonts > Editor Font/Size preferences select fonts for the user interface and editor.
The size and type of tools used in the toolbar at the top of Wing IDE's main window can be changed by right clicking on one of the enabled tools.
For more information on adjusting the user interface to your needs, see the Customization chapter of the manual.