Quality of GM Life Improvements
 

Hello Devs, I'm actually glad on how well you've made this so far. However, there are some glaring QOL issues that I've run into that I would consider some big issues that I've run into.

(In no particular order)
1. Create Content based on Selection/Pin
If I highlight a selection of text, I should be able to right-click and create a new topic, bypassing the entire selection thing. Same with a Pin, I want to be able to go right to "Create Content for this Pin" based on the name of the Pin.

2. Draw on the Map
I would love to be able to create overlays, such as circles, rectangles and such on maps. A great feature would be to draw "paths," so they can see where the NPCs are going. Same with adding text. Heck, if I could create a region, by drawing a circle or rectangle or any other shape, and then be able to link that shape to an article, it would be amazing. As it stands now, I have to create another map for every Provence.

3. Update all Articles with Mentions of this Article
If I create an Article, I want the ability to have the system scan all articles in the entire campaign with mentions of that name, and make links if I need to. Right now, I have to go back and open each article and make sure mentions are linked.

4. When I right-click and click "Create Containing Article", it should create it right there.
This is a big issue. When I'm in the Story Almanac, sometimes, I'll do a "Create Containing Article," and it will be the previous place (World/Story/Mechanics), with the correct container, but the wrong type. It should default to "Person" if I right click under a person group and "create containing article."

5. Synchronize needs to happen automatically.
The idea behind the cloud is that it is always updated. When I make a save, that edit should be queued to be added to the Cloud. This is vital for my next problem.

6. Connected players should be notified when new information has been synchronized to the Cloud, or, better yet, their Campaign should automatically update with the new information, without leaving the Realm.
This is a serious issue, that's a pretty big issue. I bought one GM license and 3 player licenses under the guise that three laptops could be at the table, I could edit my campaign, and instantly, they see the choice. However, this is more like an emailed PDF than anything. Players should never be able to view the realm when their version is old. Live updates will skyrocket this thing into the stratosphere.

7. I wish I could give information to just one player.
This is just a personal preference, but there are some other uses, such as things that one player knows over another. I love it when I'm able to give each player just a tidbit of information, and they can choose when to reveal it. Its a powerful tool, but Realm Works doesn't allow this. Its either all players see it, or no one does.

8. Where is the Key/Value Text?
I wish I could create a Key/Value Text, just because I'm OCD. I'm not talking about Tags. I'm talking: "Physical Description: An ornate grey building, this temple to Veiloaria offers respite to any worshippers and travellers."

9. Why are Keys limited to so little characters?
I found this as a problem when I'm entering dates. I would love to be able to put in Arrived (Continent Name): MM/dd/yyyy

10. For all that is HOLY, allow us to ENTER in dates.
Oh...my...jebus. Seriously, being able to enter in MM/dd/yyyy, rather than navigating *needs* to happen. The Date picker is a pain in my arse.

11. When displaying the Timeline, the article name should be second.
The Timeline *needs* to be displayed like this:
- <GAME DATE> <KEY> <ARTICLE> <ADDENDUM>

It just doesn't make sense when a bunch of articles are in the Time Line.

12. HeroLab Connectivity
For some reason, I have to replace the HeroLab file every time I want to update it. I can't just make a change in HeroLab, and press Save, and RealmWorks steals it from HeroLab.

... I think that's all the rants and ideas I have right now. Great system so far.

This is in there. Highlight the text, press Control-Q for quick create. What you highlighted is what the name defaults to.

For pins, if you fill in the name of the pin and then select to associate content with the pin and then click on the add button from the list of topics, it will pre-fill in the name you started with on the pin. Alas, if you select "Associate content with pin" right-click menu option, it won't do this and probably should.

For #10, you can type in the date manually. I also find the "search engine" unwieldy and type my dates in regularly.

I just tried this...it put in "Unnamed." Plus, I'd like to just go right to content creation, elimination of one additional step. :P

I ABSOLUTELY would NOT want this. I like to save often, (like constantly) and wouldnt want a save kicking off a sync, because then players might see things before im ready. If this were to be implemented, i would absolutely want it to be an option to use.

Performance would be my concern. If you synched things like maps, how much would it slow down players computers during games. A notification is one thing.

"You are currently behind, not viewing the latest realm".

Thats always been planned. They just need to implement it.


Thats something i would like too, but its difficult, from what i understand. RW is a database, and HL are flatfiles... they could have had it point to the external files, but if you think about the logical conclusions of that, it could cause synching issues if you didnt have the same directory structure on other computers...

