Hero Lab on Android

[Philderbeast]

yea I'm not attempting to do all the calculations, but I found out early on about the XML that Colen mentioned and that's what I'm currently working on.

it limits the features I can add, but its also making it possible to have something compete in the near future.

[LazarX]

Originally Posted by leleyx

Another +1 for the Android app request. I play in 2 groups, 12 players between both, among those 5 android tablets (all Google Nexus) and only 1 ipad. Even if you count mobiles I think there's 2 iphones everyone else has an android phone.

Not sure about paying for it, which I may do, but I'm really foaming at the mouth for the character handler, as I only really need full functionality when I'm running a game, when I'm playing in one all I need is a better way to handle my character sheet.

Note the bolded text here. And it shows out in numbers. IOS app developers are far more likely to get paid than Android developers so one can understand the greater incentive to develop for the former. By the way, since everyone is throwing anecdotes around I was with a PFS group at the Brooklyn Strategist day before yesterday. I was the lone Android user there, the GM was using an iPad for his reference materials and one of the players and both his two sons each had iPads, all running Herolab.

[AEIOU]

Looking forward to more on Colen's cryptic API comment to Fuzzy back in May and Philderbeast's progress on a display-only view. Both are very nice steps forward!

[dtyrant]

Originally Posted by Colen

If Philderbeast is basing the tool on Hero Lab's saved portfolio format, we actually include the calculated results in an XML file with each saved portfolio, which would be ideal for using in some sort of character sheet viewer. You can check the "Reading Hero Lab saved portfolios" section of the manual for more information.

Does this mean that Lone Wolf are happy for somebody else to develop a reader for the XML? The reason I ask is because on one of the reviews for:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...actersheetlite

The developer has replied with Hero Lab support not too far away.

It looks like it just reads the character sheet from the xml and makes an interactive character sheet so it would still mean we need to level up on hero lab on the desktop, but could use it on our android tablets.

Might even convince some android users who have been contemplating buying Hero Lab, to finally buy it!

[DeltaMasterMind]

+1 for Android here.

I'd be willing to throw a another license purchase to help progress this.

[ledeir]

Originally Posted by dtyrant

Does this mean that Lone Wolf are happy for somebody else to develop a reader for the XML? The reason I ask is because on one of the reviews for:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...actersheetlite

The developer has replied with Hero Lab support not too far away.

Thanks for pointing this app out. I'll be watching them. (since I don't have enough time to make my own app)

[dtyrant]

Originally Posted by ledeir

Thanks for pointing this app out. I'll be watching them. (since I don't have enough time to make my own app)

I emailed the developer about it through the address on the Google Play store, and he said reading the Hero Lab .xml files is going well, but as he only does it in his spare time it's not quite ready (apparently he didn't like the current android character sheet apps so made his own and its gone from there). Apparently there as some bits in the xml that don't explicitly fill in all the necessary information, but there should be enough there to derive everything so he just wants to pace himself and make sure he gets it right.

I said about issues with reading Hero Labs files and he said that the manual (which I have checked) says (under Reading Hero Lab Saved Portfolios):

An XML statblock is different from a text or HTML statblock because it's intended to be read by software, not by humans. Parsing an XML statblock with an XML parser will return a structured document describing the character in a way that's very easy to navigate with a program. This allows you to write a tool that pulls out information from the statblock, without having to parse the text or HTML from a file whose format may change without warning.

This does kind of suggest that Lone Wolf are happy for users to read the .xml, and as he is planning to include the functionality in the free Lite version, that he is not charging for Hero Labs work and that if there is an issue they are free to contact him.

Finally he said the bits he's managed to do so far are (taken from his email):

Character stats/saves/armor class etc...
Feats/Traits/Abilities - TODO: Special Attacks/Animal Tricks
Items
Weapons - About 50% done


So it's looking good so far!

I've downloaded the app and played around with the demo sheet, and if he can get the Hero Lab import sorted, I will definitely be taking this to my sessions.

[rob]

Yes, we fully support others using the XML from the saved portfolios for purposes like this. The only requirement we have is that they properly acknowledge their use of Hero Lab, including appropriate use of the product logo and legal text attributions. Doing this is FREE, so it's just a matter of proper attribution. If anyone has questions about what this entails, please contact us for details. It's quite easy.

[Techgnosis]

Originally Posted by liz

Going to jump in here. Our current answer to "When is Android coming?" or "When is [other system supported in Hero Lab] coming?": We'll be looking at creating a Hero Lab app for other game systems and other platforms once the full Hero Lab app is out for iPad.

This, this is why *I* am super excited about todays announcement that they are releasing the iPad version on the Apple store.
No way I am gonna buy an iPad just for my character sheet, even a cheap first gen one. Much rather spend the money on Hero Lab Packs but I am sick of lugging my laptop to game, or printing out a new character sheet every week (or worse, multiple to cover various different combat situations like raging / not raging).

[justabloke]

Given the market is currently 4 to 1 in favour over Android vs iOS and the trend is away from iOS, I wonder about the logic of supporting iOS over Android. The decision may have made sense a couple of years back, in all likelihood it probably did. But times have changed and Android is owning the table/phone space.

But as a wise man one observed "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." Who said it first and the actual words used is up for debate (it seems), but you get my point :-)