Fluid site up, E-Tools Screenshots available

[Fast Learner]

Re: Re: Incredibly OT, but I Cannot Resist

Just a matter of perspective, really. I dislike struggling with user interfaces, or trying to 'trick' the program into doing what I want. I've coded similar looking documents in (a tweaked up version of) notepad. I know my html cold, so coding by hand allows me to know exactly what's happening under the hood, and it's actually quite efficient.

150 kB later, my document validates, save for maybe a few typos that are easily tracked down.

That said, I haven't tried a WYSIWYG editor in several years. I tried a while ago, but gave up because I found trying to use it was more difficult than just coding by hand.

You point out that you use a tweaked-up version of Notepad, though, so you're miles ahead. I used BBEdit for all of my HTML creation for a very long time.

I don't mean to argue that a WYSIWYG editor is superior to text editing, but that almost anything is superior to Notepad.

That said, Dreamweaver is the first WYSIWYG/Text editor that I've ever liked. It creates extremely clean HTML, has no problem with you editing the heck out of the HTML as you go (flipping back and forth as you desire), allows you to easily work with CSS, easily work with SSI and/or templates, and knows how to properly handle JavaScript. Works like a charm, with very little getting in your way.

And... uh... to try to steer this back on topic, um... I suspect Dreamweaver will work well for creating E-Tools templates. Yeah, that's the ticket. Creating templates.

 

[Luke]

Re: HTML reports

- Eric Noah mentioned a while ago that Internet Explorer 6.0 or later was a requirement, for some reason. My guess would be because it's from this point that Internet Explorer becomes capable of displaying HTML reports from an XML/XSL combination.

Yup. Confirmed at the Wizards website, where .XSL files are used to create printouts.

Simpler reports might be okay, but expect setting up your own character sheets to be a real mind bender. If you have HTML experience, but no XSL experience, get ready to learn some new technology.

Predictions:
- The actual HTML contained in the .XSL file will be the simplest part of understanding what's going on.
- The .xml file produced for a character sheet will contain a tree hierarchy of information ( skill lists, spell lists etc underneath the core creature data such as name and alignment).
- The XSL file will contain the HTML output, along with embedded code that knows how to navigate the XML data structure, pulling out the bits of data it needs from appropriate places.
- If you haven't yet been introduced to the delights of XSL programming, but got softened by the Lisp programming language somewhere in the past, you might be okay
- I think maybe 98% of us might be waiting to see what 2% of us can make available on the internet from a community perspective.

Whilst XSL/XML technology can be slow and burdensome for Internet Explorer for anything large, I think the decision by Fluid to go this way is pretty reasonable. Generally the reports being produced in E-Tools should be fairly small, and given the emerging dominance of XML, the availablilty of decent XSL editors can't be too far off in the future.

 

[MJEggertson]

Still off topic. Dreamweaver now allows you to edit the native code too? Hmm....I may have to check it out then. I actually use EditPad, useful additions are syntax highlighting, auto-indent, and regex search/replaces...

On topic: I wonder if we could get Fluid to give us a handful of XSL docs prior to the release? I don't suppose the beta test had this export feature.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I was under the impression that Eric said that the IE 6.0 issue was resolved, and that it should work with earlier versions... Eric?

 

[EricNoah]

Not a guarantee by any means, but I think I recall running a beta version of MT on a computer that had IE 5 or 5.5. Something like that. But I also had to patch up some stuff related to having Office 97 installed (ODBC? drivers, Jet drivers) on that machine. So I don't know how that might have affected things.

 

[Luke]

Not a guarantee by any means, but I think I recall running a beta version of MT on a computer that had IE 5 or 5.5. Something like that. But I also had to patch up some stuff related to having Office 97 installed (ODBC? drivers, Jet drivers) on that machine. So I don't know how that might have affected things.

I think XSL first appeared in IE 5.0, and was improved in 5.5, though 6.0+ is definitely better. It's possible that the character sheets use XSL simple enough to get away with 5.0+ .

I actually insist on IE 5.0 or greater for RPM's scripting engine, because of the improved stability in JavaScript with "try/catch". I think it's pretty fair, although some people do have valid reasons for avoiding IE 6.0+ .
It's just a shame that you're not allowed to include an automated IE update on a CD, the way Microsoft enabled you to supply one for DirectX upgrades.

 

[Mynex]

Not a guarantee by any means, but I think I recall running a beta version of MT on a computer that had IE 5 or 5.5. Something like that. But I also had to patch up some stuff related to having Office 97 installed (ODBC? drivers, Jet drivers) on that machine. So I don't know how that might have affected things.

Eric,

It was ODBC and Jet Drivers required to get installed for Office 97 to get it to work with 5.5... I don't think anyone ever actually got 5.0 to work, but I don't remember for sure.