Tables

[kinjiru]

Bear with me, total newbie to the app, here.

I want to add a table of values to my notes on a nation (specifically, currency). I looked at stat blocks which have a table option, but it's grayed out and I can't figure out why.

Anyone have thoughts, suggestions?

 

[Lexin]

Anyone have thoughts, suggestions?

I'm also very much a beginner, so I don't know if this will help.

I'm running a game set in "Rome" where the currency doesn't follow the normal AD&D currency rules and has gnarly weird names. For example: one as, the smallest coin, is bronze, and one dupondius (the next smallest) is either bronze or copper and worth 2 asses, and so on.

What I've done is to include all the background information I gave my players at the start of the campaign, which has been running a while, in a section called "Guide to the Roman World" which I've set as a Rich Text Document under 'Document and Media' which you'll find as one of the options to insert as a snippet.

I saved my Word docs as RTF's and just inserted them. As they are shared information the characters ought to know and use I made the document visible to them. I did the same with my 'guide to Roman names' as Roman names have strict rules about how they are formed, and all players must follow them.

Obviously, rich text format documents can have tables in them.

You will also find you can insert tables under the option for a 'statblock' - not the Hero Lab statblock (red bottle) but the other one with the blue face. I don't think you can change the blue face icon, though, and I'd find it confusing to look for information about money behind that.

Edited to Add: If you're copying and pasting information from an outside file you may need to use the keyboard instructions "Control + C" to copy and "Control + V" to paste. I found them much quicker. And you click on the little arrow or file/document icon to access the thingy to put your information on. Same with inserting a document, you need to click on the little file/document icon, not the big picturey job.

 

[Vargr]

I am not sure what you mean when you say "table", so I will just assume you mean table as in Excel or in a Word document.

There is a table tool in the format in the format line that appears when you edit a topic.

Sorry if you already knew this and are talking about something completely different.

 

[Lexin]

There is a table tool in the format in the format line that appears when you edit a topic..

I haven't found the table tool; I'm probably looking in the wrong place, but I have found I can insert tables into snippets. I hadn't realised that until now.

I am now going to go back and insert some, just for the hell of it. I wonder what else I've missed?

 

[Vargr]

Edit a topic.
Insert the cursor in a snippet.
The Format options appear in the ribbon.
Notice the table tool.

 

[Lexin]

Thank you! You are a star! I'd never noticed that before.

I also note the "Symbol" thing, which I hadn't seen before, either. That will come in very useful for my Cthulhu game.

 

[Vargr]

Glad you could use it

 

[MNBlockHead]

Yes, most of the formatting you can do in RTF can be done in RW. I would recommend that you put you content directly into topic and article snippets rather than attaching word-processor documents. Why require your players to launch a separate program? Also, when the Web version is released, you would further have to download the attached documents if they are available at all through the Web interface.

 

[Lexin]

I would recommend that you put you content directly into topic and article snippets rather than attaching word-processor documents.

That's a good suggestion and will work well for most of the background information, but my list of possible Roman cognomen (surnames) runs to six sides of A4 in a 10 point type because it's a list which includes the meaning of each name and a male and female version.

Including that on a snippet is going to look weird and not be very handy to use, not that the current document is that handy. I may have to put that on a document people have to access, but I'll put it inside RW rather than outside. It'll just be a very long internal statblock.

 

[MNBlockHead]

I don't know. I have lengthy topics on languages that give a great amount of detail, including lengthy name lists. I don't find it any more awkward than a long web page.

But yes, for some references, like the Dwarrow Scholar's excellent English-Khudzul and Khudzul-English glossaries, I just put those in Evernote and put a link to them into RW. If I was confident that attaching large files won't impact RW's performance and sync times, I would attach the large PDFs to the appropriate files. But I believe that when you synch, you are syncing all your data, so attaching lots of documents could really increase the amount of time to sync your realm.

For name lists, where I have them in RW, they are mostly illustrative. For generating names, however, I use Inspiration pad or just link to an appropriate section on fantasynamegenerators.com.

Perhaps my fears of the performance impact that lots of attached docs will have on RW are unfounded. Hopefully others more knowledgeable about how the RW's database works and who have experimented with large files and/or lots of attached files could shine some light here.

For now, I continue to use Evernote to manage PDFs, Web page clips, and general notes and reference and use RW in a more focused way, just putting content for my specific campaign and adventures in it.

 

[Vargr]

If I was confident that attaching large files won't impact RW's performance and sync times, I would attach the large PDFs to the appropriate files. But I believe that when you synch, you are syncing all your data, so attaching lots of documents could really increase the amount of time to sync your realm.

Actually, RW only synchronise those data that differ from the last synchronisation (ie. the data stored on the server).

If you only change one snippet only that snippet gets up-/downloaded (and probably some data keeping track of the synchronisation).

Of course, the first time you enter a massive amount of data, it will take time to synchronise.

My experience with RW is, that when I add lots of or huge maps (the most data-intensive single information I have in my realm) it takes some time to synchronise - after that I don't notice any increase in sync-time.

 

[MNBlockHead]

Thanks Vargr, good to know. Perhaps I'll put more reference material in to RW.

 

[Parody]

There's also the 30,000,000 byte limit for any attached object.

 

[MNBlockHead]

There's also the 30,000,000 byte limit for any attached object.

That must be what I was thinking of.