Text encoding either hide or transparency

[WhiteUnggoy]

Hi, this maybe should belong in a more general forum, but I'm after examining the wiki, I have not come across any options for hiding text or making it transparent. This would be exceedingly helpful for creation of custom content that doesn't play to the expected format of the tags. As an example, I am putting some spells from Necromancers of the Northwest's Advanced Arcana, and they feature a type of spell known as segmented spells, and as it stands, I cannot format the spell header correctly except through creating a separate casting time tag for each one. As an example of what I'd want to be able to see:

Create Replicant (CL 20)​

Level: 9
Components: V, S, M, F (laboratory supplies worth 2000 gp) (special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp)
School: Necromancy
Casting Time: 10 minutes; Segmented: 3 castings
Range: 0 ft.
etc...​

Now due to the fact that the Casting Time is built off of tags, I can either create a separate tag for each one of these spells as mentioned before, or I can work the formatted text into another line, but then the organization gets off and parts of the header are showing up in the order.

So I guess what I'm asking, is there or will there ever be an encoding function for {text transparent} or {hide}? Or is the best option I have, if I want it to appear as it does in the book, to create a separate tag for every variation on this cast time?

Thanks for any help with this.

 

[Mathias]

How does what you want differ from what you can currently achieve in HL?

Unless we know what problem you're trying to solve, we can't help you figure out the best way to solve it.

 

[WhiteUnggoy]

Sorry, I was in a rush to leave before finishing that post. As an example, what I'm currently doing for the above spell, I am removing the sCastTime tag from the spell, and then in the sRange field, I have this:

0 ft.
{b}Casting Time:{/b}10 minutes; {b}Segmented:{/b} 3 castings

However, that leads the spell's header being formatted as followed for this section:

Components: V, S, M, F (laboratory supplies worth 2000 gp) (special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp)
Range: 0 ft.
Casting Time: 10 minutes; Segmented: 3 castings​

When the order should be reversed:

Components: V, S, M, F (laboratory supplies worth 2000 gp) (special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp)
Casting Time: 10 minutes; Segmented: 3 castings
Range: 0 ft.​

So what I'd like to be able to do is move that section to the end of the sFocusDesc (also including the value from sFocusCost), but because of the way the header prints with the parentheses, I'm going to end up with this:

special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp
{b}Casting Time:{/b}10 minutes; {b}Segmented:{/b} 3 castings

Being formatted as

Components: V, S, M, F (laboratory supplies worth 2000 gp) (special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp
Casting Time: 10 minutes; Segmented: 3 castings)
Range: 0 ft.​

So I'd like to be put encoding in the text where everything after it is either hidden/ignored, or at least transparent, so that I can start hiding text at the end of the focus, like:

special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp)
{b}Casting Time:{/b}10 minutes; {b}Segmented:{/b} 3 castings{theoretical hide option}

And then when I get to sRange, I can just insert this to end that encoding.

{/theoretical hide option}
{b}Range:{/b} 0 ft.

So I can achieve formatting that looks like this in the end:

Components: V, S, M, F (laboratory supplies worth 2000 gp) (special laboratory equipment worth 5000 gp)
Casting Time: 10 minutes; Segmented: 3 castings
Range: 0 ft.​

It's really boils down to a small cosmetic way I want to see the information laid out, but it is very hard for me to look at the spell header when it's out of order like that. Would it be better to create separate tags for sCastTime every time I need this? That just seems like I'm going to end up creating ~40 more tags for that.

 

[Mathias]

If you have extra information to add to an item's header, I'd just put it in as the first few lines of the description text.

As an example of this, in the Gear list, take a look at how we're displaying the poisons.

 

[WhiteUnggoy]

Sure sure, that's the easiest way. Like I said, it's just a matter of how I'd prefer to see it that I can't really achieve, bugging me on a weird obsessive level; and so I wanted to explore how to get the text I wanted where I wanted it. Thanks for your input.