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Calendar

Zaphod Beebledoc said:
Wouldn't the underlying data stay the same whatever the calendar?
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That's the hope.. that the underlying data would stay the same. As I detailed above, If you wanted to see where that data relates to different cultures or different locales (ie planets even) without changing any of the underlying overall storyline.


Zaphod Beebledoc said:
Thinking about it a bit more, what I'm really grasping at is the ability to change which calendar is displayed for the data in the snippet. If I were doing it, I would have the data stored like in spreadsheets. (As integers for dates and decimals for time.) Have the base calendar set as Gregorian, which hopefully allows for the date to be shown as dd/mm/yyyy and mm/dd/yyyy, then if the calendar is set to Golarian, RW will show the Golarian date.
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I think we are saying the same thing more or less... the confusion is your use of Gregorian as the base.
For example:
Excel stores dates as sequential serial numbers so that they can be used in calculations. By default, January 1, 1900, is serial number 1, and January 1, 2008, is serial number 39448 because it is 39,448 days after January 1, 1900.

Excel is based on Gregorian as noted above. Creating a serial string to convert into a format d/mm/yy, dd/mm/yyyy, mm/dd/yy, mm/dd/yyyy, etc

By starting with 1900 exel becomes cumbersome with any date before 1Jan1900.
In contrast in a database environment similar to RW they count seconds.
Microsoft website said:
According to MSDN, in all versions of Microsoft C/C++ except Microsoft C/C++ version 7.0, and in all versions of Microsoft Visual C++, the time function returns the current time as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight on January 1, 1970 (i.e. epoch). In Microsoft C/C++ version 7.0, time returned the current time as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight on December 31, 1899.
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not to derail this into a discussion on software coding, I would speculate that LWD would approach it in similar fashion, counting seconds... it is just a determinate of where does the count begin in relation to everything "default".
Zaphod Beebledoc said:
So what I'm really saying is that I hope there is, 1) a way to bulk change the displayed date to the calendar you want, 2) set snippets to display the calendar you want in the category stucture, so they can be entered as Gregorian if you want, and 3) pasting of date data, which would have to be in Gregorian format, but then the calendar displayed would be the one you want.
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I agree, though the underlying "default" will actually be some sort of serial string (most likely) and the end user will select what DISPLAY default they wish.
 
Exmortis said:
Man I will just be happy with a calendar to track time and events.
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LOL I hear ya...
One that is integrated into the other data... :)

Right now I have a calendar system, but its external of RW and I must keep all the plates spinning at the same rate for it to work smoothly. cumbersome but doable.

Would be fantastically simpler to have them all inter-relate to the rest of the "world" so to speak...
  • no more looking ahead to see what phases are the moons in
  • no more short listing the upcoming holidays or festivals the PCS may run across in town
  • no more barbarians asking if its the 3rd of Richfest here what is that where my people are from?

Well, maybe, no more isn't the correct phrase... the players will still want all of that,,,, its really no more digging.... those answers would be only clicks away...... Ah to bask in the Dream....:rolleyes:
 
I don't know if this will have any influence, but I would like to add my vote for this. I just bought the software despite some reservations. One of the things that convinced me to go for it was I read a comment in a video into that multiple calendars were now supported. I should have double-checked the forums. My bad (though they really should have a trial version). I'll probably still use the software, it seems better than Master Plan in other wasys and it is better than Evernote for organizing my campaign info.

But I am very disappointed in the lack of calendar support. Having to convert from Gregorian to Harptos and some other custom calendars (I also use the Old Norse calendar in my campaign) is a pain. It would be INCREDIBLY useful and immersive to have a way to toggle between calendar systems to see the dates in the proper system.

I know that there are a million features that users of such a complex and flexible tool will want to see. But a proper calendar feature seems like a basic core feature of a campaign-management system. I really hope that that developers prioritize this, though it looks like this has been discussed and pled for by many users for a long time.
 
MNBlockHead said:
..............My bad (though they really should have a trial version).
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The way Realm Works sync and flexibility to multiple workstations makes having a "trial Version" Difficult. As it really isn't cost prohibitive. less than one PS4 or Xbox one game?

