HERO System Mobile

[Gauntlet]

Is the App no longer Available? I have tried installing it from three different computers on three different networks and it says it will install it but nothing happens.

[sentry0]

2 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Is the App no longer Available? I have tried installing it from three different computers on three different networks and it says it will install it but nothing happens.

 

That's weird, I just uninstalled and reinstalled fine.

 

Is it possible you have some AV or other security in place that's preventing app installs?

[Gauntlet]

No security. But is the app only available for a phone device and not a computer? 

[sentry0]

1 minute ago, Gauntlet said:

No security. But is the app only available for a phone device and not a computer? 

 

It's built for phones and will run on tablets in compatibility mode.

 

I have no plans of bringing it to desktops at this time.

[Gauntlet]

That explains it then. I was able to get it on my phone but not my laptop. Thanks

[John Desmarais]

I think I may have asked the before - but a quick scan of the last couple of pages of this thread did find it: Any chance of it becoming a true Universal App (unique support for both phone and tablet size screens)?  The character import/view ability would be awesome on a tablet

[sentry0]

9 minutes ago, John Desmarais said:

I think I may have asked the before - but a quick scan of the last couple of pages of this thread did find it: Any chance of it becoming a true Universal App (unique support for both phone and tablet size screens)?  The character import/view ability would be awesome on a tablet

 

Yes, in fact I now have experience writing code that will scale properly based on device size from another app I wrote.

 

It's unlikely that I will be doing much more than scaling it, to start.  In the future, I may write screen size specific screens but that would be sometime off in the future, if ever.

[John Desmarais]

8 minutes ago, sentry0 said:

 

Yes, in fact I now have experience writing code that will scale properly based on device size from another app I wrote.

 

It's unlikely that I will be doing much more than scaling it, to start.  In the future, I may write screen size specific screens but that would be sometime off in the future, if ever.

 

Keen.

[sentry0]

I have just released the 1.3.0 build to the Android, iOS, and Amazon app stores so it should be hitting your devices soon.

 

What's new?

• You can now import 6th edition characters directly from Hero Designer files
• Completely restyled the application

Two bullet points don't do justice to the amount of effort involved so I'll expand on those points a bit.

 

New Look & Feel

I updated the app to have a more modern look and feel... it's now a dark themed app.  Instead of trying to describe the app, here's a couple of screenshots of the new app.  Note that the second and third images are from the Hero Designer character viewer and not the XML export character viewer.

 

          

 

Loading Hero Designer Characters

This feature was a major undertaking and took months of part time development to get working.  Instead of using the XML export template to export your character from Hero Designer and then loading that file into the app you can now just load a Hero Designer character directly.  This is currently only available for 6th edition characters, I'm still deciding if I'm going to support 5th edition characters.  You can still load your 5th or 6th edition characters via the export template method.

 

Reading in Hero Designer files means that I now have a much greater ability to get granular details out of the file.  This new way of dealing with character data meant that I needed to build a new UI in order to show it and write code to process the data properly.

 

Bug Hunt

During the process of writing this update I managed to get some reported bugs fixed and even found some new ones while I was in there.

 

I'm usually pretty optimistic in general but I'm 100% certain that bugs with the new character viewer that I haven't come across.  Writing this basically doubled the amount of commits I made to the codebase... I pretty much touched every file and wrote a large amount of code in order to support reading Hero Designer files. 

 

Keep the bug reports coming via the usual methods:

• DM me via this site;

• Email me at phil.guinchard@gmail.com;

• Post in this thread.

 

Use The Source

Source code for the app is now open source under the Apache 2.0 license.  You can find the project here - https://github.com/sentry0/hero-system-mobile... do with it what you will.

 

Thank You

I wanted to extend a special thank you to all the people who signed up for the beta and reported bugs.  Your help was crucial in getting this out the door.

[sentry0]

I am pushing out the 1.3.1 build today to address some issues with certain types of advantages not calculating properly.

 

Patch notes:

• Fixed an issue with HKA not calculating damage from STR properly if it had advantages
• Fixed an issue with certain types of advantages not calculating their costs correctly
• Fixed an issue with the app splash screen not showing (iOS only)

This should be available today or tomorrow depending on how fast the build passes through the various app stores QA process.

[sentry0]

I just pushed the 1.3.2 build into production which is mostly a build that addresses some corner cases.

