Portraits that have shown me who is logged in with what PC now no longer seem to work

[SilentRuin]

What are you talking about? I use party sheet like everyone else - for extra data on my PCs and the shared inventory and tracking data.

I have said one thing - I use the portraits to track who has their PC ready to go and who does not...

That's it.

You said I should be able to prevent all the stuff popping up in TEST by simply removing them from party sheet.

Basically telling me - in order to retain a valuable feature - I need to remove another.

Where you are getting "I must be using it differently" is beyond me. Yes I do make the party sheet inventories better at sharing data - but that has 0 to do with this discussion. I could be using no extensions and still complain in the same manner.

If its easier for you fine, when using no extensions my real estate is cluttered to such an extent I can no longer easily tell at a glance who is ready with their PC, who is not, or who has lost connection.

I don't want to "fix it" by removing PCs from the party sheet as I use that for all sorts of info on the PCs, their group placement, etc.

Make an option.

[LordEntrails]

I'm a bit confused. So now all PCs in the party sheet show on the upper left. And their is widget (now) on them that shows which players are logged in and owning the player.

The only thing that really is different, is now all the portraits show all of the time, just like what will happen once everyone joins the game. The only use I case I see this changes is in a campaigns when you have lots of players but only a subset of them regularly attend, and you still want them all in the party sheet.

I understand the desire for an option, but I also know that the more options you add, the more confusion it causes new users and the harder it is to maintain the code.

[SilentRuin]

I'm a bit confused. So now all PCs in the party sheet show on the upper left. And their is widget (now) on them that shows which players are logged in and owning the player.

The only thing that really is different, is now all the portraits show all of the time, just like what will happen once everyone joins the game. The only use I case I see this changes is in a campaigns when you have lots of players but only a subset of them regularly attend, and you still want them all in the party sheet.

I understand the desire for an option, but I also know that the more options you add, the more confusion it causes new users and the harder it is to maintain the code.

I get everyone is way smarter and observant than me as a DM and that the idea of having easy to see at a glance portraits pop on or off when a player "is ready to go" is only for the unobservant who notice an icon change amongst all the windows and other things they are managing. Why accomadate them? I mean if you can't notice an icon shift while in the middle of running a game what good are you as a DM?

The inability for people to understand this is a valuable tool in game management - and offering the option to get it back simply by removing another valuable feature like party sheet...

Boggles my mind.

Though I'm sure the alert whizbangs who track tiny icons amongst the limited real estate by flooding portraits not in play, that I don't need for any reason, are all fired up for it.

I get it. I lose. Carry on.

[LordEntrails]

okay... So maybe I'm starting to understand. So you want to know when players come and go, and the portraits was how you were doing that and the mouse over widget doesn't do that easily. I can see that. I just never had an issue with players coming and going like that so it didn't make sense to me.

What about the extension idea Moon suggested? It looked like it is only a couple lines of code to revert that behavior. Is it really that simple?

[SilentRuin]

I would love to hear your suggestion to someone who knows nothing about extensions on how to get around this.

Disable the Party sheet.

Great solution.

Yes, I know I have written a ton of extension to make my life as a DM easier. And even some to disable stuff where FGU helpfully hardcoded defintions to unrequested with no option added into sheets that sabatoged homebrew stuff.

I have enough sandcastles (extensions) built on the shifting sands of FGU (5e/corerpg/engine) that get broken on every other update, thank you very much.

They will option it or not, I've made my case.

I'll just lose a valuable function in FGU along with the non extension writers.

[Moon Wizard]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I gave you a one-line piece of script code that would disable the automatic addition of party sheet members to the character list that are not logged in. I suggest making it a personal extension, since my feedback experience is that most people want to see the whole party even when not everyone logged in or have GM-controlled PCs at the top.

Here it is again.

function onInit()
    CharacterListManager.getPartyIdentities = function () return {} end
end

Regards,
JPG

[SilentRuin]

You repeating what I already knew... Good luck to people when they actually start using this stuff - left client - right host (use your imagination if its wider and your using wider map and other windows).

Where's waldo? (Test Mods)

Guess your out of luck.



And what's it look like if I pull it down so I can see him?

Oh its just so so obvious who is logged in, right?



And yes client is on local machine and its not intelligent enough to realize that its a client so spams it like its host probably. I guess this as I've had to override other FGU code that doesn't bother to check for that.

[Roach]

I have to agree I consider this unnecessary screen clutter, too...
I use a game mechanic by which characters whose players aren't able to make it are 'stored' in some extradimensional space so we don't have to worry at the beginning/end of each seession how the 'missing' members of the group figure out where the rest went off to. I keep everyone in the combat tracker, so when I set up an encounter I drag the 'friendly' helmet to the map, then go through the list of present characters and weed out those that aren't there - and sometimes adjust the opposition accordingly, which I can easily determine by looking at the portrait bar - which, to save on space for the chat window, I have moed from the top to the bottom of the window (and also because that saves on dragging movement when whispering).
In addition, while waiting for ppl to log in before a session, I occasionally glance at the window preview to see whether people have logged in - which I cannot do ithg this new setup because the little dot is too small to even be noticeable in the preview. And at the end of a session, I use it to make sure the players have all logged out of the session so I can shut down the table without interrupting them finishing up notes, checking their characters, and Actions &c.
Al this ha suddenly become much harder to do... And "I want you to see at a glance what characters are in the party" to me is a very poor replacment for all that functionality. At least a setup option would be nice...

[HywelPhillips]

I see the point that it removes the ability for the GM to see who is logged in at a glance. I use it that way myself and the dot is not a vivid enough visual change to adequately replace that functionality to my aging eyes.

Suggestions:

1) Grey out unconnected portraits, which is a fairly standard UI convention from online gaming and chat I think. Makes it visually much more obvious. Preserves both sorts of functionality without adding a setup option.

2) Allow a setup option to toggle the behaviour, which if it is a one-liner bit of code to implement feels like it is a worthwhile one. I'd personally leave it at its current setting ie only show portraits for logged in players because I'm used to it working that way and I value the at-a-glance who is logged in functionality.

Cheers, Hywel

[SilentRuin]

Having the portrait spam where logged in users randomly appear in the list instead of at the front I would think is not even good for those who want the party sheet protrait spamming.

If I had one good thing to say about a tiny part of this new feature it would be the new ? mark for a user logged in, but not with a PC chosen yet. That is a good improvement. But as is currently, its completely negated tracking users online, having chosen a PC, or dropped out in any easily recognized manner.