a review of a character sheet

[Belen]

Just to add a bit more detail, there are two versions of the sheet available:

The Standard Edition of the sheet requires a commercial version of Adobe Acrobat (such As Acrobat Standard or Acrobat Professional), though it offers somewhat more functionality (such as the ability to adjust the number of visible pages in the sheet). A direct link to the file listing in the download section is: http://www.enworld.org/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=293

The ReaderSave Edition of the sheet is optimized for users of the free Acrobat Reader software, and has special features enabled to allow you to save the form data you enter directly into the sheet. However, due to limitation within Acrobat Reader, the sheet is fixed to display all 27 available pages, and has a large (though relatively unobtrusive) watermark on each page. A direct link to the file listing in the download section is: http://www.enworld.org/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=294

For more detailed information on the sheet, as well as help documents and a user forum, visit my website: SSA-X2.com.

Dude, I am begging you to do one for d20 modern! I can find no one who does it for modern!

 

[reveal]

Yeah. This has always been a problem with using Acrobat, as it handles Forms oddly, by recalculating everything any time a field is edited.

I've implemented a few features to try to help out on this issue. If you're using Acrobat 6 or newer (this includes Reader), I programmed things so that calculation events will only occur if you edit a field that is actually used in calculations. Thare are about 400 such fields out of the 10,000 on the sheet. So if you're still using Acrobat 5, and you can upgrade, it'll help.

The other thing you can do is turn calculations OFF. You can do this through the "Calculations" button at the top of every page (as well as in he Bookmarks sidebar). When you turn calculations Off, no calculation events will occur. This'll allow you to enter data without any slowdown. Just make sure to turn calculations back ON, or at least run the "Recalculate Fields" command (also available through the "Calculations" button and bookmark) in order to have the sheet recalculate all fields, which will update calculated field values.

I'll give it a try.

 

[JesterPoet]

What's the scoop with the "Preliminary, Draft, Not For Production Use"?

 

[Pasus Nauran]

What's the scoop with the "Preliminary, Draft, Not For Production Use"?

In order to allow saving of form data in the character sheet, I needed to add usage rights to the PDF (thus the ReaderSave edition). Unfortunately, the software that does this (Adobe Document Server 6.0 for Reader Extensions) costs several thousand dollars. So to get around that, I am using a demo version of the software which only allows creation of drafts, which have the large watermark.

I figure it's a minor inconvenience in exchange for the ability to save your data.

Dude, I am begging you to do one for d20 modern! I can find no one who does it for modern!

Right now my attention is focused on expanding the product line within D&D. However, I've already determined that d20 Modern will likely be the first other game system I support, as I have an interest in it myself (I do own the d20 Modern core book).

 

[Pasus Nauran]

Just to let everyone know, I have just released v2.51 of my SSA-X2 D&D Character Sheet, which fixes several bugs and issues with the previous release.

As of this posting, the EN World download hasn't been reposted with the updated version, but you can find the file on my website at: SSA-X2.com.

 

[eris404]

If I can just gush a minute, I just wanted to let you know I adore these sheets. I've been using an older version of it for a long time and have been really happy with how they work and print. I'm glad you have a new version as (coincidentally) I've been meaning to pass the sheet on to a new player.

I also have a (stupid?) question. If I have .fdf files that were made using an older version of the sheet, can they be imported into the newest version without losing any data?

Thanks!

 

[Pasus Nauran]

I also have a (stupid?) question. If I have .fdf files that were made using an older version of the sheet, can they be imported into the newest version without losing any data?

That's not a stupid question at all. The answer is yes, you can import .FDF's from older version of the v2 sheet (it's recommended if the .FDF is from an old 1.x version of the sheet, that you manually re-enter data, as many changes were made to the sheet with v2, not the least of which was the switch to D&D 3.5e). I've made every attempt to make importing old data as complete as possible. Some data may be lost due to changes, but when you perform the import, a dialog will inform you as to what data did not import and will need to be manually re-entered.

If you have any trouble with the import, let me know and I'll help you out.

 

[zenld]

Dude, I am begging you to do one for d20 modern! I can find no one who does it for modern!

There are a couple of fairly complete d20M self-calc sheets out there. In excel, though, not adobe. I dont have links handy right now, but I will see if I can find them. Or if not, email me and I will send them to you.

zen

email zenld at that yahoo thing

 

[Kalendraf]

Have you thoroughly investigated the legal ramifications of bypassing the Adobe Reader's read-only behavior using your save method?

The reason I'm asking is because the company I work for has run into numerous legal issues with Adobe pdf files in the past, and nearly every alternate methods that was examined ran into some kind of license or legal issue. It's unlikely Adobe would come after something like this, as it's rather "small potatoes". However, if you haven't done your homework, you could wind up served with a cease&desist order.

 

[Pasus Nauran]

Have you thoroughly investigated the legal ramifications of bypassing the Adobe Reader's read-only behavior using your save method?

The reason I'm asking is because the company I work for has run into numerous legal issues with Adobe pdf files in the past, and nearly every alternate methods that was examined ran into some kind of license or legal issue. It's unlikely Adobe would come after something like this, as it's rather "small potatoes". However, if you haven't done your homework, you could wind up served with a cease&desist order.

No, I haven't looked into the legalities of the ReaderSave version. However, I can't see how there'd be a problem as I'm using a legal demo copy of Adobe's own software, but simply choosing to distribute the outputted PDF from Draft mode (thus the big watermark on each page). If Adobe has a problem with this and serves me with a cease and desist order, I'll simply cancel the ReaderSave version of the product, and revert back to the old process I used - append the FDF to an email as an attachment (this is a valid form of submitting a PDF via JavaScript) and then advise the user to simply save the attached FDF and delete the email without sending it.

Frankly, I've been very dissapointed by Adobe's lack of support for forms within Acrobat. It seems like it's a tack-on feature instead of a full implementation. I've run across many bugs and inconsistencies in both the form and JavaScript implementations, and the lack of support within Reader for a way to save or export form data still astounds me.