Wax

The Wax panel

The window that comes with Wax: your mods, the log, a Lua command bar, performance, icons and settings.

Wax comes with one window of its own, called Wax. Press F8 and it is there. It has five pages.

The line along the bottom is always visible. It says how many mods loaded and whether there are errors. On the right it shows the frame rate and what Wax costs per frame.

Mods

The Mods page. A search box and a refresh button sit above a card for the mod Hello 0.1.0, which shows Status loaded, Load time 5.0 ms, an Enabled switch that is on, and a Reload button.

Every mod in the mods folder has a card here.

  • Status is loaded, switched off or failed. A failed mod shows its error in red underneath.
  • Load time is how long the mod took to start.
  • Enabled switches the mod off and on. Wax remembers the choice.
  • Reload starts the mod again from the top.

The search box filters the list. Type part of a name, or one of these words: loaded, off, failed, new.

A mod you add while the game runs is listed as new and switched off. Flip Enabled to load it.

Log

The Log page. Three switches for Errors, Warnings and Prints, then a search box, a Follow switch, a copy button and a clear button. Below them the log shows lines such as wax.gui theme Midnight. At the bottom is the command bar with a history button and a run button.

The log shows what Wax and your mods printed. The newest line is at the bottom.

  • The Errors, Warnings and Prints switches choose which lines show.
  • The search box keeps only lines that contain your text.
  • Follow keeps the newest line in view. Switch it off to read older lines in peace.
  • Drag across lines to select them. Ctrl+C copies. Ctrl+A selects everything.
  • The copy button copies every line that is showing.
  • The clear button empties the view. Nothing is lost: the lines are only hidden.

Each line starts with who wrote it, in square brackets. Lines from your mod start with your mod's id.

The command bar

The box at the bottom of the Log page runs Lua in the game. Type a line and press Enter.

print("Hello World")

If you type something that has a value, the log shows the value after an = sign.

game.MapName
1 + 1

More to try:

ui.Notify("Hi from the command bar")

This one needs a character, so run it in a prospect. It lists the parts your character is made of.

for i, child in ipairs(game.Character:GetChildren()) do print(i, child) end

Things that make the command bar quick to use:

  • Tab completes names. Type game.Ch and a grey aracter appears. Press Tab to take it. Press Tab again for the next name that fits.
  • Tab after a dot lists what is there. Type game. and press Tab. The log lists the names you can use.
  • The history button brings back the last command. Click again for the one before.
  • The run button does the same as Enter.
  • Commands can wait. task.wait(2) print("later") works.

The command bar knows everything a mod knows (game, ui, task and so on), plus three extras:

NameWhat it is
mods.HelloThe globals of the mod with the id Hello.
exports.HelloWhat that mod's init.lua returned.
clear()Removes everything your commands made, such as windows and signal connections.

require does not work in the command bar. Reach a loaded mod through mods or exports instead.

Performance

The Performance page. It shows 181 frames per second, a frame time of 5.54 ms and Wax per frame 0.205 ms, a bar for the share of the frame used by Wax at 4 percent, and a section called Where it goes with a time for each part of Wax.

This page answers one question: is Wax slowing the game down?

  • Frames per second and Frame time are the game's.
  • Wax per frame is the time Wax and all mods use in each frame.
  • Where it goes splits that time between the parts of Wax. Tasks is where the waiting and repeating code of your mods shows up.

The numbers are measured again every half second.

Icons

The Icons page. A search box sits above a grid of small buttons, each showing one icon. A line above the box says how many icons there are and that clicking one shows its name.

Every icon you can use, in one grid. Type in the box to search. Click an icon and a notification shows its name. Use that name anywhere an icon is accepted. See Icons.

Settings

The Settings page with five rows: Menu key F8, Theme Midnight, Accent colour From the theme, an Animations switch that is on, and Interface size 100%.
SettingWhat it does
Menu keyThe key that opens the menu. Click it, then press a new key.
ThemeThe colours of every window. See Themes.
Accent colourThe highlight colour. From the theme uses the theme's own.
AnimationsSwitches the small movements on and off.
Interface sizeMakes everything larger or smaller.

These settings are remembered the next time you play.

Add your own page

A mod can add a page to the Wax panel. It is a good home for tools you use while testing.

init.lua
local page = ui.Debug.Page("My mod", { icon = "wrench" })

page:Title("My mod", "Tools for testing.")

page:Button("Say hi", function()
    ui.Notify("Hi from my page.")
end)

page:Button("Print the map", function()
    print(game.MapName)
end)

The page goes away when your mod reloads, and comes back when init.lua runs again.

Write ui.Debug.Page with a dot, not a colon.

FunctionWhat it does
ui.Debug.Page(name, options)Adds a page and returns it. Add controls to it as you would to a window.
ui.Debug.Show()Opens the menu and shows the Wax panel.
ui.Debug.Window()The panel's window, or nil while the panel is not running.

The menu

One key opens every mod's windows and frees the mouse.

Editor setup

Completion and help while you type, with the Wax for Icarus extension for VS Code.

On this page

ModsLogThe command barPerformanceIconsSettingsAdd your own page