The s&box editor is where you build your game. It provides panels for managing assets, editing scenes, inspecting objects, and running your game — all in one environment.
Opening the editor
Launch the editor in one of these ways:
- Start s&box editor from your Steam library
- Run
sbox-dev.exe from the install folder
- Double-click a
.sbproj file to open that project directly
Main panels
The editor is organized into dockable panels. You can rearrange, resize, or close any of them. Closed panels can be reopened from the View menu.
| Panel | Purpose |
|---|
| Scene hierarchy | Tree view of all GameObjects in the current scene. Right-click to create, delete, or reparent objects. |
| Inspector | Shows the properties of the selected GameObject or asset. Use it to add components and edit their values. |
| Asset Browser | Lists all assets in your project — scenes, models, materials, sounds, and more. Double-click to open an asset. |
| Scene viewport | The 3D view of your scene. Use it to select, move, rotate, and scale objects. |
| Console | Displays log output, warnings, and errors from your game and editor code. |
- Play / Stop — Enter and exit play mode
- Transform gizmo — Switch between Translate, Rotate, and Scale tools
- Coordinate space — Toggle between World and Local transform space
Play mode
Click Play to run your game inside the editor. The scene viewport becomes the game view. Click Stop to return to edit mode.
s&box supports hot reload — you can edit C# code while the game is running and most changes take effect without stopping play mode.
Editor projects
The editor itself is extensible. You can write an editor project — a folder named editor inside your game project — to add custom tools, panels, inspectors, and apps. See Editor Tools for details.
Keyboard shortcuts
Common shortcuts are listed below. For the full reference, see Shortcuts.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|
| Play / Stop | F5 |
| Translate tool | W |
| Rotate tool | E |
| Scale tool | R |
| Focus selected object | F |
| Save scene | Ctrl+S |
| Duplicate | Ctrl+D |
| Delete | Delete |
