• Please note: In an effort to ensure that all of our users feel welcome on our forums, we’ve updated our forum rules. You can review the updated rules here: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=5528.

    If a fellow Community member is not following the forum rules, please report the post by clicking the Report button (the red yield sign on the left) located on every post. This will notify the moderators directly. If you have any questions about these new rules, please contact support@wolflair.com.

    - The Lone Wolf Development Team

Character sheets layout

L

Loyal Bulldog

Member
Hi,

I'm wondering if there is a way to get a nicer character sheet.

All the information is there, that's awesome, but I miss the layout of the original dnd sheets.


Regards,
Matthias
 
It is possible to make custom sheets apparently. I've no idea how to do it though. No one has tried for 5e to my knowledge.
 
According to this thread, as of April 2016 the ability to modify or create character sheet layouts was not available for 5e. No idea if it's been added since, but if you'd like to try you can check the various manuals and/or ask for assistance from the people in the Pathfinder section. I expect that the process would be similar if not identical for 5e.
 
Alyksandrei said:
According to this thread, as of April 2016 the ability to modify or create character sheet layouts was not available for 5e. No idea if it's been added since, but if you'd like to try you can check the various manuals and/or ask for assistance from the people in the Pathfinder section. I expect that the process would be similar if not identical for 5e.
Click to expand...
That thread has nothing to do with Custom Character Sheets. Its true you can not modify the sheet that comes with HL in the "Print Preview" area. But the Custom Output was designed to allow the ability to make custom sheets.

See THIS post and thread for details. But yes like others have said its NOT a 5 minute thing to do. In no way is it point and click. You will have to learn XSLT.
 
ShadowChemosh said:
That thread has nothing to do with Custom Character Sheets. Its true you can not modify the sheet that comes with HL in the "Print Preview" area. But the Custom Output was designed to allow the ability to make custom sheets.

See THIS post and thread for details. But yes like others have said its NOT a 5 minute thing to do. In no way is it point and click. You will have to learn XSLT.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Sadly I'm an idiot with things like XSLT.

Is there any reason why LWD would make this so difficult or why they don't make different sheets to select?
 
I don't think it's a case that they went out of their way to make it difficult. Just that it was an already difficult process that they left open for us to use. They could have locked it down I imagine. It would likely take a fair bit of time and resources to create something that would be considered user friendly.

As for why they are not available. I for one am not hanging for new sheets. Give me new content, more monsters, more character options, equipment, spells, mounts. These are the things I would like to see more of which means there are two things I personally hope they are doing...

  1. Chasing a license with WOTC
  2. Working with popular 3PP companies to bring us more content

I suspect a number of people would have similar priorities.
 
Loyal Bulldog said:
Thanks for the info. Sadly I'm an idiot with things like XSLT.

Is there any reason why LWD would make this so difficult or why they don't make different sheets to select?
Click to expand...
XSLT is a very popular and heavily documented scripting language. Thousands of sites can help with it including YouTube videos.

From that point of view LWD did not pick a difficult to use feature. They picked one that is the most common in the tech areas of software. Anyone that does almost anything with XML will have exposure to XSLT. So its a great concept I think when more of the forum users where IT people. Heck look at THIS post for a person that just did XSLT for Realm Works export.

I looked at "buying" software to help in making a point and click character sheet. Or spending the time to generate one. To custom make the software was into thousands of hour of coding. Never found a good solution I could buy.
 
I'm working on a custom character sheet for 5e but I can't seem to workout how to find some of the XSL values (specifically speed and saving throws). Can anyone point me in the direction of where I can find such values? Thanks.
 
Not finished yet unfortunately. Don't worry about buying it though, I'll be offering it for free if I manage to get it all working. It would be easier if there were a documented list of XSL values for 5e though (unless there is and I've missed it).
 
dpmcalister said:
Not finished yet unfortunately. Don't worry about buying it though, I'll be offering it for free if I manage to get it all working. It would be easier if there were a documented list of XSL values for 5e though (unless there is and I've missed it).
Click to expand...
Your best bet would be to do the custom output and select the "generic xml". I think that is what it was called as I am not near HL.

