HL Classic and RpTool's Maptool
 

Hello
I just wanted to point out that RpTool's Maptool vtt can import HL data and automatically creates tokens loaded with HL data!

Its simple.
FILE> Add Resource to Library
Browse to where you keep your .por files and install it

In the Resource Library choose your .por and below, in the token window, you will see your character's tokens

Drag the tokens you want into maptool!

Please note that the token's HL data properties extracted from HL is current only for that session, but you can save the maptool campaign, update your character in HL, save the .por, and then load the campaign, open the token editor and refresh the data

Sweetness!

for more...
see Maptool page

I post here becuae there is little info on how to do this and may be helpful to other users

Thanks

I'm looking at VTTs now and Maptools seems very cool.

As a side note, Hero Lab Portfolios are ZIP files and the XML files inside of them are usually pretty comprehensive, and easy to parse for your own purposes. I've done it a few times for creating better character sheets.

FWIW MapTool can auto create tokens using artwork from the portfolio and bring in the three statblocks. This can all be refreshed via the ui or via macros.

From there it is up the the user/framework to do what they wish with the data.

And yes, although not 100% complete the xml data is far more useful than the statblock and there are built in xpath functions in MT that make it easier.

You can view my PF1 framework for examples of what is possible.

Hello Jamz
Thank you for pointing this out. Im currently setting up to play 5e, and learning Melek's framework, and using bobfile tokens

If I get what you are saying, maptool can parse the .por files and bring in data into token properties to be manipulated by the framework?

If that's so, is there a 5e framework that does this?
Sadly, my macro skills are minimal.

Thats good to know, I will look at this, thanks

Wow, extracting .por data with winrar, able to do it in several formats is awesome. Thanks for the info!

Yeah, I built myself a few Python tools, at one point, to make improved BBCode exports of Mutants and Masterminds portfolios, and also used it at one point to help someone take a massive portfolio of DC Adventures builds from Green Ronin and quickly sort out who had a given bonus in an area, allowing you to rank them for how strong they were, how good they were at Technology, etc. It's a very powerful tool, although minorly limited by what Lone Wolf exports in the file (you have to actually specify the format when you build the system). I haven't gone back to my outstanding bugs for a while, but there were some missing fields at one point, frustratingly ones that were exported in the official character sheets.

Not that I'm aware of? Those frameworks would need to create an importer to bring in the data and match it up with the property names that they use in that framework. AFAIK you have to recreate your characters in that framework but I could be wrong (I only play Pathfinder so haven't played with those frameworks)

As Duggan said, it's just a zip file and that's basically what MT is doing. It uzips the .por file and creates a MT Token embedded with the images and 3 statblocks that are in the .por file for each character, as well as create a link back to that file so you can just hit refresh to get the latest statblocks/images.

If you drag you token to MT you will see a Hero Lab tab with that info.

I suggest joining the MapTool Discord server and hit Melek up and see if he's willing to do this. He may need sample .por files as well...

Yes sir, I joined recently. Theres currently none, and I find it difficult to ask someone to do that scope of work needed to write an importer. Many lines of code.
I find Meleks fw very easy to configure tokens though
Im loving the integration and advances in Maptool and Hero Lab
Thanks for replies Jamz

Meatpuppet
I never used other than maptool for a vtt, simply because I never needed more.
It got quirks, it got perks

I used maptool for years face to face, laptop to TV over hdmi.
I ran two instances of maptool, create a server as DM with one, then connect to same server with second instance as Player and drag that out to TV for players to see.
Maptool was my presentation tool, and tactical battlemap

Then I can use maptool's fog of war, hidden properties, light blocking, and a new feature- movement blocking. They're always working on it and Jamz is part of the dev team I think. A great and helpful community

I never learned much of the macro language or online features.

times change, Im looking into automating some things.
Everything evolves around the Token.

So guys write macro sets that work together to quickly change a token's data called frameworks.Some advanced frameworks like Wolf42's Bag of Tricks is awesome, allowing you to teleport around the map, or to different maps. for one.
Im using Meleks Simple 5e framework with Wolf42's BOT

With Meleks fw, Actions, such as an attack action is a generic configuration and you specify the data to deliver the attack and damage... instead of picking and calculating from lists and lists of weapons, skills, abilities, racial features, stats etc

I can only speak for Meleks framework as being simple to integrate and use.
Its not complete automatic Token configuration , but allows easy manipulation of mechanics you need to run the game.
You can add the Spellbook framework to have access to loads of Spells
You can add the Treasure framework to generate treasure.
I have a token that has that old cartoon dungeon master with treasure fw I use to fling the bling! lol
You can import maps from PDF's
You can show Hero Lab data from a special tab in the token's config
You can draw maps with Dungendraft and import, which I cant say on, as I cant get Dungeondraft working. Need to upgrade computer
You can import almost any standard image

Maptool can be used straight out the box to drop plain tokens on a grid and start drawing lines, and then as you learn add sophisticated things to it.

It can be daunting, but most rewarding when you get it to do some things
but thats just me
happy gaming

No problem. Generally, an importer like this can be a lot of lines of code but a lot of copy/paste as it's generally the same "pattern". For instance it, to get Alignment, it may be something like:

[h: Alignment = herolab.XPath('/document/public/character/alignment/@name')]

And then getting Size, space, reach it may be like:
[h: Size = herolab.XPath('/document/public/character/size/@name')]
[h: Space = herolab.XPath('/document/public/character/size/space/@value')]
[h: Reach = herolab.XPath('/document/public/character/size/reach/@value')]

So depends on how familiar you are with XML and Xpath but it's not terribly difficult. You can use other tools to test and built them outside of MapTool if needed.

Someone (you?) could possibly create a macro to get a bulk of the properties like this, leaving more complicated ones to be done via the framework's normal method. Maybe. Depends on how he does things.

Mostly it's busy work looking up where certain things are stored in the XML more than anything and matching it with the property used in MapTool. It depends on how he stores the same data in MapTool (like storing all Attributes in a single JSON in a Property called Attributes vs storing in six properties called Str, Dex, Con, etc.

d20Pro is fairly basic for a VTT.
Any picture that is used for the HL portfolio is read fine, and the digital token is generated.

I need to manually modify the initiative, any fast heal/regeneration, for an import.
A lot of the classes we're using aren't pathfinder specific (Community Pack's Path of War and Spheres of Power/Might), so those aren't read correctly.