Monthly Seminars

[Mathias]

Is there a specific problem you're trying to solve?

Macros are intended as a convenience, to save typing. Nothing more, so I don't understand the purpose of reverse engineering them. If you need to perform an operation that a macro doesn't quite cover, then you can just work out that operation as its own thing, without worrying whether there's a macro available.

[bodrin]

Originally Posted by Mathias

Is there a specific problem you're trying to solve?

Macros are intended as a convenience, to save typing. Nothing more, so I don't understand the purpose of reverse engineering them. If you need to perform an operation that a macro doesn't quite cover, then you can just work out that operation as its own thing, without worrying whether there's a macro available.

No just curious, I wanted to study the macro code so I could apply the same logic to custom operations. For all the macro ease of use, sometimes having a long example to contrast and compare is a useful indicator.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by Mathias

Is there a specific problem you're trying to solve?

Macros are intended as a convenience, to save typing. Nothing more, so I don't understand the purpose of reverse engineering them. If you need to perform an operation that a macro doesn't quite cover, then you can just work out that operation as its own thing, without worrying whether there's a macro available.

I am not sure he is really looking for exactly reverse engineering them but more to simply get an idea of what they do.

If you look at the #value[] or #abDC[] macros they are pretty basic in what they do. Just a short hand of writing hero.child[].field[abDC].value. The confusion comes in when you try and use #applybonus or #applydr as they do a set of logic that only applies the largest value. That is a bit confusing if all you have seen is comments for #value[] macros. I know I screwed up the use of these at first.

I think it goes back to that as users we are "blind" to the inner working of HL and this is especially true of macros and procedures. Why I agree that they are needed knowing what they do is also needed for editors to know "when" to use one.

I know your very helpful Mathais but the issue is you get to "see" everything and work with HL day in and day out. You basically live and breath it. As editors we don't and often see HL in places as a black box. You put something in and a something comes out. But what happened in the box is all magic as far as we know.

I know I have said this before and I have not had time either but we need something that lists ALL these things and explains what they do. In example if I wanted to know what the Calendar object does in Java I can look at the Java Docs pages. That gives me SUPER detail information about what that object does and what its methods are.

Honestly we need something along those lines for HL.

Sorry this gone in a different direction but my point was that its not as easy as you think to figure out what is going on in the background of "HL" when building scripts.

[bodrin]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

I am not sure he is really looking for exactly reverse engineering them but more to simply get an idea of what they do.

If you look at the #value[] or #abDC[] macros they are pretty basic in what they do. Just a short hand of writing hero.child[].field[abDC].value. The confusion comes in when you try and use #applybonus or #applydr as they do a set of logic that only applies the largest value. That is a bit confusing if all you have seen is comments for #value[] macros. I know I screwed up the use of these at first.

I think it goes back to that as users we are "blind" to the inner working of HL and this is especially true of macros and procedures. Why I agree that they are needed knowing what they do is also needed for editors to know "when" to use one.

I know your very helpful Mathais but the issue is you get to "see" everything and work with HL day in and day out. You basically live and breath it. As editors we don't and often see HL in places as a black box. You put something in and a something comes out. But what happened in the box is all magic as far as we know.

I know I have said this before and I have not had time either but we need something that lists ALL these things and explains what they do.

Honestly we need something along those lines for HL.

Sorry this gone in a different direction but my point was that its not as easy as you think to figure out what is going on in the background of "HL" when building scripts.

This is basically the gist!
Macros save time and code, but if they didn't exist how would we achieve the same thing with a long code line?

[Mathias]

So don't mention macros in your question. Just ask the question. The more you clutter up a question, the more confusing it is to read, and the more likely you are to get an answer to what someone thinks is the question you're asking, not the actual question you're asking.

You approach the DC issue by looking at the fields on the thing whose DC you want to adjust - as you adjust the attribute or class level, or something else that you know affects DC, you watch the field values that change, and figure out that it's field[abDC].value that's storing the DC. Then, http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=21663, you figure out how you can travel from where you are to where the DC is, in order to make the change you want to make.

[bodrin]

Originally Posted by Mathias

So don't mention macros in your question. Just ask the question. The more you clutter up a question, the more confusing it is to read, and the more likely you are to get an answer to what someone thinks is the question you're asking, not the actual question you're asking.

You approach the DC issue by looking at the fields on the thing whose DC you want to adjust - as you adjust the attribute or class level, or something else that you know affects DC, you watch the field values that change, and figure out that it's field[abDC].value that's storing the DC. Then, http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=21663, you figure out how you can travel from where you are to where the DC is, in order to make the change you want to make.

Okay ignore the reference to DC, I only used it as an example I could easily have used xDamRD or any other unique ID. I found the #abDC macro in the editor and utilised it recently, however; Without referring to a macro I couldn't ask the question "How do I script something similar to a macro?" That's like describing the color Red as Red. No help at all.

But the link you provided goes some way to explaining how the macros could be constructed, it just seems slightly lacking in comprehensive examples or currentlt utilised script applications. As great as the editor is, although somewhat a beast, the current documentation needs a little TLC and updating IMHO.

[chiefweasel]

Hey everyone, tonights seminar will start in about 20 minutes. I am setting it up now. You will need to use Teamviewer for the seminar.

The meeting ID for tonight is: m16-313-512

If the connection gets dropped for some reason, I will provide a new meeting ID when I sign back on. Thanks and hope to see you there.

[chiefweasel]

OK folks time to set the next monthly seminar. The June seminar is set for June 23 at 8PM EST. Please submit your questions ahead of time so we can figure them out and go over the results during the seminar. Thanks.

[bodrin]

Originally Posted by chiefweasel

OK folks time to set the next monthly seminar. The June seminar is set for June 23 at 8PM EST. Please submit your questions ahead of time so we can figure them out and go over the results during the seminar. Thanks.

I miss the seminars as my free time is now taken up with outdoor pursuits. I'm barely able to code anything these days.

However did this request of mine get covered in the previous meet?

Eg pick 1 spell from a domain and add it to your spells known / spell list this spell can only be from the xxxxx domain or from the xxxxx school.

Something similar to this where the script limits the choices.

If so can anybody post a working script example for reference please?
Much appreciated if possible.

[chiefweasel]

Hey Bodrin, I'm afraid not. At the last meeting only 1 other person attended so there wasn't much discussion. In fact I am going to try it once more, but there interest in this sort of thing seems to be almost nil from the user community.

I tink what might be a better solution for it, or a different direction is to have a seminar with the data set designers and work on some of the high level problems that are encountered. Sort of take the seminar from a 101 level to a 401 level. That way only a few folks who really have some significant problem can attend and throw out their problem to the designers of the user community data set and try to resolve things that way.

This type of seminar may also help us to organize the user community from the top down, as it were, so that we can better provide the information that we do for the users themselves. I would also like to propose that any of the user community developers have a get together at Gen Con. I know not all of them are attending Gen Con, so we'll have to see about that as Gen Con gets closer. As Realm Works gets released I feel that there will be an even greater need for help to exist in the user community at all levels.

So lots to discuss.