Making changes load

[ToshBo]

First: The product is great. As a user of the excellent Army Builder, I am very glad to see this. Way less confusing then PCGen (Although that is a pretty good program as well, just not friendly).

Enough brown-nosing. Here it is:

I add new feats and change the prestige classes a bit. I would like to add more feats, new spells and new prestige classes. The problem I have right now is that after I make, save and splice the new stuff.. All is good. UNITIL I close and launch HL again. Then, they are all not available. I have to splice everything again.

The second thing: Is there any way to write scripts for editing? Besides the panel method you have now (I am a luddite. My wife, however, is familiar with programming and would like to know).

Last thing: I want to get this program for the people who play with us, and I would like to be able to share the changes I make. Do I simply save out and replace their feats lists, etc, with the ones I make? Is there an export function I am missing?

Anyway, good work. I am very happy with it, and hope it is successful so we will see more stuff for it in the future.

[SWChance]

I can relate to this problem since I had it too in the begining. The problem lies in where yuo are keeping your dat files. The source folder is where all of the srd dat files are and that through me for a loop too. Go up one folder and drop it there. Try this, create a new dat file and save it. The default are it shows is where you want to save it. Also It sounds as if you are just adding to the current dat files. Start your own so that you can do two things. First so that you dont loose your changes when the next patch comes out. Second, so you can share the dat files with your fellow players for them to use.

I hope that helps.
Chris

[ToshBo]

Excellent. I will try this. Thanks!

I was wondering if I should save off a copy of each dat file I work on, just in case. So, I might as well, if what I get what you mean, the modified dat file is the one that should be in the Source folder.

Thanks again.

[SWChance]

no, leave the stuff in the source folder alone. Anything you create save in the folder above it, that is where it loads from.

[rob]

At 03:49 PM 1/31/2007, you wrote:

First: The product is great. As a user of the excellent Army Builder, I am very glad to see this. Way less confusing then PCGen (Although that is a pretty good program as well, just not friendly).

Thanks!

I add new feats and change the prestige classes a bit. I would like to add more feats, new spells and new prestige classes. The problem I have right now is that after I make, save and splice the new stuff.. All is good. UNITIL I close and launch HL again. Then, they are all not available. I have to splice everything again.

By now, you've got this figured out from previous posts. However, just to clarify, all of the material that HL compiles and loads MUST reside in the game system data file folder - the one containing the ".cfg" and ".pkg" files. If your files live elsewhere, HL will not be compiling them in, so the material won't be loaded when you next load the game system. Splicing allows you to splice material that lives anywhere, even outside of the data file folder.

The "source" folder contains all of the data files for the d20 open content used within HL. Those files are intended for use as examples and for reference. They have already been built into the "d20core.pkg" file, so they are NOT used by HL.

We've made some changes in V1.0g (just released) that warn you when you try to do things incorrectly now. Give it a try and let us know if you think the changes would have helped you avoid this confusion. And if you have better suggestions, please let us know!

Note: It's important to allow authors to edit files that don't reside in the data file folder. This will be needed is AuthorA shares his files with AuthorB, and the two managed to use the same id for a thing (or some other collision). In that scenario, the files won't load and the author trying to integrated them may choose to try editing the conflicting files in a different folder, copying them back in after the corrections are made.

The second thing: Is there any way to write scripts for editing? Besides the panel method you have now (I am a luddite. My wife, however, is familiar with programming and would like to know).

I'm not sure what you mean by "scripts for editing". The editor allows you to write extensive scripts if you want. In fact, there are some scripts in the core material that are 100 lines long or more. Users should not need to deal with these scripts at all, but the scripting language fully supports them. You'll find full documentation on the scripting language within the Authoring Kit manual.

If this doesn't answer you question, please clarify what you mean by "scripts for editing" and I'll do my best to give you an answer.

Last thing: I want to get this program for the people who play with us, and I would like to be able to share the changes I make. Do I simply save out and replace their feats lists, etc, with the ones I make? Is there an export function I am missing?

You should be saving all of your custom feats, skills, etc. in your own data files. Those files can then be copied into the data file folder on another user's computer. Once the data files are re-compiled and re-load, the all of your custom material should be included. So it's just a matter of copying your files to everyone's computers.

We plan on streamlining this process in the near future by adding an export and import mechanism. In the meantime, though, just copying the files is all you need to do (plus a re-compile and re-load, of course).

Hope this helps,
Rob

[ToshBo]

Ahhh.. Scripts for editing. I guess I am too technical for my own good.

I meant: Can we get at the actually code and write scripts using a text editor? My wife is fairly good at some coding (Java and some scripting languages) and finds that having to learn an editor is more time than actually just writing the code.

"Scripts for editing"... No wonder she looked at me funny when I said that I had posted that. I guess I should have let her explain it. Anyway, I will get the authoring kit printed out and to her. That should take care of that.

anyway, thanks for the reply, to you and Chris before. This has answered all of my questions. We figured you will be updating, adding game systems, etc. and all the additional core books will be up to us to implement. Which is fine, as we now have the tools to do so. Once weapons, gear and magic stuff is in, we will be set. Now I got to get back to my scripts for editing.