.stock files how do pepole keep track of where to find things

[drakahn99]

i was wondering what people do to keep track of whats where? i seem to have an unwieldy huge list and at times it can be trying to figure out whats where.

thinking about adding a feature request to add in more to the menus so we can see whats in the stock files before clicking on it to add, and if its not in that particular one then having to restart the process over from scratch again, 20 or 30 times just for one npc or stock monster.

[mxyzplk]

Yeah, I posted about this - I think there's need for a better search/browse feature there. I'm forever thinking "oh I need a low level sorcerer, I'm sure there's one from one of the NPC books" and then being confronted with a bunch of picky in/out of the add stock menus. A simple Windows Explorer-esque expanding folder view with a search bar at the top would do it.

[Dracones]

Hi, this is a bit of a PITA for me as well. I threw together quick app that can search through stock/por files and look for a name you supply to it: hlsearch

It uses Python 2.7 so you'd need to install that. Below is a screenshot of it in use. Note if there's a real need to search on fields other than the creature's name, I can toss that in pretty easily.

[Jamz]

Sweet, I was JUST thinking, mmm, maybe I should put a quick script together and...You posted.

Sadly, I get no results when searching. Maybe a permissions issue? Does it need Admin rights?

FYI: On Windows 8, file location is C:\ProgramData\Hero Lab\data\pathfinder

[Dracones]

It's possible you have older stock files which might be in binary format. I've updated the program to output an error message if it can't read a file. Try it now and see if it throws errors on the file searches.

[Jamz]

Hmm, still just get:

Processing files...


Completed

PS checked and all the ones I checked were in the new "zip" format.

[Dracones]

That's odd. I tried in Windows 7 at home(copied over some stock files because I normally use HL in Linux) and it's working on those. Any chance you can save a hero lab character into a normal por file and try parsing the directory that's in? I'm wondering if your stock file XML is different than mine.

It could be a Windows 8 thing or permission thing, but the app is just doing reads so that shouldn't set off any alarms(I'd think anyway). Worst case I can create a debug mode on the app which will output every step it's going through to help narrow down things. That way it'd output the opening of the file, show what creature it's comparing the name search against, etc.

[Dracones]

I've re-written this to use a new GUI interface with better cross platform support and I'm also experimenting with compiled binaries for it.

To run from source you'll need Python 2.7 and PyQt4.

However I've also added 32/64 bit Linux binaries and a 32bit Windows executable. I'm not sure if the 32bit Windows EXE will work under Windows 64bit and I'm still putting together a Mac build environment to create Mac binaries.

The app should run much faster now and the output is a lot more useful.



Download and install docs are here

[bodrin]

This is impressive, the current HL native stock file search is somewhat cumbersome.

Especially as the list is constantly updated and added to.

Integration / implementation perhaps?

[drakahn99]

Originally Posted by Dracones

I've re-written this to use a new GUI interface with better cross platform support and I'm also experimenting with compiled binaries for it.

To run from source you'll need Python 2.7 and PyQt4.

However I've also added 32/64 bit Linux binaries and a 32bit Windows executable. I'm not sure if the 32bit Windows EXE will work under Windows 64bit and I'm still putting together a Mac build environment to create Mac binaries.

The app should run much faster now and the output is a lot more useful.



Download and install docs are here

is there any way you could add a browse function to the app? it would be useful to know what i actually have in the stock files to determine if something needs added.