Listed effects question
 

So finding out that Magic, Elemental Control and other that are in red boxes in DC Adventure and possibly Hero's Hanbook are sample powers not effects, should they be listed as effects in the program? Cause it ill be confusing for some people.

If you click on the ones that are Powers, the text does specify which Effects they are built from.

How would you want the program to handle that? Having two lists or a sub-menu of Powers under the base Effect is something I would find annoyingly clumsy, though I suppose I'm looking at it from a Second Edition perspective.

Maybe the Powers could be listed in blue instead of black (seeing that Red, Green and Purple already have important meanings)?

Is there really that important a difference between the two, in Hero Lab terms?

Given that powers like Blast are standardized and defined in the core rulebook, I would assume that everyone will be familiar enough with what they do. If not, it's just the same as if you don't know what a power does - you can just look it up.

Am I missing something here that makes it desirable to segregate them in some way, even if just by color?

In terms of fully understanding the system, the distinction between Effects and Powers is important. For using Hero Lab, probably not as much. It might be a nice touch for the new people who aren't previously familiar with M&M, though.

I think the way the Archetypes, Heroes and Villains are stated up lends to looking at the system in purely effect-based terms, since none of the write-ups use the Power names given in the book for their powers (instances of Blast, like Heat Vision and Power Ring Blasts, are always presented as Ranged Damage x instead of Blast x; Power-Lifting is always written out as Str x, limited to Lifting). I think many users want to see continuity between their character write-ups and printouts and the ones offered in the book, and offering the listed powers in the book along with the effects feels like having to do extra sifting to get the results they are looking for.

I could see both sides of this. Perhaps a flag of some sort, like a different text color for the name of a power in the Effects list (similar to the red boxes in the book)? Something unobtrusive that could be turned off in the configuration list, if it annoyed the user.

Would anyone be unhappy if I simply added an option to suppress anything that wasn't a basic effect? That way Blast, Power-Lifting etc would be hidden, and only the core effects would be shown.

Power-Lifting is already an awkward case, since new users expect to be able to use a Flaw on Enhanced Strength to represent it, which doesn't work in Hero Lab.

In general I don't think this is a good approach. In the end I don't think anyone would bother to turn the option on.

For me, the benefit of having some powers premade is more important than 'filtering' them out. I think just calling them out contextually is a more elegant solution, but if that's not possible, I think pointing it out in the flavor text ought to be sufficient.

Just my two cents.