MNBlockHead said:
I'll probably still use the software, it seems better than Master Plan in other wasys and it is better than Evernote for organizing my campaign info.
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I agree on both counts, though still use a portion of MasterPlan to maintain custom Calendar for Holidays and such.... but dislike have to have completely separate calendars for my data with in that software. RealmWorks hopes to integrate multiple calendars within the SAME realm (world) so no more hopping back and forth.

MNBlockHead said:
But I am very disappointed in the lack of calendar support. Having to convert from Gregorian to Harptos and some other custom calendars (I also use the Old Norse calendar in my campaign) is a pain. It would be INCREDIBLY useful and immersive to have a way to toggle between calendar systems to see the dates in the proper system.
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That's the plan.

MNBlockHead said:
..............But a proper calendar feature seems like a basic core feature of a campaign-management system. ............, though it looks like this has been discussed and pled for by many users for a long time.
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It is basic, and it was there for the Beta Test, but found to be "unusable in its Beta State."

As to the "Pleas..." I'm One of the Calendar Banner Wavers for Top o' List patrons!! hehe :cool:
So yes it has been discussed (at length)

BUT "long time" is relative to perspective...... As the Cosmos go.. not so much, As the length of the Roman Empire... nope.... The Rise of US supremacy from a colonial state? No still not that long... The Growth of the "home Computer"... getting warmer.... The next re-boot of Superman..... opps deviated... might be shorter than that one now.... (hehe)

Seriously, those in need of Printing, exporting, or Formatting for Eye appeal would Cry as loudly for their needs to be met as well, and consider it "core or a basic" need....

Remember as a community we number in the hundreds (Thousands?) and LWD is less than 20... So not bad for less than 20 very dedicated people following a dream to reality... I think....

Disclaimer NOTE: I am in no way affiliated with LWD, Realm Works, Rob, Colen, Arron, or Liz... (though would adopt Liz, shes too cute haha):D

If anything I am one of Rob's Rock throwing targets when I scrutinize toooo much... :p;)
 
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Chemlak said:
Well said, DLG.

~ Chief Calendar Champion Chemlak
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Which part? that Liz is cute? Just a statement in the obvious...:p

All I can add to that is>
@ Her Husband (I think Joe?), my man, you better keep her happy, its not many who find one that WANTS a gaming Room in their house! hehe:cool:

Even as wonderful as mine is, she was opposed to ours.... took some careful negotiations (and honeydo's) to seal the deal!:eek::D
 
Points all well taken DLG. For now, I am playing around with Aeon Timeline. Not sure that I wan't to spend $40 on just a timeline tool, but it might have some work applications as well. It might be fun to create some nice graphic time lines that can be shared with players. I'm looking into other tools as well, since what I need most is a converter so that I can convert Gregorian dates into other systems on the fly.
 
MNBlockHead said:
Points all well taken DLG. For now, I am playing around with Aeon Timeline. Not sure that I wan't to spend $40 on just a timeline tool, but it might have some work applications as well. It might be fun to create some nice graphic time lines that can be shared with players. I'm looking into other tools as well, since what I need most is a converter so that I can convert Gregorian dates into other systems on the fly.
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Aeon Timeline... Hadn't heard of this.. looking it is very similar to one I built utilizing Exel. Let me know how the quest goes for you... I'd be curious....

For now I limp through using the excel / Masterplan variants of 12 differing calendars I have in motion... the pain is the cross indexing that the promise of RW would correct. IT would be so much easier to maintain story line, plot development and time passing all within the same "sand box".
 
Aeon Timeline is not working out that well. It is a neat tool, designed to help writers create time lines for their stories or as background material for their fictional universes. It allows you to created data-rich timelines and you can create and use custom calendars for this purpose.

My problem is that I don't see any easy way to convert dates on the fly. I don't see a way to show a timeline in multiple calendar formats side by side or to toggle a date among multiple calendars.

