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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Luke" data-source="post: 315252" data-attributes="member: 602">Re: Re: File type discriminationNo. There is a genuine issue here.PCGen are being restricted to only being allowed to distribute the WotC SRD content (no sword & fist, forgotten realms etc).There's a long road ahead before they can *possibly* get permission to incorporate the Wizard's copyright IP for non-SRD material.Essentially there is currently a prohibition on copyright material being distributed in PCGen format, whilst you can get the same material in E-Tools format from the "official" site.Part of this material is in open XML format (made easier to work with in bulk by your program, Davin), where other software can import from it, whilst other information is held in proprietory format (.rac files and others), only readable by other E-Tools programs.It should be noted, however, that Wizards own the IP to this copyright material, and are morally and legally within their rights to allow E-Tools proliferation of said material, effectively giving E-Tools a significant "competitive advantage" over PCGen and others. There is a moral and legal issue, however, if their official site ends up distributing closed content from other D20 publishers. I predict it won't be long before they have to enforce certain acceptability guidelines about what's allowed on their site. There will probably be a backlash where WotC are accused of "locking into" only their own material, although it's the most they can legally do (without permission). Just wait and see... "poor" old WotC always get slagged one way or another, no matter what they do. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />This places WotC in what "used to be" the PCGen situation. In the days when there was only PCGen, D20 publishers could find advantage in allowing PCGen permission to distribute their copyright material. Now, WotC would appear to offer a much stronger future marketing advantage from that perspective. Looks like PCGen have started a nice campaign at GenCon with getting D20 publishers on-side for future distribution (announcement pending), but if E-Tools survives it's launch, the effect may be a bit temporary.By the way, has anyone tried decoding the .rac or .chr file formats? I'd be surprised if there weren't a few PCGen coders having a close look. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I had a quick look, and at the very least it seems the strings are in unicode format...Davin??? Your helper is good, but it's incomplete... How about decoding those native formats for us? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> If only I had that much time.I like efforts by people like Charles Greathouse, to get things like standard statblock formats. I've already started changing my own formats to make E-Tools imports easier...</blockquote>

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