[DDI Downloader] What and how much?

[Bomberg]

Hi folks,

as my DDI subscription running out soon and WotC making a big effort to shoo me away from their service, Hero Lab enters the scene. The Authoring Kit including the tools for setting up 4e capabilites sound good but:

- what does this downloader grab from the Compendium? Only data needed for current character(s) or the whole material so that I could use Hero Lab to create new character for a new campaign in the future?

- How much data is involved, especially if the answer to my first question is positive? :-)

Huldvoll winkend

Baron von Bomberg

[Mathias]

The downloader is something you run before using Hero Lab - it's downloading everything it can, rather than just enough for a specific character.

If you want to take a look at the results for yourself, rather than having us try to describe exactly what is and isn't available from the downloader, Hero Lab can be run in demo mode as a free download. The downloader is fully functional in demo mode, and the only things you won't be able to do are save and print (although you can see the print preview).

[Bomberg]

Originally Posted by Mathias

The downloader is something you run before using Hero Lab - it's downloading everything it can, rather than just enough for a specific character.

If you want to take a look at the results for yourself, rather than having us try to describe exactly what is and isn't available from the downloader, Hero Lab can be run in demo mode as a free download. The downloader is fully functional in demo mode, and the only things you won't be able to do are save and print (although you can see the print preview).

Good to know - thanks for the information. I'm currently busy downloading the stuff.

Huldvoll winkend

Baron von Bomberg

[Bomberg]

So my computer downloaded the Compendium stuff over the night and HeroLab started a conversion of the material, but I still can't generate a character: several tabs (Class, Race, ...) are shown in red, and no tab seems to contain any selectable item. when trying to select something, a warning is shown: "The data files provide..." indicating that the download or the converision of the data seems to have failed totally.

Looking at the output.txt file, I can see that the download itself seems to have worked without error but the rest is ripe with messages ranging from notifications (No key skill present for ritual Eyesting) to general problems (Error generating weapon category for item Crossbow, Error outputting power Savage Sweep, No XML node created for power Savage Sweep, No class features found for class Monk). On the other hand I don't see general error messages regarding the races, but can't select a race in the user interface.

So there seems to be a general problem - probably with my way of using the thing.

I can try again in the evening, but would like to get any pointers you might provide.

Huldvoll winkend

Baron von Bomberg