GURPS Dynamic Character Sheet

SSveter
SSveter
edited August 2011 in Feature Requests
Has anyone built a dynamic character sheet for GURPS yet?

Comments

  • XakAni
    XakAni
    Posts: 1
    no but there needs to be one. It would be incredibly useful.
  • magavendon
    magavendon
    Posts: 112
    I second this notion! Even if it fairly difficult to create (in comparison to other systems that is).
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    I agree. A GURPS dynamic character sheet would be pretty boss. In fact, I have a few ideas for how it might look. Maybe something like "this":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/133392/Sheet1.png. And maybe further on in the sheet could be something like "this":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/133393/Sheet2.png. And of course, we have to have a place to put attacks, all "nicely formatted":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/133394/Sheet3.png for us. And to obey the SJGames policy, we have to include the "credit section":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/133395/Sheet4.png.

    But I dunno; who out there could bring this vision to reality?

    ;)
  • magavendon
    magavendon
    Posts: 112
    That looks pretty good!
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    Just wait until it's finished and approved; it's already a bit more awesome than that, and I'm working on making it even better. Here's hoping it works.
  • mbmerrill
    mbmerrill
    Posts: 1
    Any movement on this? I'd love to use it, if it's available.
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    It's pretty much finished and ready to go, but there's an issue with OP's system for approving DSTs right now. Basically makes it so the guy who would normally approve them can't, because he can't view them. I've tried to bring it to the attention of someone who can fix it, but they haven't replied back, so I can't tell you how long it'll be before this is up.
  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    Micah got a fix in for the issue last night, and your sheet has been reviewed and approved. Nice work!
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    Thanks, ChainsawXIV. Very happy it's up and in, though I noticed a bug that escaped me until after it was approved (a classname mismatch between the javascript and the html, causing some important sections to disappear when in view mode). I just fixed it, and altered a few things to hopefully make lists a bit faster, but they're still way too slow. I'll need to fix that at a later date.

    Anyways, if anyone's interested, "here":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/edgerunners/characters/able is an example character using this DST. He makes full use of the advanced features the DST offers, which include:

    (Features Stolen from Other DST Authors or Otherwise Not Innovations)

    Growing Lists: All trait lists, from Advantages to Disadvantages to Skills to Equipment to Armor or Attacks, can grow or shrink by clicking the appropriate '+' button to add elements to the list, or the 'x' button to delete the specified element from the list. You can also click the up or down arrow buttons to move elements around the list. Stolen from ChainsawXIV and expanded upon by me.

    Text Boxes: Text boxes are used in the Details Popups and the Notes and Description sections to allow the user to type out full multi-paragraph entries utilizing HTML that will then appear properly in the DST. Stolen from ChainsawXIV.

    Auto-Culling Empty Sections: Sections that are unused are automatically culled while in View mode, removing things like an extra Skill list or the Social Traits section if they're unused. This works by looking at the first entry in those lists; if that one is empty,t hen the list itself is considered empty. Stolen from Karelzarath's Alpha Omega sheet.

    Auto-Summing Points Total: The sheet will automatically add up the points totals for the character and display them for you in a handy summary bar.

    Highlighting Encumbrance: By clicking upon the encumbrance level in the encumbrance table while in Edit mode, the user can set the character's current encumbrance value, highlighting the chosen level. Click the currently-selected level to remove the highlighting, or click another level to change it.

    (Features I Haven't Seen in Other DSTs)

    OnBlur Saving: When editing fields in the sheet, you don't need to hit 'enter' or click a 'submit' button - just clicking outside the field will save everything for you.

    Details Popups: By clicking the 'D' button for a list element while in edit mode, you can give the list item extra detail, from a simple notation like 'Includes +4 bonus from a Talent' to a long and detailed description of what, exactly, the Radiant Raincoat of Montezuma does. The details text box is fully HTML friendly; just plug whatever HTML source code you want in there and it'll appear for you. Click outside of the details box area in order to close it. An item with information in the Details box will have a dagger (†) next to it on the list, and can be clicked while in View mode to open the details popup.

    List Headers and Formatting Options: List items can be set to create a Header just above the list item, allowing you to organize your lists better. Further, you can choose between two formatting options for your list rows - one bland, the other highlighted and in italics. With GURPS, this is useful for, for example, denoting that something is a Technique rather than a Skill.

    Blank Entry Saving: If an entry in a list is completely blank, it is still saved and displayed, allowing you to utilize blank entries as structural elements in your lists.



    Plans for the future:

    Better automation, auto-calculating a few things (such as the encumbrance table and the price of various stats) while still allowing the user to override the values.
    Faster list functionality (currently, it's wicked slow:/)
    Including the trait name/stats in the Details window?
    Automatic tallying of equipment Weight and Cost, with option in Details window to *not* count it for either
    Moving list edit functionality (delete item, move item, open details) to a right-click menu? Not sure if I can do that or not, but it'd be boss if I could.
    Make linked lists expand together, making it so the two 'Advantages' lists are always in-sync. If you don't want to use the other one, it will still disappear if nothing is in its first cell.
    Create an alternate, 'quick' sheet intended for monsters and other not-so-detailed creatures/NPCs.


