My consolidated list of feature suggestions
 

This is a list of suggestions for features for Realm Works. Most are from the forum but some are my own.

Smart images
1) Permanent labels (IMO these should only appear at a certain zoom state or at some other trigger to reduce clutter but that is another thing that could be worked out)
2) links directly to other maps
3) image maps in RW (a defined region in an image that is a link)
4) allowing multiple kinds and colors of pins (should simply allow users to install their own BMP or whatever the image is somewhere).
5) Allow links to map pins, this would open the map and center it on the map zoomed at some level with the map center on the pin (perhaps with the pin also highlighted in some way)
6) Added in build 248 Reveal smart image by drawing a polygon rather than using the default method. Simply put a number of points on the screen and close the polygon by clicking the first point to reveal the area inside.
7) A number of items have been removed under the assumption that 64 bit will solve a lot of smart image issues

Storyboard
1) Bidirectional arrows.
2) Remember user preference for vertical or horizontal display
3) Allow arrows and boxes to have user defined colors, and boxes to have user defined shapes
4) Allow GM to mark the party's position in the storyboard and have that be persistent

Relationships
1) user defined relationships
2) expand the kinds of relationships available (1 & 2 were separate but related requests both included for completeness)
3) add a sibling relationship to the existing allowed family relationships.

Topics & Articles
1) individual reveal on a per character basis, not on per player basis as a player could have more than one character playing the same campaign
2) Player Journals, topic editable by individual player specific to individual character and links based on that character's reveal status. Should be revealed to the GM and that player automatically, can be revealed to other players based on the authoring player's wishes
3) Plurals assumes English. Allow user defined plural or at least include some of the more common ways plurals are made.
4) User defined snippet styles
5) Added in build 248 Place the predefined snippet styles on the format ribbon
6) Allow custom icons for topics
7) Allow adding prefixes and suffixes to topics during creation.
8) Allow the tooltip for a topic/article link to be a user defined text snippet defaulting to the overview snippet.
9) Added in build 247 Create and implement a setting where only the first occurrence of a link is created in each snippet.
10) Increase the width of tag and labeled text snippets.
11) Align all the text fields of labeled text snippets within a section.

Realm Management
1) Folders for realms
2) Archiving of realms
3) Added in build 250 Sync realm without closing realm

Calendars
1) Can we have calendars, please?
2) When we get calendars, please?, can we also get a better timeline?
3) Implement relative date/time snippets. These would be useful primarily in adventures where events are timed relative to the start of the adventure.

The one area I left out is player view. I've grown increasingly dissatisfied with it over the last couple of years as have my players. I've seen a few general complaints and a few specific issues but not a lot of "this will make player view better" type stuff and I'm really at a loss as well.

Good list. I think it catches some of the more often asked for features; features that I imagine most if not all users would find useful.

Nice, kbs. Thanks for this!

Thanks for compiling the list, kbs. And, while we`re at it, another

+1

for the list in general, and the "Big C" in particular, from me.

Huge +1 to this list! Thanks for taking the time to compile the greatest hits from the features we've all requested over the years.

-Ian

Oh, yes, in case it wan't clear: +1 to all items on the list

I add some more:

- let the player assign snippet styles to the snippets in category definition
- a word/grammar corrector
- a find and replace working over all the topics
- manua-.created labeled text snippet allowing for a longer label (as the one created inside manage category)
- please make Remove Protection really remove protection. If I choose to remove protection from a Global Category, I want to be able tu fully edit it as a user-made category. Same for tags and relationships.

This is a really really bad idea. You might not screw it up but you'd never be able to import anything using the default categories. Also anyone who did what you suggest who exported anything would destroy the realms of anyone who imported the material.

Just make a copy of the built in categories, make your changes and then hide the protected ones and use your new ones.