My NEW plan (don't ask me how much time I've been spending starting and scrapping different ideas for dealing with calendars) is to create a Google Calendar for each custom calendar. Firs, I create standard Gregorian Google Calendar, which will match the CE dates I enter into RW. Then I create a Harptos calendar and enter as repeating events all the months, inter-month holidays, etc. Rinse and repeat for my other calendars. Google App's calendar offers great layering functionality so that I can toggle calendars on and off so that they are not cluttering my calendar in my day to day use and when gaming, I can hide everything but the fantasy calendars. Leap years are handled fairly inelegantly by taking the month, inter-month holiday, or intercalary days and entering them separately for leap-years and non leap years. Leap years are what may be the point in failure in all this. If I want to have thousands of years represented, I need to have all items repeated infinately. That's easy when you just need to repeat annually every X years. If you match your leap year date to the Gregorian leap year date, it isn't a problem, but none of my calendars work this way.

It may be that I just have a spreadsheet showing the conversion for a non leapyear and another for a leap year and as I entered events into RW just type the dates in the other calendar formats by referencing the days & months on spreadsheet.
 
I've also been having fun playing with Calendar Magic. This was be an ideal tool if I could define custom calendars. There are so many calendars supported by this free app, however, that I think one could simply select one of the more obscure real-world calendars and repurpose it as a fantasy calendar. It will provide dual calendar views, calendar comparisons, and many other calendar and date tools. If moon phases are important to you, it has that too. Again, it is limited to real world, Earth calendars and moon phases. But it is still fun to play around with.

http://www.stokepoges.plus.com/calendar.htm
 
On the survey, Calendars was my only 10. There was a 9 and 3 7s. I think LWD's admonition to avoid 'going all 10s' was a sound one and I hope everyone (regardless what they voted for) followed that.

I'm still figuring out if I have anything more to add in the open-ended area before I finish.

Vote, everyone, vote!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone, esp the LWD team. :)
 
My calendar is a heckuva lot like the Gregorian calendar, except that I have this thing where I get pissy at every fantasy realm being Northern-Hemisphere-centric (seriously - when was the last time you saw "The Frozen South" on a fantasy map?). So in order to run a converted adventure that started with a blizzard on new year's day, I cut my calendar in half and started the year in June. Simple, but super satisfying.

My point being, even if detailed calendar management is a bridge too far, I think giving a little superficial control (renaming months and eras) is still worth it in the mean time.
 
Fox Lee said:
My calendar is a heckuva lot like the Gregorian calendar, except that I have this thing where I get pissy at every fantasy realm being Northern-Hemisphere-centric (seriously - when was the last time you saw "The Frozen South" on a fantasy map?). So in order to run a converted adventure that started with a blizzard on new year's day, I cut my calendar in half and started the year in June. Simple, but super satisfying.

My point being, even if detailed calendar management is a bridge too far, I think giving a little superficial control (renaming months and eras) is still worth it in the mean time.
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You Aussies need to get busy making campaign settings in the Southern Hemisphere. :) :)

I just may make my next setting, or at least major developed area in my current world, in the south just 'cause.

Last I heard, although I think it may have been a 'high-level version' was that much of the calendar was there just that the interface was.....lacking. Given that they haven't implemented it yet, I suspect there is a touch more to the story or that reworking the interface is going to involve serious head-banging (and not to heavy metal).

We'll see where the Calendars come on the survey and what they come up with when it comes up for dev cycles.
 
There are enough things to vote for that you can easily give multiple items the same rating and still have an even spread with all values from one to ten. I agree that Calendars should get a 10 rating, there were in my opinion a couple other things worthy of a 10 also. However, do try to prioritize appropriately and realize that if you assign everything a 10 or everything some other value (i.e. all the same value 1, 5, something else) then you basically invalidate your effective opinion for the survey.
 
Calender

I'm new here, I forget when I installed the application it asked something about calendars but I forgot what it did, I just took the defaults. Is the only option the Gregorian calendar? Where there other options? In the PDF documents on page 39 of the quick start guide there is a picture of manage toolbar that shows custom calendar icons, I don't have them in my version, am I missing something?

Any help would be great!

Thanks,
Craig
 
Gregorian is the only option. I bought RW after watching a video demo (not an official video, one on You Tube) and didn't realize that the version in the demo was not the released version. I bought it thinking that I could customize calendars. I was very disappointed that I was stuck with gregorian only. Since then, I've come to love the product and have been finding it indispensable for managing my D&D campaign, but the lack of customizable calendars is still an annoyance. Really hoping enough people voted for this to make it a priority for the developers.
 
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