 

Patch notes:

• Fixed a bug with the lift calculation for intermediate strengths
• The "Skill Check" button can now be toggled off
• Modifiers now enforce minimum and maximum values
• Modifiers now correctly discount negative adders
• Skills that grant skill levels only now calculate and display properly

The build will probably be available today or tomorrow depending on how fast the QA process progresses in the various app stores.

[sentry0]

In what is becoming a theme for my mornings I have pushed another build to the app stores .  The 1.3.3 build fixes some issues with loading multiple characters in succession and adds support for custom skills, talents, and perks.

 

Patch notes:

• Fixed an issue with Cramming
• Added in support for custom skills, perks, and talents
• Fixed a number of issues relating to stale data when loading one or more characters into the app in succession
• Skill Levels now show more useful information at a glance
• More work to clean up how modifiers are calculating and displaying

 The new build should be hitting your devices today or tomorrow depending on how fast it progresses through the various app store QA processes.

[sentry0]

I've been working on the "Combat" tab of the app today in my free time and wanted to give an update.

 

Here's a screenshot of the tab:

 

 

From the image a few things should be evident (other than the alignment issues I'm fighting 😞

• I've added in a "Phases" section that simply displays the phases of the current character
  • I think it would be kind of neat to do something here to show which phases the character has used
    • A touch would highlight the phase in red to show that it's been used
    • Long touching a phase could turn it Yellow or Orange to indicate the phase was aborted
• The "Combat Values" section is also new
  • You can adjust up or down any CV you like
  • Hitting the "Roll" button will bring you directly to the "Result" screen which will tell you what DCV you can hit

I'm thinking of a couple of things here...

• I want to add a calculator to the "Health" section so that when you edit your health you can let the computer do the math for you
• I need to add in CSLs to the "Combat Values" section
• I think I would like to list not only PD/ED but also unusual defenses like Power Defense under the forthcoming "Defenses" section

If anyone has any requests for this section or feedback on the ideas I'm batting around let me know!

[bluesguy]

Ok I removed the old version from my iPad and installed the new version.  I tried up get it upload my HDC file (6e Heroic template) but it wouldn't do it, the app doesn't seem to recognize the file type.  It sill loads the xml export.  I attached the HDC file in question

Morrolan_eDrien.hdc

[sentry0]

4 minutes ago, bluesguy said:

Ok I removed the old version from my iPad and installed the new version.  I tried up get it upload my HDC file (6e Heroic template) but it wouldn't do it, the app doesn't seem to recognize the file type.  It sill loads the xml export.  I attached the HDC file in question

Morrolan_eDrien.hdc 267.1 kB · 0 downloads

 

Ok, I'll look into it.  I'm having an issue accessing iCloud via the iOS simulators which is apparently a known issue.  I just saw that a new version of XCode is available the other day so I'll get it installed and see if it fixes the issue.

 

If I can access iCloud I can test the issue.  It's probably just a weird iPad thing... iPhones and iPad's actually handle files slightly differently which used to mean separate code for each.  I basically opened up the file picker so that it will load any file now but iPad's probably require some special flag or something 🤪🤯

 

You can see on line 32 of the code I'm explicitly saying allow any file type to be chosen - https://github.com/sentry0/hero-system-mobile/blob/master/src/lib/File.js.  It's Probably just me not reading the docs closely enough... honestly though, iPad's are almost always the devices that give me grief 😣

[sentry0]

Bah, there's a bug listed here that seems like it describes the same issue you reported... https://github.com/Elyx0/react-native-document-picker/issues/210

 

I'll try the workaround described in the ticket tonight and see if it lets iPad's load .hdc files.

[sentry0]

It looks I fixed the iOS loading bug for Hero Designer characters.  I'm still being bitten by a bug with my simulators so it's impossible for me to test right now... but I can now see the files and they are selectable.  I just get an error when I try to actually open the files because of the bug with iCloud.

 

I've got other changes in this build that I need to spend time testing but I may push a build as soon as tomorrow depending on how it goes tonight.

[sentry0]

I just pushed the 1.3.4 build into production primarily to fix a file selection bug on iOS that was preventing users from picking a Hero Designer file.  The combat screen is still a work in progress, let me know what you think of it so far.

 

Path notes:

• Added in phases to the combat screen
• Added a section for combat values (OCV, DCV, etc) to the combat screen
• The health section of the combat screen now uses a calculator for its input
• Fixed a rare crash with custom martial maneuvers
• Fixed some display issues with martial maneuvers
• Fixed a loading bug when trying to load Hero Designer files (iOS only)

The build should be hitting your devices later today.

