D&D 4E 4e iPhone Session Aid

[OverloadUT]

I am starting a little project. Right now it's just in the conceptual phase, so I can properly plan exactly how robust I want this thing to be. Go to this link in your browser. On your iPhone is best but it'll work in Firefox as well:
Beholder

It should be pretty clear what I'm going for here. If something like this were to exist, what would be your wishlist? The sky is the limit at this point in time as I am still in the planning phase.

Keep in mind that this link is a proof of concept. It is by design that all of the powers show up as Magic Missile as this is all just done by hand to show what it would look like once I get the actual dynamic content going.

 

[Pyrex]

Wish list?

1) Code it as a web-widget that runs on the phone that can
--1.1) Run on any phone that supports widgets, not just an iPhone.
--1.2) Access & reformat the actual compendium once you sign-in
--1.3) Can parse & display a .dnd4e character file (which, IIRC, are just xml)

 

[Morrus]

What is the "Comendium" part? Is it a link to WotC's subscriber stuff? Because you can't just copy it and put it in your own application.

 

[OverloadUT]

1.2) Yes, all of the compendium information will be from the actual compendium.
1.3) I will be exploring this possibility. I have looked at the .dnd4e files and while they are "just xml" they are a bit convoluted. I do hope to be able to import from them to get a character's powers though.

 

[OverloadUT]

What is the "Comendium" part? Is it a link to WotC's subscriber stuff? Because you can't just copy it and put it in your own application.

Since you asked: The webapp will take your D&D Insider username and password and use it to grab the official compendium content, reformat it to be iPhone friendly (and frankly not complete crap like it is on Wizard's site) and serve it up to you. Of course some people wouldn't want to give a third party their login details and that is understandable. In that case (and for people who don't have a subscription at all) you could still use the other features I will be implementing, like the encounter manager and power tracker.

 

[Morrus]

Since you asked: The webapp will take your D&D Insider username and password and use it to grab the official compendium content, reformat it to be iPhone friendly (and frankly not complete crap like it is on Wizard's site) and serve it up to you. Of course some people wouldn't want to give a third party their login details and that is understandable. In that case (and for people who don't have a subscription at all) you could still use the other features I will be implementing, like the encounter manager and power tracker.

I'm not sure I understand. So, your app asks for a D&D Insider subscriber's username and password, and logs in on their behalf using their account details and pulls information from D&D Insider and presents it within your application?

How does it grab the Compendium information? Presumably you have an agreement with WotC to do that?

 

[OverloadUT]

I'm not sure I understand. So, your app asks for a D&D Insider subscriber's username and password, and logs in on their behalf using their account details and pulls information from D&D Insider and presents it within your application?

How does it grab the Compendium information? Presumably you have an agreement with WotC to do that?

Yes you understand correctly; that's roughly how it works. I'm not sure how to answer your "how" question though. These are computers were talking about; they can do whatever you program them to do! I simply scrape the data from the compendium. The same way your browser grabs information from a web server, or an RSS reader grabs RSS feeds from a server. My webapp simply functions as a client. If you want to know the details: I use the cURL library in PHP and cache the results in a MySQL database to lessen the communication needed between the two servers.

And no, I don't have any sort of agreement, nor do I think I would I need to. My service would only serve make their paid subscription more attractive to a certain demographic and doesn't allow anyone without a paid account access to paid-only information, so it's a mutually beneficial situation. Anyone with any business sense at all should recognize that. The only reason I could see them being uneasy about it is the fact that I'd be taking people's usernames and passwords. That is admittedly non-ideal but there isn't any other good way for me to do it. However, huge services like Facebook and countless other online services ask for your gmail/hotmail/yahoomail username and password to import contacts from, so far from unheard of.

Anyway, the underlying technology is not really important here. What is important is knowing what people would want from an application like this! My goal is to figure out what everyone would like to see and then figure out what is in the realm of possibility given my time.

 

[ghearus]

And no, I don't have any sort of agreement, nor do I think I would I need to. My service would only serve make their paid subscription more attractive to a certain demographic and doesn't allow anyone without a paid account access to paid-only information, so it's a mutually beneficial situation. Anyone with any business sense at all should recognize that.

That is a very naive statement Something you should consider...

It is not mutually beneficial; a mutually beneficial arrangement occurs when both sides have a dependency on each other. Since WotC already has a requirement that anyone wanting to use Compendium has a DDI account, and does not require your service or app to function, you are not bringing anything to the table. Any marketing "benefit" for WotC for allowing your app to function is marginal, however, *you* are garnering a benefit from leveraging a third party relationship between WotC and the DDI subscriber to provide a *value-added* service. It is an important distinction

If you are going to take the time to develop this, you ought to consider reading section 3 of the terms of use for the site:

3. Limits on Use of the Site

You agree not to engage in any of the following: (i) use any automated means, including, without limitation, agents, robots, scripts, or spiders, to access, monitor, data scrape, copy or transfer any part of the Site (including without limitation any User data, including any Member registration information, whether individually or in the aggregate);


And that is just the first clause!


If you are going to proceed, you should contact Wizards to inquire about licensing or getting permission in writing.


Also....


Things I would like to see:
- Dice roller
- Skills/attribute tracking
- Journal App

 

[Pyrex]

Of course some people wouldn't want to give a third party their login details and that is understandable.

Which is why the first item on my wish list was coding it as a Widget (comparable to a fairly complex greasemonkey script) that runs on the phone instead of linking through a web proxy.

It not only eliminates most of the security issues with people handing over their login credentials, it also side-steps the TOU violations.