Listen, I know what you mean, but the remove protection is there for some reason, right? And it allows for deep editing, but with some flaws. As it is right now, you can change almost everything in an unprotected category (messing up everything if someone import it) but not some important things, such as the possibility to move one category as a subcategory of another one, and so on. I really would like that "remove protection", that should be used very carefully, I agree with you, allows full editing.

Generally speaking, the behaviour that you (and RW itself) suggest sure is the best one in most of the cases, and I also used it. But there are cases in which it's not practical, and I suppose that this is the reason which made Rob include Remove protection in RW.
For example, consider my actual Realm, which is set in a game system which is directly derived from Pathfinder but with some changes, and, more important, it's not in English, it's in Italian. This means that it uses 90% of the Pathfinder mechancs, but that I have to make 10% of changes (and if it was only this, I could do as you suggest), but I also have to translate *everything*. Doing this by editing the original categories and tags is an hard work, but doing it by dupicating each of them, recreating their hierarchical relationship and than hiding all the original categoris make it much harder. And with no benefit, because I will never export it for basic Pathfinder, it would be meaningless :)

You're still asking for something that will inevitably do harm to someone. There is a harmless option available. It may annoy you but its there and it takes literally the same number of mouse clicks or keystrokes. I can see no benefit.

Further I do not want to derail this topic with this discussion. This is for features that are widely desired and this isn't one.

I strongly disagree. The potential problems you are speaking about are there already. The Remove Protection feature is already there, and can break import, as you say, and has a warning about it. The editing features that are not unlocked by removing protection now can't do much more damage (if any at all).
To tell the truth, I think that the best solution will be a three-level protection, one that does not allow any change to global categories (as it is now if you do not remove protection), one that simply enable to add snippets and change the order of the existing ones (this hardly can create problems when exporting / importing, while as it is now, if you remove protection you can) and a third one that make global categories the same as user created ones, with full editing capabilities.
From what you say, it seems that you would like to see the "Remove protection" feature removed at all, or strongly limited, but I'm on the opposite side.
About the "same number of mouse clicks or keystrokes", sorry but this is simply not true. I will be glad to discuss this further, but...[/QUOTE]

No problem about this, it is your topic :) This was my last post in this topic about this matter.

If you say so, I belive you. Still, it's one of my top requests, so I'll open a new topic about this, later in the development process (if there are more widely desired features, they deserv priority).

I have an addition to the map part:

- the ability to copy pins

My current context: I'm creating a dungeon with different levels of locks. This is pathfinder so correlated with the difficulty check to pick these locks. Now I have around 12 doors with DC 15, 8 with DC 17, 4 with DC 20 and one with DC 22.
As a DM I want to put pins on all the doors with the DC of the lock, put the DC in the GM only section and have the information at hand just by hovering over the door. But this means I have to create 25 pins manually.
Would be great if I could just create 3 different pins and then copy and drag them as I need.

+1

I can see, how this could come in very handy.

@kbs666 are you planning on editing the first post to keep the list up to date? Then I would post further suggestions in this thread instead of opening new ones.

Today I noticed two minor, yet annoying things about the mouseover popup for map pins:

1. no line breaks in GM Directions.
It works for the regular description, but not for the GM Directions field. Makes the important notes hard to read sometimes

2. Popup duration.
It's currently set for 10 sec (I think), which is fine during editing and preparation. But during a game session, I read, I talk to the player, I want to read again, but the popup is gone. So I need to move the mouse back and forth and then read the info I need. This breaks the game flow unnecessarily. I would expect this to be an option under preferences.

That's all for now :cool:

I'll edit the first post if that's what people want. I would like some consensus on what is desired by the bulk of the forum community though not just put anything posted in the thread into the list. I only put things in my initial list that was requested multiple times or was obviously needed.

Alright then I just post my suggestions in a seperate thread and if enough people agree with me, you still can add them to your list.

@kbs666, thank you for putting this list together!

Please keep evolving it, ideally by adding new requests to the initial post. This list will hopefully be extremely helpful in the not-too-distant future. :)

No problem.

A couple of things...

