Microsoft Surface Hit Point Tracking
 

I've had the opportunity to play with a Microsoft Surface for work, and now I'm thinking of getting one to use in-game, as I currently use my massive 17in gaming laptop, lol.

The ONLY thing so far that makes me hesitate, is the damage tracking.

Currently, when you hit the heal/damage button it resets the input number back to 0. I realize this is by design, due to having one spot to track lethal and non-lethal damage, and to prevent accidentally double-clicking.

Anyone know of a way to make this simpler?

My first thought is a custom tracked resource/ability, but that seems a bit clunky.

I may do it anyway and just track damage a different way, only updating HL at the end of each session.

Can you provide a screenshot? The Windows GUI that I see is fairly straight forward.

It is, however I need to type in a number each time my HP changes. What I'd like to do is set it to 1 by default, so I can heal/take damage by tapping the screen without needing to type the number in the box every time.

Hmm, you know, it's not like there isn't room for increment and decrement arrows below the lethal and nonlethal sections. On the other hand, at higher levels that's a lot of tapping.

Simple enough for arrows though, could have single arrows for +/- 1 and double for +/- 10

inc/dec arrows that are big enough for a touch screen use up quite a bit of screen real-estate.

My temporary solution is to have onenote up in draw mode on 1/3 of the screen for tracking HP. Out of combat? Adjust manually.

That said, the buttons would be great, they don't even need to be designed with touch-screen in mind. I find I can use it just fine on the in-play tab for incrementing things.

Only other issue, is when clicking on something to read about it, if it has a scroll bar you can't scroll it at all without a mouse. Easily worked around though.

I feel your pain... I've been asking for the UI to recognize touch screen input for years.

If it would just pop up the "soft keyboard" (preferably in number mode) when you click any input box, it would go a LONG way to making HL touch friendly...

This annoys me for sure, lol.

Yes there are still things to improve on with Hero Lab on the Surface, but I still love the surface.