That's why things default to "not shown." You click the green icon to make it shown. I want them to be able to see things as soon as I hit the save button, so that way there's no lag time. Right now, you have to exit, sync, then come back in order to view the changes, which make it a severe pain.

If anything, we could have a "don't sync" option, which prevents auto-sync. I'd just appreciate it if the system was always syncing to everyone connected at the moment.

Sending a couple of kilobytes every now and then won't hurt your computer, or your internet connection.

Well, the problem I had was that I can't click save. If I click "Open" on RealmWorks, if I click Save on HeroLab, it complains that the file is read only, and nothing saves in RealmWorks. All I want is for it to replace the file with the edited file.

You're not considering if I do any work on maps, and am not ready to reveal. megs of data. But if its an option (whether its on by default or off by default doesnt matter) but it should be configured at the Realm Level. Its important to remember that not everyone's workflow is the same. For me, there are absolute advantages to keeping a published database and a working database (non published/non synced) and even you have a point about viewing, I can, and often do publish basic info, and then have that revealed and then update the tags and dont hide something already revealed but arent ready to publish. Thats my workflow.

Also something to consider when considering the auto sync is how is the web interfce going to work? im actually curious about that in general.

meaning is it going to be redeployed every DB sync, is there going to be a time delay, etc..

(i have to imagine there might be multiple servers or perhaps multiple apps if its a web app based thing, but any auto sync would/could affect that)

Your using the "Click to View" you need to "Click to Edit the Data" instead. Then anything you do in HL will be saved back into RW.

Attachment 3629

I stand corrected. Thanks. Sorry for the misinformation.

Well, if you're talking about adding in a map, yeah, that's a few megs. But, the reveal data is a couple of kilobytes at most. If its more than that, something could be refactored to make the database smaller. Even adding one pin should just be a kilobyte or three. If you're working on the same map, generally, an update shouldn't be too intensive on the synchronization.

Yeah, my plan is, once the game starts flowing is that I will have entire articles with true, untrue and partially true information. If they reveal it, I click it, and they can see it when I sync next. I just wish that they could browse it immediately, while I'm playing. It gives them a way of "looking back at notes," without them asking for me to go to a certain topic on the big screen.

RE: Editing POR: What am I missing here? I don't see that button. I only see "View," no Edit buttons.

At this point we're arguing for no purpose. I'm just saying you need to consider other peoples workflows before doing something like an auto-sync. For me it would cause issues. Even if its not just about the player. There are other workflow reasons to not auto publish as well. (and its not just about reveals). If there were an option to enable or disable it, then it doesnt matter.


But as for the other things, constant saves, even if its only a couple of KB, it COULD be a performance concern if enough people are doing it. And im not talking performance on your end, or performance on your players end. You have to consider the system as a whole. A lot of it could in theory depend on how the website is going to handle syncs. Is it going to be based on browser fresh, or a more modern technology allowing push data (like angular/node). Whenever dealing with infrastructure like this, there are always lots of things to consider.

So the real question is when doing something like this: cost/benefits.

Do the benefits of auto sync outweight the costs? Possibly. We know the benefits, but not really. (how many people would use it... are they more like you, or more like me?) Dont know the costs either.

Now I would like a notification system so that when I publish, all my players are aware of it.

As for the HL thing- I will let Shadow respond. My windows machine has been down for a few days, so im rebuilding so dont have RW in front of me (which is why i was probably giving misinformation - again, sorry about that)

Good idea.
And if you could hide/reveal/link etc. such circles/reactangles/wutnot it would be powerful.
I could have a circle somewhere on the map and when they locate the enemy buildup I could reveal a circle and say: "It is in the that area, as you can see too close for comfort to the crossing point".

Agreed. I do believe that this is one of those nice little things that will happen in an update somewhere down the road.

Yes - and no.
I too would like the system to able to do so.

However, I don't like the "update all constantly" solution.

I would prefer a little button sitting left to the "Edit" button the topic heading, looking like the sync icon on the "splash screen".

If I press this button that topic - and that topic alone - is synced immediately with the players' Realm Works.

The icon should be red when the topic is not synced with the players and green when it is.

Of course, you should still be able to "sync all" - also from within the realm. That option could be placed in the "Manage" menu.

I do believe this will happen somewhere down the road (I certainly hope so - but calendars first! ;))

An indication that there is reason to sync, yes. Not forcibly do it.

There can be a number of reasons for this - as this:
Imagine the GM sitting home one night and updating the realm.
Then imagine the player sitting elsewhere with just enough internet connection for a lousy email exchange and leisurely reading through the topics in Realm Works - and BAM! Realm Works starts synching. A nightmare.

