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Martial Arts Export Template


Brian Stanfield

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I’m fiddling around with an export template in HERO Designer for a Martial Arts. The goal is to have an RTF output of maneuvers and non-maneuvers, some within lists based on a specific style of martial art, and some not in lists (chosen à la Carter in a mixed martial arts sort of way). I’d like each list to have a heading based on the name of the martial art, but without the title being shown as a list item  with the cost of zero. Then I’d like to have the mixed stuff headed by the title “Other” in order to clarify that it is not part of a particular style. I’ve almost got it figured out, but the list headings and that “Other” heading are stumping me. 

 

This is an eclectic mix of things, admittedly, and may not work how I envision it. I've got a mixture of IS_LIST, IS_NOT_LIST, IF_MANEUVER, IF_NOT_MANEUVER, and several other tags involved, but I'm not exactly sure how they interact with each other. I have the documentation for HERO Designer with the raw list of tags for Martial Arts and Lists, but is there anywhere that the tags are described (how they function with each other, etc)? 

 

As a very brief example, here's what I'm getting as the output:

Aikido

0    Aikido

4     1) Redirect

3     2) Throw

1     3) Weapon Element: Staffs

3     Jab

3     Eye Gouge

1     Weapon Element: Knives

 

What I'd like to get is:

Aikido

4     1) Redirect

3     2) Throw

1     3) Weapon Element: Staffs

Other

3     Jab

3     Eye Gouge

1     Weapon Element: Knives

 

Edited by Brian Stanfield
Edited for clarity
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3 hours ago, Tjack said:

If it’s not in the Martial Arts Hero book, I doubt it exists.

 

I'm really asking a HERO Designer question here (which I clarified above), and the HERO System Martial Arts doesn't really get into that sort of thing. I did check, however, just in case. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Not really sure what you're asking...the export tags generally don't "interact with each other" at all -- you could have IF_NOT_LIST within an IF_LIST container and things would work pretty much the way you'd expect...the contents of IF_NOT_LIST would be removed if the item being exported was in a list...and the contents of IF_LIST would be removed if the item being exported was not in a list.

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2 hours ago, Simon said:

Not really sure what you're asking...the export tags generally don't "interact with each other" at all -- you could have IF_NOT_LIST within an IF_LIST container and things would work pretty much the way you'd expect...the contents of IF_NOT_LIST would be removed if the item being exported was in a list...and the contents of IF_LIST would be removed if the item being exported was not in a list.

 

I'm sorry for not being clear, I'm scatterbrained this morning. I modified my example above to actually represent what I'm seeing with the costs being listed, etc.

 

I think what you just gave me is what I was looking for. I didn't know how the IF_NOT_LIS and IF_LIST containers affected each other. You've given me a good lead to work with. Thank you!

 

If you look at my example in the original edited post, you'll see that I'm getting "aikido" listed twice in the RTF output, and I'd like to remove the list heading that shows the cost of 0. Can you think of a way to do that? I tried various versions of what you've suggested, and now I'm wondering if it is considered a LIST_ITEM that can be eliminated? I'm not sure how each of the containers adjust each other in the ways you describe above. Admittedly, I'm wading in deeper waters than I'm used to, but this is how I'm learning. As always, I appreciate your help if you can give me another lead here. Or recommend a good XML book for me to read and leave you alone?

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I suspect you'll be able to get close to what you want by using IS_LIST, IS_LIST_ITEM, IS_NOT_LIST_ITEM, IF_MANEUVER, and IF_NON_MANEUVER -- those last two are going to be important to distinguish between a List (like Aikido) and a non-listed Maneuver (like Jab).

 

The main difficulty you're running into is this concept of re-ordering things from the way they are entered/ordered on the Maneuvers tab in the application. It can be done, but you're going to need to jump through a few hoops to get there.

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I got it figured out, Mr. Simon, just a little differently than I expected. Thanks for your help.

 

Just a couple of questions: I used IS_LIST_ITEM and IS_NOT_LIST_ITEM like you suggested, but what I discovered is that IS_NOT_LIST_ITEM also includes the list heading (in this case Aikido, which is the list name). Is this an oversight, or is this intentional? I ask this, because it was the one thing that made my RTF output wonky. I've been using <!--IS_LIST--><!--MA_TEXT--> to get the name of each martial art style at the beginning of their list of maneuvers because it lets me bold the style name separately from the maneuver names. It seems like a much more discrete way of isolating the list heading.

 

Second question: is there a converse to IFLIST, such as IF_NOT_LIST? I ask out of curiosity after fiddling with the elements for a while.

 

Third question: although I've been getting a good feel for what the elements do, have you considered maybe adding a description of the elements along with the documentation at the end of the HERO Desinger manual? I realize this is only for a very few people who already probably know what they're doing, but it cold be useful in answering some of these questions so I don't have to keep bothering you.  :winkgrin:

 

Thanks again for all your help.

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From what I can tell, it's not behaving in the way you suggest. The IF_MANEUVER and IF_NON_MANEUVER distinguish between maneuvers and weapon elements (and other non-maneuvers), but they both give all of each and don't distinguish between listed and non-listed Maneuvers. This is what was giving me problems. I expected it to act the way you describe, and it doesn't.

 

BUT, the IS_LIST isolates the List headings, and IS_NOT_LIST shows the remaining maneuvers and non-maneuvers regardless of their being in a list. It's all a bit counter-intuitive, but I got it eventually. 

 

Anyway, a glossary of these elements would save us all some time. I do genuinely appreciate your taking the time to help out. Thanks again.

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Got it after a lot of trial and error. More error than anything else. I think I have a handle on what everything's doing now. I can now use the same process of elimination with the other elements as I branch out into a more complete export template. This is level of customizability really is one of the most brilliant parts of your program. Alas, I am a babe in the woods here.

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