Multiple sources and .1st files

[Zedwimer]

Okay, I've gotten to the point that I want to allow users to check/uncheck several different options (sources) in my .user file, mainly so people can choose whether or not to use certain house rules I have made available, or if they just want to stick with the published canon stuff.

I'm only working with a single .user file right now, but I've seemed to make a mess of my custom sources in it. Is there an easier way to add/fix sources in a .user file?

I've seen somewhere that you can (or need to) use a .1st file to specify multiple sources in, but I haven't been able to find any other info on how to set up a .1st file. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[ShadowChemosh]

So .1st files are a little more advanced because you have to deal with RAW XML no editor. Though you can easily use notepad to open a .1st file and view and all the community packages have and use .1st files.

I would recommend using something better than notepad actually. Use textpad or notepadd++. Both work great and if you tell it that .1st files are XML file it will even color code for you.

Here is a simple example of a .1st file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<document signature="Hero Lab Structure">

[COLOR="Green"]<!--
8/15/2014 - Tim Shadow
-New .1st example.

-->[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]<!-- ============================================== -->
<!-- SOURCES                                        -->
<!-- ============================================== -->[/COLOR]

  [COLOR="Green"]<!-- Shadow d20 Pathfinder PARENT that can not be selected -->[/COLOR]
  <source
    id="[B]pShadowd20[/B]"
    name="Shadow d20 Pathfinder v1.61"
    selectable="[B]no[/B]"
    parent="[B]UserParent[/B]"
    sortorder="0"
    description="http://shadowd20.pbworks.com/ - Shadow d20 wiki house rules for Pathfinder.">
    </source>

  [COLOR="Green"]<!-- Shadow d20 Pathfinder CHILD that can be selected -->[/COLOR]
  <source
    id="[B]s20PFCamp[/B]"
    name="Shadow d20 Campaign Rules"
    selectable="[B]yes[/B]"
    parent="[B]pShadowd20[/B]"
    sortorder="0"
    description="Shadow d20 Pathfinder campaign by Tim Shadow.">
    </source>
    
</document>

The above is a simple example of my house rules .1st file. Any section that starts with <!-- and ends with --> is a XML comment is not processed.

The important parts:
id= Is the 10 digit unique character that identifies your source.
selectable= Tells HL if you want the source to be selectable or not. A parent should be set to no.
parent = Tells HL which source id to place this new source ID under. You parent source should go under 'UserParent' and then your child source goes under your new parent source.

If you copy/paste the above into a text file and change the .txt to .1st it will work. You will need to "CTRL-R" at least to get HL to see any changes you make to a .1st file.

Here is what it will look like in HL:

 

[Zedwimer]

Awesome! It's working like a charm. (And I always use EditPlus for HTML/XML editing, so I'm good there.) Thanks ShadowChemosh!