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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
On the State of Digital Aids for D+D/D20/OGL
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<blockquote data-quote="soulcatcher" data-source="post: 3276698" data-attributes="member: 5940"><p>Sorry, I've been busy (we are actually actively working on some changes to the website based on feedback from these threads, we can only work on so many things at once).</p><p></p><p>So, your feedback line by line (and I'm going to break this into multiple posts based on each section):</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is really two separate questions: Easy to use UI, Iconic UI, and I'll address both separately:</p><p></p><p>Easy to use UI:</p><p>We are in discussion on how to make a wizard, and also how to make it so that PCGen can support more then one UI at a time (so that we can experiment, and use feedback to make it easier and more powerful). In principal, I think we may have to split the app into to separate ones: Players Edition and GMs Edition in order to make it easy and powerful at the same time (and sorry, but the GMs Edition will have to be more complex, it's inherent). This will take us some time (realistically at least a year) but I think we can do this. Upshot: Possible</p><p></p><p>Iconic UI:</p><p>It's questionable as to whether most people want this, but we can probably find out if we make it so that the UI can be separate from the rest of the application. That being said, this one specifically is much harder for an open source app. We can write code, we can write docs, and make data, but simply put, good artwork costs money. We have been taking in donations, so potentially we could do something in the future, but for now, this is one area that is much much harder for an open source app to tackle. Upshot: Unlikely for us, possible for others</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That is the present PCGen design. I suspect man things we do are right, but it needs to be refined more then wholesale torn apart. We started that process with 5.10, and we'll continue it. I also plan to attempt a character sheet based interface, that lets you click on blank parts of the character sheet, and then that will bring up the wizard for dealing with that specific part of the character. (anyway, that's one idea). Upshot: Possible</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We don't do this now, we kind of just let you pick stuff here and there, and I do think it's necessary to support that (so that you can alter choices later). I also find that for speed, it's nice to do all the leveling first, then the feats, then the skills. That being said, yes, we do need some sort of wizard, and when our architecture is repaired enough to let us do onw, it's at the top of the list. Upshot: Possible</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We can't control this. Sorry. We have everything we can have, and give people the ability to add that which we can't. In reality, with the tens of businesses involved, no one group will have permission to everyone's system. The only way I see to resolve this at least partially is to make data entry really really easy. That is something that we are trying to figure out how to do. Upshot: Completely out of our control. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Our data system can handle this now, and does so pretty well. But you want a UI, and I hear you. Presently our structure does a bad job of making this easy to maintain. From time to time, we have working UIs for data, but they always fall behind. I have ideas how to fix this, and I would like to even see us develop a library of more or less standard abilities, so that you can just select preexisting abilities to assign to say a level or a feat. This one will take time, but it is also a priority for us. Upshot: Possible</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nothing much to say here. I think our PDF files, and html sheets are top notch as well. Upshot: We already do it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Same here. we already do this. We could probably make the UI for it suck less, but that realy fits more into the above questions. Upshot: We already do it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="soulcatcher, post: 3276698, member: 5940"] Sorry, I've been busy (we are actually actively working on some changes to the website based on feedback from these threads, we can only work on so many things at once). So, your feedback line by line (and I'm going to break this into multiple posts based on each section): This is really two separate questions: Easy to use UI, Iconic UI, and I'll address both separately: Easy to use UI: We are in discussion on how to make a wizard, and also how to make it so that PCGen can support more then one UI at a time (so that we can experiment, and use feedback to make it easier and more powerful). In principal, I think we may have to split the app into to separate ones: Players Edition and GMs Edition in order to make it easy and powerful at the same time (and sorry, but the GMs Edition will have to be more complex, it's inherent). This will take us some time (realistically at least a year) but I think we can do this. Upshot: Possible Iconic UI: It's questionable as to whether most people want this, but we can probably find out if we make it so that the UI can be separate from the rest of the application. That being said, this one specifically is much harder for an open source app. We can write code, we can write docs, and make data, but simply put, good artwork costs money. We have been taking in donations, so potentially we could do something in the future, but for now, this is one area that is much much harder for an open source app to tackle. Upshot: Unlikely for us, possible for others That is the present PCGen design. I suspect man things we do are right, but it needs to be refined more then wholesale torn apart. We started that process with 5.10, and we'll continue it. I also plan to attempt a character sheet based interface, that lets you click on blank parts of the character sheet, and then that will bring up the wizard for dealing with that specific part of the character. (anyway, that's one idea). Upshot: Possible We don't do this now, we kind of just let you pick stuff here and there, and I do think it's necessary to support that (so that you can alter choices later). I also find that for speed, it's nice to do all the leveling first, then the feats, then the skills. That being said, yes, we do need some sort of wizard, and when our architecture is repaired enough to let us do onw, it's at the top of the list. Upshot: Possible We can't control this. Sorry. We have everything we can have, and give people the ability to add that which we can't. In reality, with the tens of businesses involved, no one group will have permission to everyone's system. The only way I see to resolve this at least partially is to make data entry really really easy. That is something that we are trying to figure out how to do. Upshot: Completely out of our control. Our data system can handle this now, and does so pretty well. But you want a UI, and I hear you. Presently our structure does a bad job of making this easy to maintain. From time to time, we have working UIs for data, but they always fall behind. I have ideas how to fix this, and I would like to even see us develop a library of more or less standard abilities, so that you can just select preexisting abilities to assign to say a level or a feat. This one will take time, but it is also a priority for us. Upshot: Possible Nothing much to say here. I think our PDF files, and html sheets are top notch as well. Upshot: We already do it. Same here. we already do this. We could probably make the UI for it suck less, but that realy fits more into the above questions. Upshot: We already do it. [/QUOTE]
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