Extended Character Sheets
 

Thanks to a bunch of hints and direct help from Mathias I've put together some .user file versions of a new Character sheet that includes the full description text on pretty much everything instead of just the summary text.

Just download the .hl file from https://www.dropbox.com/s/bt5sh2halfy4sik/Sheets.hl and double-click it to have Hero Lab automatically install it into your savage/data directory. The next time you start up Hero Lab and load up a Savage Worlds character and go to File -> Print Hero... (or press Ctrl-P) you should see 2 new options available in the middle of the list for "Extended Character Sheet" and "Extended Character Sheet & Journal" available for your pleasure. :)

If anyone finds any issues with these (and if I can figure out how to fix them...) please do let me know and I'll be happy to do my best to correct the problem.

EDIT: Removed text from above about the sheet limited to only 4 pages.. it wasn't I just didn't realize it.

v1.1: Added an extra line between many items for readability and added output for the "Source" information, if listed, for Adjustments.
v1.2: (Bug fix, I think.)
v1.3: fixed to add the changes that were in the last Savage Worlds base character sheet update that I missed.
v1.5 (I forget what I fixed in 1.4): Added support for Savage Worlds dataset v3.1 (Please don't use this until 3.1 is released, though.)
v1.6-1.7 Updates so that Abilities would also span columns (in case someone used them instead of Properties).

Why does your character sheet have a limit on the number of pages that can be printed? You should be able to use a single repeating sheet to allow an unlimited number of pages.

Very nice zarlor, checked it out with one of my ships for High-Space and it has all what is needed. Great Job!!!!

I guess I don't really know? For some reason it seemed like the sheet2 file stopped at sheet2 but maybe I don't need the sheet3 and 4 files I created at all? I probably made a bad assumption so I guess I'll go test that out some more. :/ Although, at any rate, it should work as it to AT LEAST 4 sheets. ;)

The spillover="yes" setting on that means that Hero Lab will output an unlimited number of copies of standard2, until everything it covers has been added to the output.

Well there you go, then. I added 2 sheets without even needing to. Go figure. Did I mention I can be kind of clueless about some of this stuff? ;)

I tested it just to make sure (because I don't trust myself, of course. ;)) and I've updated the file above to cut it down to just 2 sheet files rather than 4. And it certainly works just fine going over to the other.

I'm real glad you tested that, because I didn't really get a chance to do so and I was really hoping you wouldn't have any issues with it, so that's really good to hear.

Updated to v1.1. Added an extra line between many items for better readability and added the "Source" information, if listed, for Adjustments.

This is great zarlor! Thanks for putting this together. :)

My pleasure, although most of the credit goes to Mathias for letting me know this could even be done, and then giving me the right syntax to do it!

Cool. That's most excellent, my dude.

I have a couple questions based on my playing around.

1) Would it be easy to incorporate the activated adjustments fix that went into the new update into this character sheet

2) Would it be easy to format the personal data so that it will scroll onto further columns? Right now, it still seems to stop at the end of the first column of text.

Thanks,
Tim

The sheet is already set-up to handle any adjustment that is activate, so it will show permanent adjustments or any of the Activated or Temporary adjustments, but only when the checkbox to activate it on the in-play tab is checked.

If I can figure it out I can try. What, specific, personal data is not scrolling? That might help me to figure it out.

As for the error your friend was getting after installing this .hl file, I have no idea what he might have been running into. I packaged it like every other .hl file I've done and tested it with no issues. I'm sorry he ran into problems, but especially for something I've done I'm happy to try and help figure it out if he wants to log on here and give us some details on the issue.

No, - this is a limitation of the printing mechanism used in Hero Lab - we can't record the amount of progress it's made through a gigantic block of text if that text can't be output in the first space Hero Lab tries to place it in. If you have that much to say about your character's background, I recommend word processors, since those will let you apply much more formatting to your text. You also probably won't be changing your background often, so you can just print the background once and then keep it with the rest of the character sheet, through many reprints of the character sheet itself.

Actually, the fix I was referring to was the fix that keeps overlong weapons or powers sections from writing on top of the the activated adjustments section and instead scrolls them onto the next page when they bump up against that section (this was corrected in the new update; before this, those sections would just print on top of the activated adjustments record). Basically, I suspect all it would require would be updating your extended character sheet to build off the character sheet included in update that just came out. But I'm not the guy who's smart enough to do it.

Okay, thanks. We were actually using that section to incorporate/record evolving spell books that modified the SW Arcane Power system too much to work easily with the HL SW Arcane powers. We had already figured it was probably going to be better to create word processor documents or use the journal section in some way, but I thought I'd ask if in case we could get it onto the sheet (so it all would have a uniform look).

I appreciate the feedback. And the great new form, zarlor!

Hey zarlor, I have found out one thing that doesn't work with your character sheets but works with the normal one and I'm not sure if you can get it to work.

1) In the setting adjustment tab Cape added the no power points. If I have that checked in my setting tab, I don't have to have it checked in the configure hero window for it to work correctly on the normal print out sheet, but on your sheet for some reason the setting adjustment for no power points doesn't work without the no power points box checked in the configure hero window. Any idea how to get it to work with your sheets.

Oh, I just thought that would have been fixed since I thought I told all of that stuff to just keep spilling over if it was too long. I'll see if I can figure out just what it was Mathias changed on the official sheets so I can incorporate that, too. As I mentioned I'm on vacation right now so I'm not exactly sure when I'll get some time so I may not get a chance to look at it until Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'll try to see if I can figure that out, too, although I wouldn't have thought anything I did would have made a difference there, unless the difference was something they changed on the official sheets just with this last update as well, which is entirely possible.