In the works already - if I have read it correctly.

Could you elaborate on this, please?

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed.



Sorry for the long post.

Click Edit first. The Topic/Article needs to be in Edit mode to show that button.

ObTopic:
1. Is there as mentioned (Ctrl-Q for Quick Create), though it'd be nice to have it in the Context Menu as well.
2. I haven't done much mapping yet. Other threads on this theme I found by searching this forum for "region": Overlays for Smart Images, An alternative to pins on maps. There's probably more if you do more searches.
3. Already in the works.
4. Yeah, they chose to remember the last set of settings instead. (Create Contained Topic/Article is Quick Create.)
5, 6. I'd rather not, personally, but then again I work offline most of the time. There's a bunch of syncing improvements on their radar.
7. Already in the works. ("Individual Character Reveal" is what folks call it.)
8. Do you mean a Text Snippet with a label? We've gone around on that one before: Text with title.
9. Define your own Category and they can be longer. Otherwise, this belongs in its own request thread.
10. The Gregorian Calendar is defined using RW's custom calendar functionality and it needs a bunch of UI work. They've acknowledged this.
11. They should probably be switchable, much like many other multicolumn listboxes in Windows.

Just note this is all of the issues I've experienced. Its just really annoying. I'd love to force an update when possible.

One thing people aren't considering, and they are thinking, is that Synchronization requires the *entire* file to be redistributed. However, with how synchronization works, unless its the first execution, you're not distributing the entire file, just what was modified. You'll notice this when you synchronize first, it can take up to a minute (depending on internet connection), but when you do a synchronize after-the-fact, you're only updating for a few seconds.

This would be the same for if an auto-synchronize happened. A few bytes or kilobytes. Even the worst connection would have no problem dealing with it, unless you're on 5800 Baud Modems. A single reveal is a single bit, with a location identifier (so, 2-15 bytes). Adding in 500 characters to a single item would be 500 bytes. Truly, synchronizing automatically would cause less bandwidth usage than if you accessed Facebook. The *only* time that you're going to run into a single-item update will cause a huge update is if the GM drops a huge high-resolution map. With this, its probably vital that background downloading would need to exist, so the player can continue to read while a synchronize happens, then update once the synchronize completes.

The thing is, an auto-synchronize cannot be implemented as-is. Its dumb, because the Synchronize system as it stands now is slow, obtrusive, and annoying. It pops up a dialog box, takes a few seconds to ramp up, downloads for a few seconds, then a few seconds to implement the changes, before it releases control. Synchronization would *need* to happen on a background thread. While a synchronize happens, the user would need to be notified with a circling "synchronizing" icon, but, besides that, they should not be interrupted in any way. Unless the article being synchronized is the one that is being modified by the sync, they wouldn't notice the difference between before Sync and post Sync.

Fortunately, you're all saying "RealmWorks is database-based." That's great! Database structures were built with multi-access in mind. Even NoSQL is built around allowing multiple processes and threads to access the database.

Multi-Threading isn't easy, and, at the moment, it looks like no (or just single job multi-threading) multi-threading is done. Its unfortunate, because this is what I expected of RealmWorks, that the system would operate on a Multi-Thread System, where updates can be done independently of the user's UI updates, allowing for the GMs to make modifications and update players immediately.

Now, why is this important? Well, I'm trying to keep up with technology. When I saw RealmWorks, I saw it as a solution to the distraction of Technology. Nowadays, half of my groups have Laptops, and everyone has a smartphone. If I engage them by allowing them to look up elements on the fly, they would be engaged with the game, and I don't have to be that "Old Grandpa" that tells "those whippersnappers to put away their laptops." They are engaged in the game, and I'm not the enemy. I see this as a tool to make them enjoy my game, while making them focused on the game. They can explore my rich world at their leisure. I don't have to spend vital time when someone asks a question on something that happened before, they can just look at RealmWorks, and their answer is revealed. I continue telling the story, and they find out information when they want/need to.

As it stands, RealmWorks is half of this. Auto-sync is something that I have to stand firm that it must implement, otherwise, it simply only serves as a way of aggregating my thoughts independent of a book or such. There is almost no reason for anyone in my group to purchase a "player license." The tools are there, I just wish it strived to be a little better.

While I would dearly love background auto-syncing (I'm horrible about remembering to sync and log out), I see a few instances where it would be bad:

Metered internet: I don't want to lose chat/email capability just because I'm spending the evening creating Hero Lab portfolios for future encounters, or editing maps.

