schir1964

2 hours ago, Stonewild said:

We have not played in 20 years.  Everyone moved away.  We got stuck in our houses.  We learned to online connect.   3 games a week.  1 is Champions based. 

Rediscovering fun.  I keep looking for a decent VTT, might be my Technology skills are the problem.   Theater of the mind is working too. 

Have you check out Steam's Tabletop with the Hero System RPG plugiin?

Here's a thread on it: Tabletop Simulator

My twins are old enough now that I'm going to introduce them to the Hero System.

Been getting up to speed on latest rules  and tools.

1 hour ago, Spence said:

I'm actually confused.

 

Strength has a skill roll and a damage/effect roll.  Just like all the other attributes.  I normally play and read 5thR so I checked 6th. 

 

Right there it was.  A strength skill roll and then a roll for effect.  I do the same with all the attributes as they come up. 

 

 

What effect roll do you have for CON, INT?

SPD?

STUN?

END?

Don't have time to check... but...

I thought anyone could brace for an attack as a half action. On the ground you use your STR (I think) to negate the knockback.

But in general I would agree just for the ability to control the engagement with those who can not follow you.

And the peanut gallery watches, eating popcorn, with bated breath. (8^D)

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

... 1" of flight can move a one-kilogram character no further, faster, or more easily than it can move a 10,000 kilogram character. ...

I've never really thought about this before... hmmm...

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

- Christopher Mullins

DefaultPrintTemplate6e.hde

• Line 1477: <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3" width="100%" valign="top" class="c3" style="page-break-before: always;">
• Line 1740: <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3" width="100%" valign="top" class="c3" style="page-break-before: always;">

This should enforce the page breaks on Page 2 and Page 3.

2 hours ago, Paradox said:

Yep your right that is what I was using back then.  I didn't even realize it was gone.  I'm not much of a programmer and I'm not sure to open the HTML's to add the page break line in the code.  I have always used the HTML - Default Character Sheet (DefaultPrintTemplate.hde).  Is there any other way to get the exported HTML to print?

You do the HTML export and view it with your browser (I prefer chrome). Then you can click on print and change the printer selection to Print to PDF. That's how I do it. Seems to work pretty well. I'm using Windows 10.

Now if you need to fix your .hde export to print properly I can lead you through that if you want. You just need to edit the .hde with a simple text editor.

17 minutes ago, HeroGM said:

It really hasn't been because a web browser is for web (duh right?). There are things like paged.js and other things that help, but they don't always do the full job, especially if the CSS isn't there. I thought about looking into HTMLBook, PrinceXML and other PDF processors and doing a template for them.

I agree in general, but the whole idea of CSS was to have the HTML just be the data which is just tagged in various ways then the CSS styles it all which includes support for various types of media devices.

Plus printing an HTML page is one of the most common uses outside of viewing the page. You would think that would be a priority somewhere in their list of device types.

13 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Were you using PDF export before?  The PDF export functionality no longer exists in recent HD updates.

 

I too wish there were export templates that were more print aware.

I didn't know Hero Designer used to have a PDF Print function.

I've found the print to PDF functionality on my computer generally does well enough. It's what I've used so far to test the exports I've been working on.

HeroGM is right though. Seems like the HTML/CSS support for Printing has not been a priority.

There are some nice style controls for printing that don't seem to be supported.

If they could support the Avoid setting for page breaks that would take care of 90% of printing issues.

Avoid prevents an element from being split in half at the page break. It pushes the whole element to the next page if it crosses the page break line.

I've finished with DreadDomain's export.

Anyone else have custom layout/design they want as an export?

And it can't be attached to a an empty tag.

And there are some other conditions that will prevent it from working but you can search the internet to figure those out.

https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_print_pageba.asp

Just inconsistencies in the documentation and what is used in the default template.

Working Tag                       Documentation                     Default Template
--------------------------------- --------------------------------- ---------------------------------
<!--IFNAME--><!--/IFNAME-->       <!--IF_NAME--><!--/IF_NAME-->     <!--IFNAME--><!--/IFNAME-->
<!--IFLIST--><!--/IFLIST-->       Missing                           <!--IFLIST--><!--/IFLIST-->

One small request for the next release of the software.

Please add the Name property to the generic List in the powers section.

It would be nice to give a custom label to the generic list just like you can with Multi-Power.

