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Advanced Export Import Question

D

daplunk

Well-known member
Hi Team,

And this is most likely going to need LWD to reply.

In this example I am going to create multiple exports of content that exists in different products that would really work alot better (same campaign world) if when imported together, they all worked together. I'm not sure if the tool will handle what i'm thinking of doing.

So lets assume I create the following in the same realm.

Article Parent
> Article Child A
>> Article Sub-Child A
> Article Child B
>> Article Sub-Child B
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C

I then export

>> Article Sub-Child B

When imported to a new realm I would expect it to only import the one article assuming I only put the export tag on the single article.

Article Sub-Child B

But how would it react if I imported into a Realm that already had the following:

Article Parent
> Article Child A
>> Article Sub-Child A
> Article Child B
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C

And what would happen if I imported the 'Article Sub-Child B' on it's own and then imported the rest of the content into the same realm?

Would I end up with:

Article Parent
> Article Child A
>> Article Sub-Child A
> Article Child B
>> Article Sub-Child B
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C

Or would I end up with:

Article Parent
> Article Child A
>> Article Sub-Child A
> Article Child B
Article Sub-Child B
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C

To put some context. I'm working with 3rd party content that has a habit of putting out one class option in one pdf and another class option for the same class in the a different pdf. Now to have them separate would result in a mess of options that the user would have to neaten. Putting them together is ideal but the products need to be able to work on their own as well as together in that scenario.

And for any content creators out there, if you are reading this, this is why you should put all your class options together ;)

And more importantly, is this a really bad idea just in general when creating content that is designed for the CM? I'm going to assume yes. But it's just such a horrid mess when you separate it all out by product.
 
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So doing the testing. Created the following

Article Parent 1
> Article Child A
Article Parent 2
> Article Child B
Article Parent 3
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C (applied export tag to this article only)

The result of importing the first export was the following:

Article Parent 3
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C (applied export tag to this article only)

So it brings the parent articles with it.

I then did the following in a new export:

Article Parent 1
> Article Child A
Article Parent 2
> Article Child B
Article Parent 3
> Article Child C

I imported this on top of the first import. The result was:

Article Parent 1
> Article Child A
Article Parent 2
> Article Child B
Article Parent 3
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C

Which is excellent!

Then I reversed the test and did the structure import first. The result was as expected.

Article Parent 1
> Article Child A
Article Parent 2
> Article Child B
Article Parent 3
> Article Child C

Then i imported the single article. The result was:

Article Parent 1
> Article Child A
Article Parent 2
> Article Child B
Article Parent 3
> Article Child C
>> Article Sub-Child C

Which is excellent!

Which means I have but one questions left

is this a really bad idea just in general when creating content that is designed for the CM? I'm going to assume yes.
Click to expand...
 
Oh and I had a failed import during all this.

If you create a realm, add content, export the content, delete the content and try to import the content into the same realm it generates and error (not a crash) and will not allow the content to be imported into the same realm.
 
I don't think it's a really bad idea.

I for one hope that Paizo, or whoever is doing data entry for Paizo, has thought about this before doing their RW realm. I would hate for people to buy various Golarion products expecting them to neatly fit together and have them act as if they are separate realms. The same goes for Midgard and Forgotten Realms and all the other published settings that may eventually make their way into RW.
 
I just tested this with the We be Goblins! content, and it didn't overwrite or link in any way to my user created topics. For example, after the import, I now have two Brinestump Marsh topics. One is a child of the Varisia topic I created, the other is the one from the Import.

It seems to me this will only work if the author/original realm is the same for all your imports.
 
This is really, really useful information. I feared the results would be along the lines @Mystic Lemur describes and that different authors would not merge seamlessly. This could be problematic for campaign settings.
 
This was already known. Topics do not merge with each other on import just because they have the same name. There is supposed to be an underlying UUID that matches a topic to itself no matter what you may do to it.

However it isn't insurmountable. For instance, if Paizo wanted to make Golarion fit together seamlessly they could create a skeleton of the realm with just the topic names in the realm (in the proper categories obviously). They could then send exports of that realm to the various data entry people working on each piece to flesh out.