Limited-bandwidth environments (game stores, conventions): saturating the bandwidth by having everyone downloading updates all the time (don't forget the bandwidth needed to query for the existence of updates, which happens even when there are no updates) is not something that will make the game store owner or convention organizer inclined to look favorably upon your presence, when it means they cannot get their own work done.

For these instances (and others like them), I would hope to see auto-syncing something that can be toggled easily, alongside a button for manual syncing.

Again, I'm wondering if you all realize how much bandwidth that is *not* being used. You use more bandwidth by browsing Facebook, than Realm Works. If you watch a single YouTube video (even in 480p), you're still using a boat load of bandwidth.

You're overestimating how much updates need to be done. Its not like an MMO, where you are constantly streaming kilobytes of information constantly. At most, you'll have a kilobyte of in/out to "ping" for updates every 30-60 seconds, then, when an update occurs, its just the size of the information. I just made an update, where I added an entire paragraph of story information, and the database increased by 300 kilobytes. If you're so strapped for bandwidth that 300 kilobytes is killing your metered connection, you might want to consider removing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram from your phone, because you will exceed 300 kilobytes just by loading the HTML Page of Facebook, not even the content that it loads as well, even on Mobile.

Imper1um > You are correct that the amount of bandwith involved is not very much. And I do see your point on where you are coming from, on why it is important to you. I know that devices in game can sometimes be distracting.

Many people in this forum are technical. Some of us are developers that understand some of the intricacies and complexities in these sorts of requests.

Things tend to be more complex than just bandwith. There are two ways to do this. Push technology and polling technology. Both have problems. Especially when you are taking servers. If things were just about bandwith, you would be 1000% correct. Hell, you might still be correct, as none of us can really speak intelligently about the infrastructure in place. That being said, since syncs are already in place, maybe all that has been considered. So I'm willing to drop the technical argument and go back to the user-case one.

Assume for a minute that there are no performance concerns in mind, that still doesnt negate my point that auto sync should still be optional.

I generally am opposed to software that does forced updates without approval, I honestly believe notifications are a better method, at least for software that exists on someone's computer.

Everyone is going to have a different workflow. it sounds like that for your workflow its a necessity. For my workflow, it would be extremely problematic. Thats something to consider when making requests, something that accommodates multiple workflows. There's going to be some really odd workflows that you probably havent considered, but have to absolutely be considered when you do this.

So I would, at the very least, alter your suggestion to two realm level settings:

Setting 1: Auto Sync upon Saves
Setting 2: Notify Sync/Force Sync to "watchers" (this would be players and/or the new observer role that is also being suggested.

To be honest, Im not sure this is enough for some of the more interesting workflows out there.

I would not mind a choice. Choice is always good... just it has to be chosen by the GM.

Like I said, I can understand when you don't want to sync (no internet), but my entire workflow would be sooo much better if I had the option to synchronize every time I hit the save button, and the players connected at that time would be updated as soon as I do that. It would speed things up considerably for me.

I'm just sayin' that it needs to at least be an option to sync every time I hit save. Even if it was just that it synced as it stands (dialog box, blocking UI thread), I still want the option, and I still want users to be at least notified when the current realm is out of date while they are watching the realm, even if its one notification when I do a sync on my end.

I'm willing to let a simple implementation of this happen first, with a future update to make syncing more robust...like other cloud services.

A "sync only this topic" wouldn't work where you have new links appearing in the topic that are related to topics that you aren't yet synced. The links are created locally on your PC before being uploaded to the server, so these would become broken links in the player's copy.

There are (most likely) other dependencies that are affected in a similar manner.

Valid point - and don't we hate those? :p

I do not know how the code behind the program works, but this is what I would like to have. Maybe the wizards at LW can figure something out. :D

As for links - depending on how the database is organized - I might be lucky and the links (in other topics) could be updated simply and easily along with the topic I want to update - without updating all of the links. :confused:

Ah, well - we place our more or less insane visions and wishes in the fora and LW probably swear silently while trying to see if they can be implemented.

I'd be swearing out loud. :)

My guess, and only a guess, is that something like this would be a little dangerous to do. It being a database, its important to replicate/synchronize full database objects (tables) and not partial database objects (rows/columns).

Depending on the database design, i would imagine that what we are asking there, would mean this request would be asking for update of just rows or columns, because individual topics are likely rows within a "topic" table.

Now again, a lot of this depends how LW does the database updates/syncs, and maybe they do a whole bunch of update/insert statements when we click the sync button (but i imagine not), in which case such a thing could be possible.

