Hero Lab 3.0 & Authoring Kit released

[sincla]

Large portions of the Author Kit wiki are still incomplete, especially on the more advanced topics and the skeleton files. Are there any plans to complete this documentation?

[Schedim]

The wiki seems to be completely abandoned which is a bit of pity as there is a lot of code snippets here and there it would be good to know how to interpret. not everything shows up when you search the forum ...

And asking question about every frakking codepiece I wondering about would bog the forum down. Is there any plans for a update of the documentation? it seems to been a while ... you must have a inhouse document I mean, perhaps it could be cut down, trimmed a bit and then released?

[CubGeek]

Originally Posted by Schedim

The wiki seems to be completely abandoned which is a bit of pity as there is a lot of code snippets here and there it would be good to know how to interpret. not everything shows up when you search the forum ...

And asking question about every frakking codepiece I wondering about would bog the forum down. Is there any plans for a update of the documentation? it seems to been a while ... you must have a inhouse document I mean, perhaps it could be cut down, trimmed a bit and then released?

Can we have an official yea or nay on this, 6 months on?

[CubGeek]

Originally Posted by Schedim

The wiki seems to be completely abandoned which is a bit of pity as there is a lot of code snippets here and there it would be good to know how to interpret. not everything shows up when you search the forum ...

And asking question about every frakking codepiece I wondering about would bog the forum down. Is there any plans for a update of the documentation? it seems to been a while ... you must have a inhouse document I mean, perhaps it could be cut down, trimmed a bit and then released?

I just asked Matthias about this. He stated that they don't have any internal documentation like this. He said that if they need to know how to do something, they'll open up a Skype chat session with a coworker and work it through there. Then, if they need to refer back to it, they just go through old Skype chats.

I appreciate the honesty, but it doesn't help people who are trying to use the product they've purchased.

Matthias was also very apologetic about the absolutely appalling state of the AK wiki, and stated they they do not have any plans to finish the wiki or update it to cover any new features within HL. They have too much other work to do for other things that they deem to be more important than this.

To paraphrase: "yeah, we didn't provide the documentation to fully utilize the product you purchased, and I'm sorry that the wiki has been abandoned, but we're too busy with other things and your requests won't make us any money. Good luck have fun!"

[Mathias]

We can't fit improving the documentation into the plans for the immediate horizon, and anything beyond the next few projects is still nebulous, because the amount of time they'll require is not certain. I did not say that we would never be improving the documentation. That's still something I want to do.

[jfrazierjr]

A few general questions:

is there an xsd for the data file format? If so, this would be most helpful.


second, is there some upper hard coded limit on the number of various child items contained within a game system. For example, dropdown fields, text fields, panels, popup windows for choice selection, etc.

[Mathias]

There's not a formal xsd available. In the authoring kit manual, go to kit reference, and then definition file reference, structural file reference, and data file reference to find out what elements are available, and whether they're required or optional.

[Urielblue]

Hmm...I was hoping to use the AK to make characters for Fantasy Age, but it seems that it is an abandoned project? Of course, my programming abilities are pretty much nil, so my dreams of an easy drag/click/add already finished sections (Changing the Attributes to reflect FA's 9 Attributes, for instance), seems a little bit of a lost cause anyways... I'm not even sure where to start as a 'Step One...' Ach.

Love HL for both PF, and D&D 5th, btw.

[Duggan]

Originally Posted by jfrazierjr

A few general questions:

is there an xsd for the data file format? If so, this would be most helpful.

Here's one for Structure files. Probably not entirely complete... I built it based on the wiki data, and then tweaked a few things based on how it reacted with a selected set of files (and at least one question answered by Mathias). I probably need to run it over a larger sample.

[AceOfSpades]

Originally Posted by Mathias

We can't fit improving the documentation into the plans for the immediate horizon, and anything beyond the next few projects is still nebulous, because the amount of time they'll require is not certain. I did not say that we would never be improving the documentation. That's still something I want to do.

So. It's been about 6 years since this was posted, 8 years since the wiki was last updated, and 13 years since the AK was released. Is there any chance of this being updated, ever? I've no idea if an AK equivalent will be released for HLO but this is a pretty fundamental component of HeroLab Classic and it's kinda mind boggling that the documentation has been this neglected, let alone hearing that there isn't even an in house equivalent.

What happens if someone, some guru, leaves the company and they're no longer available to chat about how to do things? Does the business risk that presents motivate Lone Wolf to actually document how one of their core products is used at a developer level?

On a personal level I've paid a LOT of money to use Hero Lab Classic for Pathfinder and not having access to documentation for a product that I actually use regularly is very distressing.