VX FOR DUMMIES: GETTING STARTED

There are 8 drop-down boxes:
File
Edit
Mode
Draw
Scale
Tools
Game
Help

These boxes preform the exact same actions as the below panels outlined in red, blue, gray, and purple, so I will get to the individual functions there. (The help box is the only one which doesn't correspond to one of these panels, but it just opens the help file.)

There are eight buttons here. The first three let you start a new project, open an old project, or save your work.
The next three buttons allow you to preform basic cut, copy, and paste actions. Finally we have the delete and undo buttons.

The first button is a little orange man. I will get to him later.
First let's take a look at the second and third buttons.
These are the mode switchers. The one with the block grid look allows you to go into mapping mode. (I will explain that in the tile panel, outlined in brown.) Next we have the event mode. (To find out more about events, visit this tutorial: http://rpgmaker.net/tutorials/430/ )
After these are four more buttons. These are the mapping tools. The pencil allows you to draw lines of tiles, the square, squares of tiles, the circle, ovals and circles of tiles, and the bucket is a flood fill.

I said the orange man was part of this panel. I lied. I will get to him in the tile panel.

The scale panel controls the scale in the editor. If it set to 1/1, the scale will be set to the regular size that will appear when playing the game. 1/2 is half the size, 1/4 a fourth the size, and 1/8 eight the size.

The first button looks like a stack of paper. This is the database. In the future I may make a tutorial explaining it's features. Basically, it is the place where you store the data of monsters, items, character growth, start-up music, etc.
Next is the resource manager. I have made a tutorial on how to use this to import tiles, but the overall use of this feature is to import custom music and graphics into your game.
After that is the script editor. Here you can write or import RGSS2 scripts to change your game.

"Don't delete random scripts, they are the fundamentals of your game. Don't edit unless you have experience with RGSS2!"

Our fourth button is the sound tester. Here you can play all the sounds and musics in your game and fiddle around with the volume and pitch.
Finally, we have the play-tester. If you click this button, your game will automatically start to play.

"Always save before play-testing!"

Here you can drag tiles into the game. Here is an explanation of tiles from my tutorial, Tiles&Tilesets:

"A tileset is a group of "tiles" (or drag-on squares) that an RM software can work with. There are two different types of tiles in a tileset, Below, and Character level. These are often referred to as "A" and "B" levels. B level tiles will overlap A level. For and example, a B level tile might be a cupboard, that would sit on top of an A level tile, like a floor."

Also, here is a description of the different pages A ,B, C, D, and E.

"'Ground" Level', is referred to as page A. And four 'Character' levels, referred to as B, C, D, and E, pages. However, E, is blank. The purpose of this blank page is to allow people to add their own collection of tiles to the tileset."

Now, the orange man.
This button turns on pass-ability control. When you click it, you notice that on the pages, some tiles have a star over them, some an X, and some an O. When you click on the tile, the symbol changes. A star changes to and O, and O to and X, and an X to a star.
These symbols define tile pass-ability. If the tile is labeled O, than the player can pass on top of it. If labeled X, the player must move around it. If labeled star, the player can pass under it.
Alas, I must, again quote from another tutorial:

"Tiles on the A page cannot be labeled with a star."

Here you can control which map you want to edit in the Map Editor by clicking on the name of the map. (By default, VX creates a MAP001, which is displayed in the map editor panel.)
If you right-click on the map name you get a list of options, but because of avoiding text wall, I will leave them for other tutorials to explain. Controlling which map to edit is just the basic function.

This is where the action happens. In the map mode, you can drag and drop tiles into this panel. And in event mode, you can create new events to make action in your game.

Here is a list of VX hot-keys to make your life easier. This is not all of them, just a few to get you started:

Help File...F1

New Project...Ctrl+N

Open Project...Ctrl+O

Save Project...Ctrl+S

Undo...Ctrl+Z

Cut...Ctrl+X

Copy...Ctrl+C

Paste...Ctrl+V

Delete...Del

Pass-ability Mode...F3

Map Mode...F5

Event Mode...F6

Database...F9

Resource Manager...F10

Script Editor...F11

Play Test...F12