Issues with items in XML Data Export

[Dortamur]

I am working on some XSL Templates for custom data output (using the Save Custom Output option), and am running into a few issues relating to how items are represented in the XML output, vs what is shown in Hero Lab. I am working with 5e characters, but I don't think these are system-specific.


The first issue is that Tool Proficiencies are included as Items, even if the character does not have those tools. So any inventory lists include these Tools, even if the character doesn't have them.

For example, one character has Proficiency with Dice Set, Forgery Kit and Thieves' Tools, but under Gear, owns 1 Dice Set, 0 Forgery Kits, and 2 Thieves' Tools. In the XML, there are gear/item entries for 2 Dice Sets, 1 Forgery Kit, and 3 Thieves' Tools. There are no extra attributes to differentiate between owned gear, and the proficiency.

Tool proficiencies are already listed in <toolproficiencies>, so they don't need to be added as items - although expanding <toolproficiencies> from a simple text list to have more data about the tools would be useful.


The second issue is that Money is shown as an item in gear in Hero Lab, and can be put in a Container, but in the XML data, Money is not listed in gear/item. There is a separate <money> tag, but it does not include "heldin", and doesn't follow the normal item tags.

It would be nice if Money could also be represented in gear/item, similar to how the app shows it - or alternatively if a "heldin" attribute could be added to <money>, so templates can at least link it that way.


The third issue is inconsistencies between standard Containers vs custom Containers. The standard containers include in their title a qualifier of "(qty @ weight)" to indicate how many items are in the container, and what the total weight is. However, custom containers do not include this. Ideally, I'd prefer some extra attributes to be able to get the Container name without this extra text, along with attributes to get the quantity and total weight, so we can format this information however we like.

Following on from this Container discrepancies is the issue that the Container items have no data to indicate that they actually are a Container. This can be derived through checking for other items with a matching "heldin", but this doesn't work for empty containers, so there's no way to know that an item is actually an empty container.


One last semi-related issue, is that Equipment Sets don't seem to be included in the XML. It would be really nice to use Equipment Sets on a sheet output instead of the list of all carried weapons.

Thanks!

[Mathias]

Each game system needs to define it's own custom output, so these are bugs you should report for this particular system.