Then the various pieces would all be from the same realm and would, at least based on very limited testing and on Rob's statements, merge together when imported. Josh's testing at the start of this thread seems to support that this would work as well.
 
Think of it this way... how angry would people be if "Bob the Butcher" from an adventure you just imported, a minor NPC with a lot of information about how kind he is, merged with or over-wrote "Bob the Butcher", a major villain you spent months detailing.

Would that really be what you want?
 
Sorry for derailing this important topic, but when you copy files on your computer and there are conflicts, what happens? Does the computer just automatically create multiple copies? Heck no! There is a GUI that resolves the conflict with user input to determine what do to. We use this functionality every single day.

When there are conflicts in RW import, I expect the following: Append? Overwrite? Ignore new content? Do this action for all additional conflicts?

I have no clue whether this is easy to program; but yes, this is absolutely what is expected. It is not too much to ask for the program to function like every other program we use and the base operating system the program was developed for.
 
Right. I'm not saying I want it to overwrite other topics with the same name, but the option to merge them would be lovely. There might be a hundred "Library" topics, but there's only likely to be one "Candlekeep."

If I've got the "Inner Sea World Guide" and I want to import the Osirion sourcebook, then I certainly don't want to overwrite the duplicate topics. There's likely to be more detail in the new ones, but I want the option of what snippets to keep.
 
Sorry, didn't catch you meant that as an example. I remember being surprised that someone around as long as you were thought that could happen (which you obviously didn't).
 
Mystic Lemur said:
Right. I'm not saying I want it to overwrite other topics with the same name, but the option to merge them would be lovely. There might be a hundred "Library" topics, but there's only likely to be one "Candlekeep."

If I've got the "Inner Sea World Guide" and I want to import the Osirion sourcebook, then I certainly don't want to overwrite the duplicate topics. There's likely to be more detail in the new ones, but I want the option of what snippets to keep.
Click to expand...
Golarion is the worst of all possible cases. Some topics could come from 4 or 5 sources, at least. The Inner Sea World Guide, the regional sourcebooks, AP's and various modules all might contribute slightly different material about Varisia or Sandpoint, for instance.
 
And there is no effective way to automatically merge these things. It is likely that each GM would want it done differently even if it could be automated.
 
Yeah, Golarion is the "poster child" for the case of merging content. Some years ago I suggested (I think I posted it.. I discard a lot of posts these days because they sound like I am complaining) the same kind of "master skeleton" Realm idea that kbs666 mentioned.. one that has ONLY the names of Topics, Category definitions, and Tag domains specific to Pathfinder.
 
I've been inputting Frog God Game's Lost Lands setting for a while now. I'm excited to merge Razor Coast and The Blight. But I'm also hesitant to import them as they reference places that are referenced multiple times throughout FGG's other releases. They interweave breadcrumbs everywhere and each builds on the others so no one entry has everything. If it takes someone nearly as much time to manually merge content as it takes to enter it from scratch, the value of the content market diminishes dramatically.

I can't even imagine managing Golarion with its bazillion moving pieces as downloaded material that has to be manually merged....
 
Silveras said:
Yeah, Golarion is the "poster child" for the case of merging content. Some years ago I suggested (I think I posted it.. I discard a lot of posts these days because they sound like I am complaining) the same kind of "master skeleton" Realm idea that kbs666 mentioned.. one that has ONLY the names of Topics, Category definitions, and Tag domains specific to Pathfinder.
Click to expand...
The thing is someone at Paizo would have to be committed to RW and really be a power user or hire one of the couple of dozen forum regulars who are to do that. And that would be for product lines they don't consider to be all that important, the player companion and the campaign setting lines are apparently not Paizo's bread and butter, AP's are.

Maybe once the material is released, assuming it is released, the community can refactor it into a single cohesive realm. The same goes for the other major published campaign settings. If people want them to fit together it will likely have to be done as community projects.
 
