[Mac] The Mac Software Thread (Free and Alternative Stuff)


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The CrystalBall program linked above is pretty good. And of course, if you're a true masochist, you can always start up PCGen and see if it's faster than doing them by hand.

And thanks! I like to make useful things.
 


Hi Ho -- I updated StatBlockPaster (same link) -- data improvements. Now with Initiative Bonuses, Giants, Elementals and Oozes!

Oooh. Ahhhh.
 

barsoomcore said:
The CrystalBall program linked above is pretty good. And of course, if you're a true masochist, you can always start up PCGen and see if it's faster than doing them by hand.

And thanks! I like to make useful things.
Click to expand...

Back when 3.0 was king I dl'd a PC app called Stat Block Generator, which was just a TK windows app that allowed you to input values and created a stat block from them. That's a simple widget I would LOVE to see for the Mac. Even though I am a Unix Sysadmin, I'm a lousy coder, so I've not yet tried to build such a beast.
 

The problem comes in how granular you want to make such a product.

My StatBlockPaster is atomic in nature (not atom-powered, unfortunately) -- a statblock is a single chunk of data that is never altered in and of itself. You COULD offer a program that just has a bunch of input windows (one for Initiative, one for Strength, one for BAB...) but it starts to get VERY VERY complicated VERY VERY quickly, IF you try to make it more granular. The problem is that in trying to CALCULATE values based on other values, you end up with a spectacularly confusing web of relationships between values that is very difficult to manage (PCGen).

I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe a single-window app with an input field for each statblock section, along with a displayed "Calculated Value" next to those for which it makes sense. So next to "Grapple" it would display the total of size, BAB and Strength modifiers, along with an input box where you could either just enter the provided value, OR, if this creature had some special modifier, alter the value to whatever you wanted. When you changed the creature's Strength, the displayed value would change but not the value in the input box. You could then decide to change the actual value for that field.

You know, I think that wouldn't be rocket science to build. Hm.
 


barsoomcore said:
The problem comes in how granular you want to make such a product.

You know, I think that wouldn't be rocket science to build. Hm.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the granularity is where you really start to get in trouble. There are two extremes, right? One is you enter every single value and every single sentence and paragrapth. The other is the extreme of having every single bit of data and calculation pre programmed into the software so that all you have to enter are stats, ranks, spells, and items.

SBG for the PC is an app that was at the first extreme, and I really like it because (at the time) I really hated what was out there for character generation, and there are some times when I take characters from third party sources, or sources that weren't coded for yet, so I'd rather have just a piece of software that takes entered values and dumps finished output. It really can't be that hard. I think I could probably do it in perl, myself, because of it's ease of manipulating text, and since I'm not good at doing gui interfaces.
 

StatBlockPaster's been updated again with Andargor's improved XML data. Should have somewhat more consistent attack listings and so on. Enjoy!
 

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