[sentry0]

I worked a bit more on the combat screen today for Hero Designer characters... here's a screenshot (apologies for the quality)

 

 

As you can see, the Dexterity and Speed of the loaded character are now displayed below the phase bubbles.

 

The phase bubbles themselves are now interactable:

• Touching a bubble will highlight it in gold to indicate the phase has been spent
• Long touching the bubble will highlight it in red to indicate the phase has been lost due to aborting or being stunned

 

[sentry0]

I've been sequestered in my home because of a snowstorm for the past day and a bit... the good news is there's plenty of time to program .  I've been squashing bugs and writing new features with the occasional break to shovel my driveway and watch The Witcher.

 

There's a couple of new things to go through...

 

The Effect Screen

I have replaced the "Free Form" rolling tool with a new tool called the "Effect" roller.  This screen still allows you to roll dice "free form" style but you may also now pick the effect you're rolling for.  When you hit the "Roll" button you will be taken to the "Result" screen per usual but there will now be an informative message.  For example; if you pick "Flash" as your effect type you will see the number of segments that target is flashed for when you press the "Roll" button.

 

In addition to using this tool stand alone I added in intelligence to the rolls you make from the Hero Designer character viewer.  When you roll for your "Flash" power effect it will automatically roll for you and tell you the segments your target is flashed for simply by pressing the die code on the power. 

 

Here it is:

 

Complications

I decided that the "Complications" tab on the Hero Designer character viewer needed a bit of love so it could fall in line with the ther tabs.  The primary issue I had with this tab was that it didn't tell you useful information at a glance.  It listed the type of Complication but no other useful information was present.  I changed it so there's more useful information available at a glance now.

 

 

Defenses

I finally got around to adding in a defenses section to the "Combat" tab of the Hero Designer character tab.  I won't bore you with the implementation details other than to say there's too many ways to get defenses in this game

 

 

That's all for now... I may push a build out later today or tonight depending on how things go.

[bluesguy]

By the way 1.3.4 works with my iPad.  Very impressive!

[sentry0]

I just pushed the 1.3.5 build to the app stores.  

 

Note: Clear your caches (under settings) before you use the build

 

Patch notes:

• Added in a new tool called the "Effect" roller which replaces the "Free Form" tool
• Effect results now show a message regarding the effect such as the number of segments a target is flashed for
• Pressing a phase bubble will highlight it in gold to indicate the phase has been spent
• Long pressing a phase bubble highlights it on red which indicates the phase has been aborted or lost due to stunning
• Added Dexterity and Speed to the phases section of the combat screen
• Added the defenses section to the combat screen which lists PD, ED, Power, and Mental defense
• Fixed an issue with tabs not immediately updating when toggling the "Show Secondary Characteristics?" button
• Fixed a bug with custom martial maneuvers which caused a crash
• Complications now display more useful information as a glance

You will probably start seeing the build on your devices later tonight would be my guess.

[sentry0]

I pushed the 1.3.6 patch early this morning after Apple found an issue in QA with the 1.3.5 patch.  It's a relatively small patch but fixes some bugs which snuck in to the Settings screen and app boot.

 

Patch notes:

• Added the ability to display notes to powers, skills, talents, etc
• Pressing on your strength die code from the characteristics tab will now bring you to the damage screen
• Fixed a couple of bugs with the settings page and clearing caches
• Changed the "Free Form" line item to "effect" on the statistics page

The build should be live for Android devices and hopefully going live on iOS later today, QA pending

 

[sentry0]

I just pushed the 1.4.0 build out to production for Android and iOS.  This build adds a couple of new features such as support for tablets and sounds.

 

Patch notes:

• Added support for tablets
• Added in the ability to manage characters within the app
• The app now plays sounds when rolling dice
• Added a back button in the top left corner of the app

The default sound when rolling is a dice sound but if you have picked a SFX for a power from within HD it will play a sound based on the SFX.  I realize that not everyone will be happy with the sounds I picked for the effects which I hope to address by allowing you to customize SFX sounds in a future release.   Sounds can be disabled from settings too if you would prefer not to play them.

 

The reason for the change in how characters are loaded and stored by the app is for features I want to implement in the future such as loading multiple characters at once, viewing portraits, and equipment/notes fields.  It's a little different than it was before but it shouldn't cause too many issues... I hope!

 

The patch should be available over the weekend.

[sentry0]

Portraits will be available in the next build for the Hero Designer character viewer 

 

 

I'm still testing some scaling code I wrote but it looks like this one is a sure thing for next build.