It would also make export templates produce consistent output when it is used.

31 minutes ago, Simon said:

Increase the memory available to HD (under app preferences)

Thanks, I'll try that.

Just confirmed my theory. If I trim down the RTF Code the Exception isn't thrown and the file is generated. Guess I got lucky the first time I ran the export.

I've reproduce the error and updated the post accordingly.

Sorry, I was thinking the trace.log was only created when an error occurred. I wiped out the error when I updated this post. So it does seem related to the RTF Export Template. I'll reproduce the error and update this thread appropriately.

I think the RTF code is too large (12 Megabytes) and is causing the program to run out of space for processing.

Here's the exception being thrown.

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
	at java.lang.StringCoding$StringDecoder.decode(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.StringCoding.decode(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.StringCoding.decode(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.String.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.String.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at com.hero.util.HTMLWriter.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at com.hero.HeroDesigner.exportActiveCharacter(Unknown Source)
	at com.hero.HeroDesigner.access$500(Unknown Source)
	at com.hero.HeroDesigner$18.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.setPressed(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.AbstractButton.doClick(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicMenuItemUI.doClick(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicMenuItemUI$Handler.mouseReleased(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
	at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(Unknown Source)
	at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(Unknown Source)

The plan was to just dump out the original RTF untouched to see if looked okay and then start replacing the hard coded values with Export Tags. The dump worked but it was corrupted with the empty line prepended to it due to the Export Tags being remove (the file description and so forth).

I then went to remove the spaces the from file using the Regular Expression Replace tags. That's when this error began being thrown. Even after I removed the replacement tags it still threw the out of memory error. Even after shutting everything down and restarting it throws the error now.

<!--TEMPLATE_NAME-->6th Edition RTF Export - Two Column<!--/TEMPLATE_NAME-->
<!--TEMPLATE_DESCRIPTION-->
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Author:</span> Christopher Mullins<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Version:</span> 1.0.2<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Date:</span> (11/11/2021)<br>
<hr>
<span style="color: maroon; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Important!</span><br>
DreadDomains created this character sheet style and format.<br>
I just used one his sample RTF files to fill in the HeroDesigner export fields to create the template.
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Notes</span><br>
For character image you need to edit the RTF file in Word or some other program and add it yourself.
RTF requires the image be encoded and embedded in the RTF file.not get split in half if it overflows the existing page.
<!--/TEMPLATE_DESCRIPTION-->
<!--FILE_EXTENSION-->rtf<!--/FILE_EXTENSION-->
{RTF Code}

Any thoughts?

trace.log appPrefs.xml

Ureka!!! The Adobe Acrobat export to RTF created an RTF that when opened in Microsoft Word looked 99.99% like the HTML, and PDF.

Only two Headers seem to have a minor style glitch which doesn't really impact the usability.

This I can parse and use to create the RTF Export Template. However, this document will take more time to parse correctly.

2 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Hi Chris, It would be super useful to provide a screenshot so people can quickly see the style of the sheet.

 

Also, would it be possible to use the word character sheet I have attached as an inspiration to create a .rtf file?

In a nutshell,

• organise the sheet by functions (primary characteristics, movement, offensive, defense, skills, talents, perks, skills powers, complications)
• No values for advantages and limitations (no +½ or -¼).
• No real cost for characteristics, skills, talents, etc.

The rest might be more difficult as I abbreviate many redundant terms but if it's a .rtf, it's easy to manually modify.

I hope it helps. 

Yes, I plan to do that at some point but I'm adverse to having licensed copyright images/names and did most of my testing with the DC/Marvel character sheets (btw they were extremely helpful in shoring up edge cases where the styling didn't work as expected) and have not had the time to make extensive character's to show off the three pages.

As for an RTF file... I did research on that when it was first mentioned (spent half a day actually). Took me a while to actually find the official specifications for it at a site the kept a copy of it when Microsoft pulled it from public access (apparently Microsoft has locked down the document and won't release it since 2008). Began reading it and my eyes started glazing over before I had gotten a third of the way through it. It would seem that RTF is not meant to be created by hand or understood at a level that you could edit easily by hand, that is create additional sections and so forth kind of like postscript/PDF. Instead, like postscript/PDF, it is only meant to be created by tools that are specifically dedicated to it,  and in the case of Adobe Acrobat it requires a whole slew of tools to handle all the features and possible combinations (and it is still a little clunky to use). Anyway, there aren't any RTF only tools that will created an RTF from scratch (outside of Microsoft and they aren't sharing). There ton's plugins that are for non-RTF tools (Microsoft included) or conversion tools........ . . .  .  .  .  .   .    .     .     hang on a second...   well what do you know... Adobe Acrobat has an export to RTF tool! I can use this to export an existing HTML character sheet to an RTF document and if it looks good in Microsoft Word then I can create an RTF export based on that. Up to now the conversion tools that I've looked at have been unreliable and looked terrible.

