Gizmos and how to use them

[Mathias]

Every pick in Hero Lab must be within a container (this isn't a container like a backpack - this "container" is purely a programming term) (the mechanism Hero Lab uses to track what items are within what packpack or pouch is referred to within the code as "gear holding").

In the vast majority of cases, that container is called "hero".

That's one of the two types of container in Hero Lab - the other type is called a gizmo. Unlike the hero container, where there's exactly one of them in each character, there can be as many or as few gizmos as you need to build your game system.

All gizmos are attached to picks, and their purpose is to allow complex customizations of that pick. For example, in Pathfinder, they're what allow you to customize weapons and armor with materials and item powers. They're also used to build metamagic-modified spells - adding the various metamagics to a base spell. In Shadowrun, where nearly every piece of gear is customizable, with a variety of options available, nearly every piece of gear has a gizmo, so that Hero Lab can support that customization.

The same sort of manipulations you're used to using on the hero container are also available within a gizmo. Just remember that you have to go to the pick that the gizmo is attached to first (most often, when dealing with gizmos, you'll be starting on that pick, or on one of the picks inside the gizmo, so that's normally not a problem).

The code used when dealing with a gizmo is slighly different if you're coming from the pick that contains the gizmo, or if you're coming from a pick within the gizmo.

From the overall pick, to get to the gizmo:

gizmo.child[XXXXX]
foreach pick in gizmo

From a pick within the gizmo - this would be used if you wanted to manipulate something else in the gizmo - a prereq, for example, where you have to add one item to the gizmo before you can add another:

container.child[XXXXX]
foreach pick in container

You can also go from a pick within the gizmo to the pick containing the gizmo:

parent

Even within a gizmo, the "hero" transition still works, and will take you to the hero context. So does herofield[XXXXX].