A plea for better output

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by Haligon

- Current Resource Tracking: If a character has a Wand with only 3 charges left, I'd like to see only 3 boxes in the Tracked Resources section of the character sheet (these sheets get printed out for my group, so having an accurate count on the sheet is important).

Originally Posted by rob

I'm not sure what's involved in this, but Mathias can definitely add this to the todo list for a future update.

It'll take some work to identify and tag which resources are permanently used vs. which resources refresh often (for example, if 3 rounds of your Barbarian Rage are marked off for your character, you don't want the reduced number to print out on the character sheet, since those will be restored the next morning, but if three charges are used on your wand, you do want that to print out). Once that's done, the trackers use a for loop to print out a number of boxes equal to the field[trkMax].value, so it's just a matter of outputting a crossed-off box until field[trkUser].value is reached, and then the regular empty boxes after that.

This is on my to-do list.

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by rob

Failing that, it's possible to combine different character sheet output elements into a single "dossier", which will print them out together. You'll need to add your own data file to do this, but it shouldn't be difficult, unless there's a technical issue with the Pathfinder files that I'm unaware of. Mathias ought to be able to give you the specifics on this when he gets a chance.

Here is the authoring kit wiki page for dossier elements in Hero Lab:

http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index...._Element_(Data)

That gives the formal instructions on how to assemble one together.

Here's a quick bit of code you can use:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<document signature="Hero Lab Data">
 
  <dossier
    id="newsheet"
    name="Standard Character Sheet">
    <dossier_sheet
      grouping="default">
      <sheetref sheet="standard1"/>
      <sheetref sheet="standard2"/>
      <sheetref sheet="standardsp"/>
      </dossier_sheet>
    </dossier>
 
  </document>

Paste all of that into a blank file in notepad or another text editor, and save it with the .dat extension. Save this file in the HeroLab/data/Pathfinder folder.

Change the Id from "newsheet" to something else (otherwise, two people who follow these directions are going to share their work, and the same Unique Id will end up being used twice. After you've created your new dossier, in Hero Lab, go to the Develop menu, and select "Quick Reload Data Files" - that will incorporate your change into Hero Lab.

Here are the sheets that are used in Pathfinder and d20 (the names didn't change, so this applies to either): (Remember that case is important in Hero Lab)

standard1 - the first page of the character sheet
standard2 - the second page of the character sheet
standardsp - a spillover page - anything that doesn't fit on pages 1 or 2 is printed here
journal - the journal printout
spellsland - "Spells & Powers - Details & Effects (Landscape)"
spellsdesc - "Spells & Powers - Details Only"
spellstext - "Spells & Powers - Effects Only"
splbkland - "Spells in Spellbook- Details & Effects (Landscape)"
splbkdesc - "Spells in Spellbook- Details Only"
splbktext - "Spells in Spellbook- Effects Only"

So, I've given you something that will be identical to the standard character sheet. You can additional sheetref elements to create whatever combinations you wish.

For example, this set of sheetrefs starts with the normal character sheet, then the journal and then the full spellbook, for use by a wizard:

 
<sheetref sheet="standard1"/>
<sheetref sheet="standard2"/>
<sheetref sheet="standardsp"/>
<sheetref sheet="journal"/>
<sheetref sheet="splbkland"/>

[Argamae]

Hi folks at Wolflair,

I too would love to see different output options for the character sheets. Why isn't it possible to generate the output in the official or close-to official character sheet designs we're all used to? Using black over grey text bars would also improve printout and readability. Don't know if the question came up already and my apologies if it did and I was missing this.

[rob]

Everything we do in Hero Lab has to work across all the game systems that we support, as well as any games we hope to support in the future. That makes everything significantly more complicated to do well. And that's why these sorts of features don't appear as quickly as you guys might like.

Thus far, we've focused on core functionality within Hero Lab, and we've finally got the vast majority of those features into place. So now we'll be shifting out focus some over to customizability. Consequently, customizable output is something that is very high on our todo list now. We've talked a lot about making that a key feature in the next major update for Hero Lab. So we'll hopefully have some of those capabilities in place later this year.

[Argamae]

@Rob: Excellent, I excited to hear that! Thanks for the terrific work done so far and keep it coming!

[Maidhc O Casain]

Originally Posted by rob

Have you considered the other web output options included within Hero Lab? You can output statblocks that are pre-formatted for HTML, BBCode, and/or Wiki syntax. Would these give you what you want?

Hi! I posted regarding this issue in the HeroLab Discussion thread, but was just catching up and saw it mentioned here as well.

I couldn't find a way to set the StatBlock output to show current resources rather than the fully charged versions (checking a spell off in the tracker doesn't take it out of the stat block, for example).

I use the stat blocks primarily, since most of my gaming is done online these days, and it would be really handy to have that stat block output reflect currently available spells/resources/powers.

Is there a way to set this already that I'm just missing? If not, can it be added to the 'to do list?'

Thanks!

[Haligon]

Mostly bumping this to keep it 'on the radar'. Customizable output is proabably the single most important feature request for me at this point

[Theocrat]

One of the things we've asked for is making weapons show up in an order that we choose - not just the aphabetical order listing as it is. I have a dagger, but I use my Aldori Dueling Sword - which is not listed under Aldori (from Adv. Armory).
Also because the feats are listed under skills and split up, I use my Foxit PDF editor to cut and past a complete listing of my feats on the 2nd page, and re-arrange locations.
I also noticed that the picture for one of my PC's used to come out extra large - now it's a tiny picture - the size of a desktop icon, although its the exact same picture I've always used in its place.
Having yet another option for placement of anything before printing would be perfect. Something in the print-preview or something else. As it is, it's one of the worst character sheets out there and likely one of the worst features of HL.
Theocrat Issak

[rob]

Originally Posted by Haligon

Mostly bumping this to keep it 'on the radar'. Customizable output is proabably the single most important feature request for me at this point

Customizable output is very high on our priority list. Our current plan is to address it in the next major feature update for Hero Lab.

[rob]

Originally Posted by Theocrat

One of the things we've asked for is making weapons show up in an order that we choose - not just the aphabetical order listing as it is. I have a dagger, but I use my Aldori Dueling Sword - which is not listed under Aldori (from Adv. Armory).

This is on the todo list and targeted for inclusion in the next major feature release of HL.

Originally Posted by Theocrat

I also noticed that the picture for one of my PC's used to come out extra large - now it's a tiny picture - the size of a desktop icon, although its the exact same picture I've always used in its place.

That's odd. I'll flag this to Colen's attention to investigate, since he's the expert in the image stuff.

Originally Posted by Theocrat

As it is, it's one of the worst character sheets out there and likely one of the worst features of HL.

Character sheet output has always been - and always will be - a highly subjective thing. At GenCon, we had some people gushing about how they loved our character sheet output. For every one of them, there's someone at the other end of the spectrum that thinks our output is horrible (like yourself). Once we make it possible to generate custom output, hopefully everyone will be able to achieve something they are happy with.