NP, Have fun and don't worry about it until vacation is over. Just wanted to inform you of it.

Like I said have fun and enjoy your Vacation, Jbear

Sometimes you need a vacation from the vacation so if I get a chance to look at things before Tuesday I may do that. But thanks for the sentiment! :)

I got some time this morning so I went through and tried to find all of the spots the new character sheets were different from these can made a few changes. I can't say for certain if they will fix the issues you guys were having, but hopefully it will. I've uploaded v1.2 at the link above. I'm starting to think I should set these up with an update mechanism...

The positioning fix was a very subtle thing.

Old:
New:
On 5 lines, some of the + were changed to -.

Real subtle, I completely missed that! v1.3 is now up, then. :)

Sorry, No power points still only works if it's checked in the configure hero window in your character sheet, it doesn't work if it's checked in the setting tab. bummer.

Thanks zarlor; I didn't mean to cut into your vacation -- I was just shooting my mouth off while I was thinking about it.

But it works on the default sheet? I don't know what it is, then. Caped, Mathias? Any ideas what else I might have missed?

Uh-oh, installing the new sheet (v 1.3) makes my HeroLab cry. I get this error after selecting SW:

And if I say okay and carry on, it gets upset with me if I load a character with a custom.user file -- can't find the items from that file (I think):

I'm thinking this may be the problem my GM had with the first version of this character sheet, although I didn't have that problem.

Deleting both extended sheet.user files and the dossiers.user file made the errors go away.


Edit: I just re-downloaded and re-installed v1.3 and tried to open a character with the Solomon Kane .user data, and got the same type of errors, but bigger and more (presumably b/c there was a lot more meat to that file).

All of the rest of those errors come from the "oNzInjury" error, it just prevented all of your other data files from compiling. That's what I get for trying to push it through and forgetting to test. That's all my fault and I'm sorry about that. v1.4 is up now and should have that fixed.

Oh, and that would not have been the error your GM had with the first sheet. The error you were getting would affect anyone using that 1.3 version and was not an issue in the earlier versions. It was just something I missed. I still have no clue what your GMs issue could possibly have been since I'd definitely tested that version and it was fine, but it may have been some odd interference maybe with a custom .user file?

Thanks. That update worked, and the activated adjustments correction was working, too, with both overlong lists of weapons and overlong lists of powers. I thought jbear had managed to load and use v1.3 because of some comment he made, so I thought the error might have been more specific to my own abuse of HL.

Yeah, I guess jbear was basing his assessment on 1.2. That thing you ran into was just something I noticed with a global replace I had done that kind of changed the name of something so it didn't look right (NzInjury rather than NoInjury) so I changed it in the obvious spot where I saw it but forgot to look for other instances. I still don't know what to do to fix the problem jbear is seeing, though. Nothing is jumping out at me that's obviously different between the files other than the name changes that had to go in so they wouldn't conflict with the original names in the Standard files and those few other things I had to change to make sure everything was allowed to flow across columns and pages as well as changing the use of summary text to descript text. So it wasn't really a ton of stuff and I have no clue why that no power points thing would behave differently between.

Could you give me a set of steps to follow to reproduce this issue, please?

JBear, can you detail what the issue is on this?

In the editor, I went into my High Space file and in the Setting adjustment tab I checked the new "No Power Points" option and saved and did all what needs to be done to get the file to work.

I then made a character with an Arcane background and saved him. The character in the program on the arcane tab where you pick powers shows the penalty for using the power instead of a power point cost which is right, but when I use zarlors sheet it shows the power point cost and not the penalty that it should, but if I use the sheet that comes with the system it shows the penalty which is right.

If I check the "No Power Points" in the configure hero window and then use zarlors sheet it shows correctly.

For some reason zarlors sheet isn't reading that the "No Power Points" box is checked in the editors, setting adjustment tab for some reason, but it reads it from the configure hero window.

I have tried to make several characters and get the same problem every time.

Have you tested this on the regular character sheet?

On the regular sheet, it works fine just having the editors setting adjustment checked.

In zarlors I needed to have the "No Power Points" box checked in the configure hero window for it to work with his sheet.

zarlors sheet seems to check the configure hero window, but for some reason it doesn't recognize that the box in the editors Setting Adjustment tab is checked, but if I use the regular character sheet it works fine. Not sure why.

That's odd, because I downloaded zarlor's sheet, and searched for NoPowerPts. Like the normal character sheet, every time he looks for that, he's looking for hero.tagis[Hero.NoPowerPts]. I don't see anywhere that he's looking for hero.tagis[source.NoPowerPts]. So, I'm not sure what's going on. Is the material you're working on somewhere I can download it, or could you email it to me (my email address is my user name here, @wolflair.com)? I'm going to have to test this with the setup you're using to figure out what's going wrong.

Good to know I'm not going completely bonkers... just mostly bonkers. As for the files he is working with, High Space is an official Savage Settings file so you should be able to get the setting just using the update mechanism.

I got it to work. Had to go in and delete zarlors character sheets and then redownload them again. It's working after I did that.

Before I did that I was just downloading the new ones and having it automatically putting them in. When I deleted them completely and them redownloaded them, it seemed to fix the problem.

So sorry for all the trouble. All is good now.

Strange, but the original had 2 extra sheets that didn't need anything which wouldn't be overwritten with the newer files so maybe that was causing a problem... although I didn't think that stuff was listed in either of those anyway so... although as long as it's working I'm happy with that!

Something might have just thrown a wrench in it and when I did what I did, it straightened it self out. LOL, I agree, as long as it's working, because I love what you did to your sheets. Great Job, if I hadn't said it before and a think you goes out to Mathias for helping zarlor with it.