One, regarding options for map pins, I believe a prior suggestion for making the linked Topic's icon appear as the map pin was in the works already... but I have no idea if that has been dropped or will appear someday... or whatever.

Second, in regard to topic Icons, I have a thread of specific suggestions (HERE) that people are welcome to add specific suggestions to. There were a few "+1" posts, but even now I don't see any specific requests/suggestions added.

I missed that. Not sure how usefull that would really be. Many city type maps most of the pins point to locations for instance.

IIRC there was also a feature request to just allow the addition of custom icons. So I merged the two feature requests together. There are several of the points in my list that merge several such feature requests that are very similar into a single point. I think ultimately, just like for map pins, it makes more sense to allow users or creators once the CM goes live to simply add their own rather than relying on LWD to do it.

Yes and no. I am no developer and no artist. And I use RW mostly for our homebrew world. Therefore I will much appreciate it, if Lonewolf adds those icons (and a few more) from Silveras linked list.

That's only true if you don't create new categories for more specific Location types. Leaving most as Locations or Merchants doesn't work for me, as I want/need visual distinctions.. so I have copied the Location or Merchant to create House, Landmark, Inn/Tavern, and Temple categories, each with different icons (though some are quite counter-intuitive). That, especially coupled with more icons, would make the map pins more distinct based on type.

Yeah, I agree with Greebo on this ... I can work Paint or GiMP to create an icon.. but it will look fairly crude unless I put an extended amount of time into it. I have done that before, and I'd rather see some professionally done icons added than worry about adding my own... although if the Content Market includes "icon packs", that may be a good compromise on this point.

Well, I do support the ability to integrate your own icons, but nobody said they have to be really your own icons. There are so many sites with free icons on the web - especially for personal use.

Exactly.

Ideally, I'd like my map pins to already distinguish between public buildings, stores, pubs/restaurants, subway stations, schools, churches/temples, monuments/landmarks, parks and the like for our science fantasy campaign.

And similarly for the fantasy campaign.

I'm fine either way. My opinion is that with the size LWD is we're probably always going to be better off if we get the ability to expand RW ourselves. But if you guys want a bunch of additional built in pins and icons then ok.

You are probably right, kbs666, adding many different icons wouldn't be expedient for LW. But at adding at least a few would help me (and probably others), since it would allow me to focus on the actual worldbuilding instead of searching for and integrating them on my own.


And, while we are at it, regarding map pins and links in general, a feature request resurfaced in another thread. Finding it useful I take the liberty to copy it over:

+1

Could you please add that feature to your list, kbs666?

Done the existing tool tip is pretty pathetic.

Thanks!

+1 again and thanks for building this kbs

Hey, @LWD, could we get this topic stickied?

Is the ignore duplicate links per snippet setting in build 247 sufficient for topic item #9? Or do people still want a topic wide setting?

It seems sufficient to me. I might miss the link if it was only one per topic and it was a larger topic so I couldn't see it. One per snippet seems like a good compromise.

I think the topic one needs to be there too. Picture that the link is to the father of a person. That father could be found in a parents snippet, a childhood snippet, and many others if he is still alive and involved in the person's life.

Going to have to come up with a way to mark items that have been completed. Strikethrough doesn't seem to be available. Any other sugestions?

Make the links blue like browsers do

Go to Preferences -> Content Display and you can check the box that says "Display Links in Blue"

We are looking for a way to discriminate between visited and unvisited links. Most browsers make visited links a different color by default. We would also need a way to reset visitation status.

No. I'm looking for a way to mark the list in my first post to distinguish which items have completed by LWD. I don't want to delete then as it will involve renumbering the lists all the time and having completed items will also be a handy thing to point to when people complain that LWD doesn't listen to us.

I'm leaning towards coloring them green with note explaining the meaning.

How about adding "COMPLETED ver XXX" after it in bold?

Or even as a prefix, so we don't have to scan the whole line (possibly with word wrap onto the next line) to find it :-)