AEIOU said:
I've been inputting Frog God Game's Lost Lands setting for a while now. I'm excited to merge Razor Coast and The Blight. But I'm also hesitant to import them as they reference places that are referenced multiple times throughout FGG's other releases. They interweave breadcrumbs everywhere and each builds on the others so no one entry has everything. If it takes someone nearly as much time to manually merge content as it takes to enter it from scratch, the value of the content market diminishes dramatically.

I can't even imagine managing Golarion with its bazillion moving pieces as downloaded material that has to be manually merged....
Click to expand...

Prepare yourselves, mortals, for my Wall of Text spell! :eek:

The issue is only likely to happen if you try to merge material you entered yourself with purchased materials. In the long view, people will probably fall in to one of four groups...
  1. people who do it ALL on their own
  2. people who purchase some publisher content from the Content Market as a base (such as the Campaign Setting itself) and expand it themselves as they need to (with, for example, the adventures)
  3. people who buy everything from the content market and only modify as games go on
  4. people who start with DIY content and try to merge in published content that overlaps. This will likely be one of the smaller groups. The "price" of the DIY approach is that mixing it with published content later will take some work. If you go the other way, and DIY expansions on published content, it should be much easier.

As a data point, I have entered manually for my own use:
  • Pathfinder Core Rulebook, 150% (yes, I did it twice in separate Realms)
  • Bestiary, 10% (work in progress)
  • Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition Adventure Path, 100%, including HeroLab portfolios
  • Second Darkness Adventure Path, 80%, including HeroLab portfolios (work in progress)
  • Inner Sea Primer Player Comnpanion, 100%
  • Inner Sea World Guide, 75%
  • Inner Sea Races, 1%(work in progress, just started)
  • Inner Sea Gods, 30% (work in progress)
  • Varisia: Birthplace of Legends Player Companion, 100%
  • Magnimar: City of Monuments Pathfinder Campaign Setting, 100%
  • Faction Guide Pathfinder Campaign Setting, 60%
  • bits and pieces from other sources

Both my Rise of the Runelords and Second Darkness Realms had Adventure Path, World, and Mechanics content (two copies of the Pathfinder rules). I then split the mechanics and story content and merged them into two Realms, one with the combined story content and the other with the combined rules content.

Since then, I have completed the de-duplication process for the Story content. That required about two weeks* (as in.. there isn't as much overlap as you might expect). That's much shorter than the months I spent entering the data in the first place. Currently, that merged Realm is at about 5,000 Topics (I have since added 100% of Into the Darklands as well).

The process was fairly easy.
  • Examine each Topic in the pair
  • Decide which to keep
  • Move any necessary snippets from the one to be discarded to the one to be retained
  • Mark the one to be discarded as such (I used the Suffix for this), and set the linking priority on all names to "Never"
  • Visit each INBOUND link (TO this topic) and use the context menu for a link to "Choose another target for all instances" (note: I reported a bug that this does not work for GM Directions). This was the most tedious part of the process.
  • Once all inbound links have been re-directed, make sure any Relationships needed are represented on the Topic being kept.
  • Delete the unwanted member of the pair.

In short, it wasn't that bad... and I doubt that merging published content will be all that much worse.

EDIT: * Two weeks for me as someone semi-retired and not balancing it with a job or raising kids. Others should expect the process to take longer.. but it wasn't all that bad in the end.
 
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kbs666 said:
The thing is someone at Paizo would have to be committed to RW and really be a power user or hire one of the couple of dozen forum regulars who are to do that. And that would be for product lines they don't consider to be all that important, the player companion and the campaign setting lines are apparently not Paizo's bread and butter, AP's are.

Maybe once the material is released, assuming it is released, the community can refactor it into a single cohesive realm. The same goes for the other major published campaign settings. If people want them to fit together it will likely have to be done as community projects.
Click to expand...

Oh, sure, post while I'm working on my mighty wall of text. :)

The thing is, unlike rules content (and stat-blocks) (Mechanics content), material from the APs, Player Companions, and Campaign Setting books (Story content) is not open content. Meaning, the Community CANNOT make its own version. All of that content is Paizo's alone to publish as they see fit.. and the version released by LWD under license from them would be the only legal version. Anything else would be a violation of Paizo's rights as owners of the content, subject to legal action, etc.
 
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