That will generate the full XML that you can then parse to see what is available or not.
 
Thanks. That's helped a lot. I've also tracked down the customoutput.dtd (it's not in the folder that the Help file says it is). Worked out the Saving Throw issue but trying to work out Speed now. The generic xml says:

<movement>
<speed text="30'" value="30"/>
<basespeed text="30'" value="30"/>
</movement>

but I can't work out how to convert that into xsl. I've tried all sorts of variants (like <xsl:value-of select="speed/@text"/>) but no joy so far.

I'm teaching myself XSL/XML for this project though so it's a bit of a learning curve ;)

Thanks again, much appreciated.
 
dpmcalister said:
Thanks. That's helped a lot. I've also tracked down the customoutput.dtd (it's not in the folder that the Help file says it is). Worked out the Saving Throw issue but trying to work out Speed now. The generic xml says:

<movement>
<speed text="30'" value="30"/>
<basespeed text="30'" value="30"/>
</movement>

but I can't work out how to convert that into xsl. I've tried all sorts of variants (like <xsl:value-of select="speed/@text"/>) but no joy so far.

I'm teaching myself XSL/XML for this project though so it's a bit of a learning curve ;)

Thanks again, much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Its been awhile sense I have done much with XSL but it could be an xpath issue.

try:
Code: 
<xsl:value-of select="movement/speed/@text"/>
 
FYI EightBitz on these forums got really good with XSL after making a Realm Work addon. He does not do much with 5e so most likely does not check this forum. But if you had specific XSL questions he "maybe" willing to help if you PM him.

He did not do much with HL XML so he can't answer HL questions keep in mind. :)
 
That worked perfectly. Now that I know you can "triple-stack" the path it should be a lot easier now. Most of it is straight forward, if trial and error. I'm not trying to make anything special, just a Hero Lab version of my DM's Old School style sheet.
 
A week on and I'm making some brilliant progress (even if I do say so myself ;)). I've attached the current version of my sheet. Everything aside from the character portrait within the shield is XML/HTML code (including the shield itself). It does mean that portrait pictures need to be a certain size (235x280 pixels) but that's a small price to pay I think.

I do have one current issue that I can't resolve though so hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. On the third page you'll see that this particular PC has 4x 1st-level and 3x 2nd level spell slots. I'd like to convert that to show boxes instead of the number four but I can't see how to convert the XML. I need to convert the count variable from a number into boxes:

Code: 
			<spellslots>
				<spellslot name="1st" count="4" used="0"/>
				<spellslot name="2nd" count="3" used="0"/>
			</spellslots>

Can anyone help please?

Also, once I've completed this, what's the best way of sharing it with the community?
 

Attachments

dpmcalister said:
Also, once I've completed this, what's the best way of sharing it with the community?
Click to expand...
Don't have an answer off the top of my head for boxes. But I can answer this.

We have two ways to go. One is to include your file directly into the GitHub community Pack. We can store it in a sub-folder allowing you to make changes and pushing those changes to GitHub. Then when I create a Pack release I can bundle your character sheet and it will be installed for everyone getting the Pack automatically.

We could also go with a totally separate download on the community server. This means its easier to push out fixes just for the character sheet without waiting for the next Pack release. On the downside it means gamers would need to download two things instead of just one.

I sort of like the first option for being easy and everyone getting a "complete" community Pack.
 
Thanks. I like the first option as well. Hopefully, once I've completed the sheet it won't need any updates but you never know ;)

I've not used GitHub before so I might have to pick your brains on that when the time comes if that's OK? Don't mean to be a pain as you have been very helpful.

BTW, if there is anyone else reading this thread, I'm open to feedback on the sheet as it stands (with the understanding that it isn't complete yet so some items might be on my "to do" list already).

Thanks again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top