Automatically filling a text field and other questions
 

Hello all! I am a new user (just bought RealmWorks earlier this week) and plan on using it for the two Traveller campaigns I run. I have been toying around with how to enter the data I need and have come up with a few questions that I hope y'all can help with.

Planetary Data
In Traveller each planet has a UWP (Universal World Profile) that is made up of a series of hexidecimal digits to represent the type of starport, size, atmosphere, hydrosphere, population, government, law level, and tech level. It looks like this D666522-A. Each digit has a description about what it means. For instance a "D class starport is one that has only unrefined fuel and limited repair capabilities.

What I would like to do is be able to create a topic that I can enter each digit of the UWP in a text field and have Realmworks automatically populate another field with the expanded description. Is that possible?

Character Sheets
Is there an easy way to create a custom character sheet to use in RW? Or would it be best if I just imported a PDF or text document that I created in Word?

Display Formatting
Is there any way to customize the UI and the way data is displayed? In other words can it be displayed in something other than a simple list? This could be useful for when you may use a large monitor, multiple monitors, or 21x9 ultra-widescreen to see more data on the screen at once.

Editing Categories/Topics
I was trying to delete snippets from the Manage Categories section for a category that I had already populated some topics with. It wouldn't let me. Do I need to do all the editing of the category PRIOR to using it to create topics?

Thanks in advance for you help! I'm sure I will come up with more questions as I dive in.

-Rich

Hi DickNervous,

Auto-populate planetary or other data - there is no such feature as far as I know. The closest thing you can get is to have the hover-up when a link is made to another topic/article. Can suggest feature in the feature request forum.

Character Sheets
I think importing a documents is not very convenient, since it will open just another window on top of the many you might have open during a session,

I am using a articles with custom made category for PC/NPCs. It is easy to work with and also can be imported via .csv or exported to html. Attached is example of a NPC character sheet from the MM section of my DH realms.

Display Formatting
No, but we have raised a feature request that should allow us to detach the tabs in their own separate window... I hope it will be honored...
There is option to show the content in Player View, and have it on second monitor though. Not sure if this suits you?

Editing Categories/Topics
If you want to delete a snipped from category, you should ensure that this snipped is not used anywhere prior deleting it. For now the application can't automatically convert to custom snippet, as it happens when you convert manually from one type to another.

Also, if you happen to edit a category definition after you have topic/arcitles using it and you have removed empty snippets and sections and/or re-arranged the order of the snippets, for every item using this, you need to re-sequence and synchronize from quick-edit menu on each item...

There is bulk pruning, but no bulk resync... :mad:

Thanks for the answers Valyar!

I will put in a request for the "lookup" feature. It is something I have done in an Excel sheet and would love to be able to just use RealmWorks for all the info I need.

Hi there!

Just continue to do it into excel.

Then you'll build a "block" of data in excel.
Then you paste it into the topic's name. your first row is then the short description right?
And your block of data is then in RW as well.

Iam using this method for my character sheets. I created a table in excel, that contains several rules, so i Just have to click on the properties the npc should have , then ill modify the base stats and copy the final table into RW.

You would have everything then in a single snippet If you want to split it though you would work with alt + enter to split a snippet at the desired point.

So unfortunately its not as 100% automated.

Another option could be that you have a own topic that contians all the codes and you link it to each of your planet topics? So the "list of codes" is just one click from each topic away.

Maybe you can autolink it if the planetary code begins with a certain pattern.
Then you could create a topic "List of Planetary codes" and an alias containing the "pattern" e.g. PC: and set linking to Auto and show topic in navigation for the alias to "no".

I thought of that. I could just take a screenshot of the nicely formatted page in Excel. The only problem with that is the sheer number of systems. Right now I am trying to setup an ATU (Alternate Traveller Universe) called the "Clement Sector". This spans 16 subsectors (of 80 hexes each), or 1280 possible systems with multiple planets. Luckily, most of Clement Sector is unexplored in this campaign. However, in the OTU (Official Traveller Universe), where my other campaign takes place, there are well over 100 sectors. Luckily my campaign only spans parts of 3 of them, but it is still over 30 subsectors. :(

So the table lookup would be just a tad more efficient. :)

Thanks for the ideas though. I'm trying to convert my Excel to a web app, and I think at that point I may be able to integrate it into RW a bit better.

Since you are already using Excel, have you considered exporting to a CSV and using the community created CSV import tool discussed in this thread?

http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=58156

Justin: I think that he would like to make this topic in RW like a form that you can fill out and RW returns the corresponding values.

DickNervous: If you want to do this kind of live-lookup you could maybe link the excel file as foreign object?

I have thought about that and will be looking into using that tool for a bunch of things, including getting the basic articles for each system into RW, but my Excel spreadsheet does live lookups of the definitions so I can't export that as a CSV.

The excel file displays 3 sections of information as seen in the attached screen shots. The first one (wl_1)shows the system identifying information and data that I would like to have in the lookup. At this point, I think I will have to continue to use Excel for that for the time being. Eventually I amy try to set it up as a web application and use a live link to it, but that won't be for a while.

The 2nd (wl_2) shows my encounters, flavor text, descriptions, patrons, notes, NPCs, etc. The stuff that RW is perfect for and I will be moving that to RW.

The third (wl_3) shows the subsector and region maps that are pulled from the TravellerMap.com website and, at the bottom, history of the subsector. I am pretty sure I can get the links to the maps into RW and the history information will be simple.

If anyone wants to see the Excel file in action, PM me and I will send you a link to it.