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Groupings for Topics

M

Murrdox

Well-known member
I'm unsure if this is a feature request or maybe somebody has come up with a way to do this that I haven't figured out.

I'd like to be able to organize Topics in various Groups into Sub-Groups.

For example, I'm running a Shadowrun campaign that spans multiple cities, and multiple runs. It would be nice to be able to group my NPCs by which city they are located in. So all my Seattle NPCs are listed under a "Seattle" subgroup, and all my Detroit NPCs are listed under the "Detroit" subgroup. It would make it much easier to find the NPCs that I'm looking for during a play session.

The same thing goes for Encounters. I tend to plan out Scenes in Shadowrun using Encounters. Since my players are going on multiple missions, it'd be nice to be able to group all the Encounters for a certain Shadowrun into one group for that mission.

Is this doable?
 
In the list on the left hand side, click the blue "plus sign in a circle" beside the PEOPLE header. Create a topic called "DETROIT NPCs", and make it a "Cast List".

Then create a topic called "Bob The Detroit NPC". When you edit Bob, on the right hand side at the top there is a section called "Containing Topic". Hit the blue "plus sign in a circle" and select "DETROIT NPCs" from the list.

Now Bob is grouped under DETROIT NPCs.

If you want to you can even create a place called "DETROIT" and put people in that container so they are listed under places, not people. You could create a DETROIT place, and a sub-container called NPCs and put them under that.

Another way to create new subtopics is to right click on the topic in the topic list and click "Create Contained Topic". That creates a new topic that is automatically contained within the topic you right clicked.

Does that help?

I have all my NPCs grouped by faction and government allegiance using this method to make them easier to find for me
 
Also make sure that "Show Containing Topic Hierarchy" is enabled in the Navigation Pane Options (click the Hammer and Wrench symbol in the top tab on the left side of the screen or press F6).
 
MaxSupernova said:
In the list on the left hand side, click the blue "plus sign in a circle" beside the PEOPLE header. Create a topic called "DETROIT NPCs", and make it a "Cast List".

Then create a topic called "Bob The Detroit NPC". When you edit Bob, on the right hand side at the top there is a section called "Containing Topic". Hit the blue "plus sign in a circle" and select "DETROIT NPCs" from the list.

Now Bob is grouped under DETROIT NPCs.

If you want to you can even create a place called "DETROIT" and put people in that container so they are listed under places, not people. You could create a DETROIT place, and a sub-container called NPCs and put them under that.

Another way to create new subtopics is to right click on the topic in the topic list and click "Create Contained Topic". That creates a new topic that is automatically contained within the topic you right clicked.

Does that help?

I have all my NPCs grouped by faction and government allegiance using this method to make them easier to find for me
Click to expand...

Thank you, this does help. I'm happy this feature already exists. However I'm having a hard time getting it to function.

No matter what I do, I do not see any section when editing a Topic called "Containing Topic" with a blue + sign that I can click. I don't see that anywhere in the Topic at all.

On the top-right of my Individuals, in the top right there is the Save icon, the Eye icon, the Web icon, the Tools icon, then the blue i Help icon.

I do have the option for "Show Topic Hierarchy" checked off.

I am able to Right-Click a Topic and choose the "Create Contained Topic" option. That's nice, but that would only help me when it comes to creating new NPCs going forward. I created a topic in this manner, it wouldn't let me move other topics into it or anything.

Any additional help would be appreciated.
 
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Right here:

3iDZWz1.png


If you don't have that sidebar, you can expand it by clicking the little triangle here:

Q62XoOD.png


That help?
 
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Yeah, you really should Restore (un-Maximize) your windows before taking example screen shots. :)

Also, Alt-PrintScreen takes a picture of only the window.
 
@MaxSupernova: Great instructions!

Containers are a great feature. But they have one very big limitation -- each topic can only be put into one container.

More and more often, I'm running into situations where NPC's have multiple residences or are part of multiple encounters or belong to multiple organizations. I've started using relationships to augment my containers -- each person now also has a relationship with their multiple locations/organizations. This gives me a quick hierarchy view of the people normally found in a location and I can filter on relationships to identify others that have a strong affiliation to that location thereby broadening my view.
 
I have no doubt that I will reach a point of complexity in my realm creation where I will have a sudden realization that I need to completely redesign my data relationships. :)
 
Max, many thanks for the screenshot. I didn't even notice that panel over to the right. I must have minimized it at some point in the past and forgotten about it.

Thanks!

EDIT: As a feature, it would be super-easy if I could create a container and then click and DRAG a topic on top of it to make it part of that container.
 
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