I'll give it an other shot.

If it works then that handles your first point. The other two points you've listed I'll have research to see if those individual component's are accessible by themselves then it's a matter of making to the finish line (hopefully with flying colors).

PS - The is the second time I've seen someone mentioned an attached file but for the life of me I can't see any sign of one (link, button, or so forth). First it was Scott Ruggel's .hdc file and now your RTF file. I can see Scott Ruggels screenshot okay. Am I missing something?

I've refactored the Default Template into my own version of it.

CEM Export Template Default HTML for 6th Edition

Same layout and data but with some minor styling differences.

Corrected typo in the Combat Modifiers header.

Fixed page breaks.

I'd like to opinions on it. What you like or don't like.

I'm open to doing more templates if anyone wants me to.

I think I can slap a template together pretty quick now that got a pattern to follow.

Stands for Cascading Style Sheet.

It's how you center or left justify text and other things in HTML.

Each section of HTML is tagged with a class name. If you look at the HTML text you'll see where I've added tags to sections of the text so easy to find where things are located.

There are matching tags in the css file that goes with this template. These define wether the text should be bold, normal, centered, left justified, right justified, so forth.

There's an excellent website where this is all explained: w3schools

Anyway, if you need things changed/added/removed just let me know. It will be simple to do so now that I've got a standard way of handling things.

I'm working on doing the Default template for 6th Edition using this technique.

On 11/6/2021 at 12:23 PM, Scott Ruggels said:

Please, oh Please can you create a template that looks like this?:

 

I need this layout, with no pic, no backstory, and a three column format, just like this.  Here are some HDC files to work with if you need them, and they are for Fantasy Hero. This would be for fifth Edition. 6th is Okay but we build in fifth or earlier.

 

 

Sorry it took so long. I tried various CSS tools to see what worked best.

It doesn't look exactly like your screenshot but it is close.

Also, if you set the character image in Hero Designer it will display it under the Hero System logo.

If you don't then it doesn't take up any space on the character sheet (basically it doesn't have place a holder for it).

You can download the ExportTemplateThreeColumnHtml5ezip file.

One gotcha about this export is that there are three CSS files that must reside wherever the HTML file is located.

You can edit the Export file to have the CSS within the HTML itself if you want and I can help you with that if needed.

Several things that pleases me about this export:

• Uses a normalize.css file so that the character sheet should display the same way on different browsers.
• Customizing this export should be much easier due to how the HTML is sectioned off and tagged.
• Changing the styling (alignment, bolding, and so forth) should be fairly easy once you get used to how things are tagged and you only need to update the one CSS file not the HTML.
• I used Flex Box (HTML 5 CSS Standard) to handle the columns and as a side benefit it looks like the printing no longer splits the text in half. At least with the tests I ran.
• Has a separate Printer.css file that contains a page break so that new pages do in fact start on a new page when printing.

This is my first attempt so feel free to point out improvements or ask questions. My goal was to make modifying this Template as easy as possible.

- Christopher Mullins

History of Grenadier Models Inc.

Grenadier Models Inc.

 Dan, the following seems to imply that it targets the entire output of the export. Is that correct? I was hoping to target just the output of a specific field but there's nothing to suggest I can do that.

Quote

Replacement Containers
Occasionally, when creating a Hero Designer
Export Format, you may find it useful to be able to
replace one string of text in the output with another
each time the first string occurs. You can do this by
using the REPLACE container and its associated
subcontainers. For example:
<!--REPLACE-->
<!--DEFSTRING-->abc<!--/DEFSTRING-->
<!--REPSTRING-->xyz<!--/REPSTRING-->
<!--/REPLACE-->
replaces each occurrence of the string “abc” (as
specified by the DEFSTRING subcontainer) with
the string “xyz” (as specified by the REPSTRING
subcontainer).