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Managing characters between PC & iPad

T

Techgnosis

Active member
I used to make my characters on my PC and store all the portfolio files in Dropbox, so when I took my laptop to games I could just open them up and use them. I got tired of lugging my laptop to game, and even more tired of waiting for an Android version so I got an iPad from a friend who upgraded and am now using that for games. And it works great,... except Im kind of stumped on how to manage it so any changes I make on the iPad make it back to the PC. Looking at Dropbox on my iPad the last updated time stamp on a modified character doesnt change, but the change persists between multiple open and closings of Hero Lab for iPad so its getting saved somewhere, just not the original source location.
Clicking the Manage Profiles button (as described in the "Help on using Hero Lab" button) gives me options to Delete, Duplicate, or Rename a portfolio but not to email (which IMO is a terrible solution but better than nothing I guess).

Overall just using Hero Lab on iPad for a short bit it seems like a decently well thought out application, with the exception of multiple device file management. I'm wondering what other folks do, particularly those who used to use Dropbox between multiple computers, and have thrown an iPad into the mix.
 
I haven't used it on the iPad yet. I'm guessing they didn't incorporate the Dropbox APIs to open/save the .por files directly to and from Dropbox. That would solve your problem, and it is ideal. I've heard it's fairly easy to do, but maybe not. There could be a technical hurdle specific to HL that prevents them from doing it. Hopefully not and it comes in the future.
 
iOS doesn't give devs file system access like you're used to on your PC and Android. On a PC, or Mac for that matter, Dropbox sets up a folder that it can access to automatically upload altered files to the Dropbox server. Since this folder is a part of the file system that all programs have access to you can save directly to the folder and alter the source portfolio file, like you've seen.

What's happening on the iPad is that the file is not being accessed directly from your Dropbox account. Instead, when you open a portfolio from Dropbox on your iPad there are several steps occurring behind the scenes. First the file is downloaded from the Dropbox server to your iPad's Dropbox "sandbox." When you then tell the iPad to open the file with the hero lab app the OS is making a copy of the file in the Hero Lap app's sandbox. From there the Hero Lab app can manipulate the file all it wants. Getting the file back into Dropbox would require copying the portfolio file back to the Dropbox sandbox where it could then be synced across the Dropbox server. As you've seen, this third step isn't implemented right now. In all honesty, I'm not even sure if it could be implemented given the way the OS is set up today.

So, with that background information, the next step is to ask how you can get the updated portfolio file that is being managed in the Hero Lab sandbox off of the iPad. The answer there is iTunes. Hook the iPad up to your PC, open iTunes, and go to the Apps tab. Scroll down and you'll see a section for app data. Click on Hero Lab in the list and you'll see all the portfolios that are loaded on the iPad. From here you can drag the files into your Dropbox folder on your PC.

It's not elegant, but it works.
 
Techgnosis said:
I(as described in the "Help on using Hero Lab" button) gives me options to Delete, Duplicate, or Rename a portfolio but not to email (which IMO is a terrible solution but better than nothing I guess).
Click to expand...
Most likely your not getting an email option as you have not setup a Email account directly in the iOS Settings. So as the iPad thinks it has no email accounts it does not let apps display an email option.

As I and my players email a copy of the file to ourselves to get a copy back on the desktop.
 
PathfinderJenkins said:
Getting the file back into Dropbox would require copying the portfolio file back to the Dropbox sandbox where it could then be synced across the Dropbox server. As you've seen, this third step isn't implemented right now. In all honesty, I'm not even sure if it could be implemented given the way the OS is set up today.
Click to expand...

It certainly is possible for iOS apps to write files directly back to DropBox, since I have at least 3 which do just this.

The capability just hasn't been implemented in HeroLab for iPad.
 
Farling said:
It certainly is possible for iOS apps to write files directly back to DropBox, since I have at least 3 which do just this.

The capability just hasn't been implemented in HeroLab for iPad.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's absolutely doable. There are many apps that do exactly this.
 
Farling said:
It certainly is possible for iOS apps to write files directly back to DropBox, since I have at least 3 which do just this.

The capability just hasn't been implemented in HeroLab for iPad.
Click to expand...

Siding with the chorus on this one. Dropbox provides an API for app developers.

Definitely doable.

By the way, the same is true for Google Drive, so The HeroLab iPad app could (and in my opinion SHOULD) have both dropbox and google drive interface features.
 
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Not sure if it would be easier or harder to implement, but even having an 'Open In' option within HeroLab's portfolio manager (in addition to the Email To and other options) would be a step forward. Currently I am able to get .por files from DropBox to HL by using the 'Open In' from DropBox and selecting HeroLab, but not the other way around to write changes back to DropBox. Have used this method as a workaround for other apps (when you 'Open In' Dropbox it asks if you want to overwrite the file on your DropBox share with the copy from the other app's sandbox).
 
PathfinderJenkins said:
So, with that background information, the next step is to ask how you can get the updated portfolio file that is being managed in the Hero Lab sandbox off of the iPad. The answer there is iTunes. Hook the iPad up to your PC, open iTunes, and go to the Apps tab. Scroll down and you'll see a section for app data. Click on Hero Lab in the list and you'll see all the portfolios that are loaded on the iPad. From here you can drag the files into your Dropbox folder on your PC.

It's not elegant, but it works.
Click to expand...
Definitely not elegant, nor ideal, but it indeed works. Thanks for the info. Part of why I couldn't figure it out is I have wireless sync on, and it doesn't work over that, only via cable, which was directly plugged into the wall at the time.

ShadowChemosh said:
Most likely your not getting an email option as you have not setup a Email account directly in the iOS Settings. So as the iPad thinks it has no email accounts it does not let apps display an email option.

As I and my players email a copy of the file to ourselves to get a copy back on the desktop.
Click to expand...
<facepalm> Oh yeah,.. that. Like I said, I only use it for Pathfinder, so its setup to run Hero Lab, and go to 3 websites (Paizo, Warhorn, and d20pfsrd). Once I actually setup mail it added the option, but PathfinderJenkins method is *slightly* better for my uses.
 
Just FYI the latest version of the app is out and it has Dropbox support built into the app. Very handy for dealing with characters now!
 
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