    Let me know what you think! Do you have any suggestions on how the sheet could be better? Any criticism?
  • GamingMegaverse
    GamingMegaverse
    Posts: 3,001
    The only reason I will never use a dst is it is not included in the backup- lose your campaign, lose your sheet.

    Just trying to help out.

  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    The sheet has been updated and approved with the fixes I mentioned in my earlier post (not the Plans for the Future stuff, the bug-fixing stuff).

    Further plans for the future:

    Addition of a 'large portrait' option where clicking upon the character portrait will pop up a larger image while in 'view' mode or an text box to enter the URL for the larger image while in 'edit' mode.
    Tabbing support, allowing the user to push the 'tab' key to go to the next edit box.

    I'm also open to altering the default coloring and such, though that should be editable by specific campaigns using the campaign-wide CSS entry.

    My first goal, however, is to redo the list functionality so that it isn't so slow. I think the main issue is the fact it re-renders every element in the list every time the list is added to, removed from, or items are moved around. It works, but it's a brute-force approach that makes it rather slow on large lists. I hope to create something that works better.
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    I just updated the sheet again with a very dramatic improvement in the list code. Prior to this, it would take around one second - or longer! - to add a new row to a list. Now it happens almost as soon as you hit the 'add row' button. Very handy. This has also created a dramatic improvement in how fast the sheet loads due to the removal of thirteen redundant calls to a very greedy script function (BindAllFields). Turns out it was the BindAllFields call that was what was truly slowing the list down, but I only discovered that after already rejiggering most of the list functions so that they were simpler and allowed it to not re-render everything every time it was modified. It now works very well.

    Also, a bug that used to annoy me has been squashed - prior to this update, if you tried to add or delete an item while you were still editing an item, weird things would occur. That no longer happens, and everything works exactly as you'd expect. Yay!

    The update should hopefully be approved soon; so far, ChainsawXIV has been very good about getting them done in a timely fashion.

    The next step: Automation and auto-calculation. Just need to find a decent way to allow a user to either manually enter info or have it be automatically generated. It's probably going to wind up being something like 'if the user edits a box, then mark it as edited (somehow) and don't autocalculate it; if the user deletes everything in the box, then autocalculate it'. Probably will require a bunch of invisible fields to record the choices.
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364 edited August 2015
    I've just updated the sheet with a few new features, primarily the moving of a number of style elements to the CSS rather than being hard-coded in the HTML (allowing campaign authors with CSS access to modify the look of the sheet) and making the sheet handle variable-width campaign pages much better (before, it was *always* a certain width; now it'll grow with the page's usable area, which is *very* handy for making things look good).

    EDIT: The automation mentioned earlier probably isn't going to happen - the html is near to the limit of what OP's system can handle and I think I'd need to add in a bunch of new HTML entries to handle the automation functions, so that's out. I'm in maintenance-only mode on this sheet at the moment.

    EDIT2: Wound up being unable to sleep so added some more 'nice-to-haves' to the sheet, making it so editing a form in the sheet doesn't mess up any of the formatting - now 'what you see is what you get' when editing, with the exception of HTML not being parsed when you're editing the HTML text (which is probably for the best).
    Post edited by Langy on
  • Belrathius
    Belrathius
    Posts: 206
    This is pretty darn awesome, but any chance it could also be associated with "GURPS 4th Edition" (rather than just GURPS)? OP differentiates the two as systems, which is fine since there are still people running 3rd edition, but when the game system chosen is "GURPS 4th Edition", the DST is not available at all.
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    No. I deliberately chose the GURPS one since that doesn't mention an edition, and is thus the more generic of the two. I don't think that there should be as many GURPS systems as there are listed in the OP registry - or at the very least, the GURPS systems should actually be spelled out as to which editions they're supposed to be.

    Since you can't have the same sheet cover multiple systems, I went with the GURPS system that made the most sense.

    If you want to make use of it, just change the game system to GURPS rather than GURPS 4th Edition.
  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    Updates have been approved (for whatever reason, I didn't get the usual email about the submission...).
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    Thanks Chainsaw!
  • Unknown
    Indeed, thanks for seeing to the DSTs even through all these email issues. Highly appreciated!
  • GamingMegaverse
    GamingMegaverse
    Posts: 3,001
    @Chainsaw- all updates seem to be an issue currently.

    Just trying to help out.

  • Unknown
    killervp is correct.
  • SSveter
    SSveter
    Posts: 37
    Where and how do i get this and use it on my site?
  • ChainsawXIV
    ChainsawXIV
    Posts: 530
    To use any dynamic character sheet, set your campaign to the corresponding game system, create a new character, and select the sheet you want from the drop-down near the top of the page.
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