Dont get me wrong, I'd love to have an individual topic sync/publish, so if it is doable, I'd be definitely voting "+1".

Rob's mentioned that synchs should only push data that has changed. And usually that dataset is very small in size (maps and graphics of course being the main exceptions). Instant synch is coming in the future.

Is it?

I agree on nearly all counts. I haven't been using RW lately as much and kind of moved back to my huge word documents of doom (and Evernote) because RW still handles a bit like a whale on a high wheel. Everything lags just a little bit too much for my taste, and many things as just a little bit off for my purposes - they work, but they are annoying to use still. For example, I'd appreciate the ability to have less specific dates, i.e. only month and year.

No. 8 on this list is also something I really support. Tags, to me, have proven utterly useless - what I would like, however, is to have a "Topic: Description" type item without having to manually format it.

@Farling: Yes. Rob has stated that constant synch is part of the vision. Please bear in mind that they have a lot of other things that are ahead of it still. My crystal ball says that it'll be after (or part of) the GM web client roll-out. I vaguely recall that Rob's brief statement was around the time of the survey results release but it got buried in the noise around calendars.

AEIOU may be thinking about this post from Rob back in September where he talks about continuous syncing: Player Edition Look.

Personally: I work offline most of the time and I have yet to use RW as part of a session so I don't care that much. A feature for the future.

Wow, was it that long ago? I think you are indeed correct. And given that his comments were before the survey, I'd take the "looking at in 2015" with a grain of salt.

Re: Updates - I've previously stated in a request thread for a task tray icon and a resident program that you could fire up and run for this purpose. You could even conceivably close RW and it could download any updates while you're doing something else at a drip-feed.

I am 100% behind you on the live update thing. Revealing a section of map, or a few snippets and then saying "Ok, those with devices may now update them" is rather ordinary as far as revealing goes. And people constantly asking for you to put up a statement, map, picture or other snippet in the Player View so they can re-read it all the time is tedious and jarring to the flow of the game.

As it is, I get the vibe that the basic functionality of the program needs to be ironclad before they do stuff like this, and stuff like calendars and all those doodads will need to be done before they start polishing it up like this. :(

Sometimes I wish they could have another round of Kickstarter to fund all this other widget gizmo stuff, because now I'm in a position to hop on board with some cash.

(RealmWorks Pro edition, anyone?)

Throwing money or people at a project does not mean the project gets done faster. In example if I put 2,700 women in a room I don't get a baby in one day. :eek:

New people to a project actually "slows" a project down why time/resources are spent getting the new programmer up to speed. In very custom built software areas like RW it could take as long as 6 months before that new programmer is not a drain on resources. This is why when the RW team actually lost a programmer they where not replaced. It would have just made things worse.

I see people mention "kickstarter" allot for this stuff and don't think they realize it is not some magical savior of IT projects. :( It works great for building a large sum of money to pay a Manufacturing Plant that already has its dies built and ready to go. Then yes the Manufacturing plant can mass produce the product.

Well said.

Very true. It really only works to create an expansion of the existing, or run the project up initially. (Crowdsourcing is also likewise only useful if the people know exactly what is going on and the focus points and goals from start to finish so they don't mess up the later goals with errant, yet correct coding.)

I'm more just sad I couldn't contribute first time around, and it was a misplaced attempt to wish it could retroactively change.

-

Back to the topic at hand, I understand the cloud is the data repository, but could a dinky little virtual server be set up on a local area network just for the player view business during a game session?

i.e. the players could sync at the start of the session, and as long as the GM doesn't update any information, the players would just get the revealed snippets.
If the GM updates something with edited or new information, that sync behaviour would terminate and there would be a "Sync Required" dialog box and the players would need to re-sync the realm and reconnect to start receiving these updates again, preventing the need for all this crazy push and poll business - it would be a simple query and sending back a packet if anything's changed.

Thoughts?

I suspect that when a Player syncs to the server, he is only given the snippets which are revealed by the GM. (Otherwise unscrupulous players could just hack the local database to see everything.)

If the GM reveals some snippets, then the Player version would have to sync to the main server in order to download the newly revealed snippets. (Whilst snippets no longer revealed would have their information deleted from the Player's local database).

I know that feeling...

Yes, I suspect a similar behaviour, also video files doing this would be a few megabytes at a time, which is inefficient use of bandwidth server-side.

But I guess unless a LWD dev comes in and can knock this one out of the park, we would never know (aside from someone messing with upload/downloads and testing it all - still doesn't actually answer the original question though.)