Drop Down Menu

[ronalmb]

I recently purchased some D&D 5E fantasy grounds products and am very pleased with it. One of the things I noticed was the "drop down" organizational menu included with it (click on A and it expands to show all the monsters that start with A, classes alphabetically sorted, etc.)

Is there any native support for doing this provided with FG without having to learn how to make my own ruleset? It would make organization so much easier for me if I was able to do this for my own stuff.

IF it is included and I'm just clueless, please point me in the right direction and give me a good kick.

Thanks much

[kylania]

It's part of the referencemanual bits of windowclass as I understand it. Par5e ends up making some of that for your modules and you should be able to edit the XML to include it, but when I asked about this it wasn't an easy process.

Here's the output from a module I made which includes it as an example.



<backgroundlists>
<byletter>
<description type="string">Backgrounds</description>
<groups>
<typeletterC>
<description type="string">C</description>
<index>
<caravanspecialist>
<link type="windowreference">
<class>reference_background</class>
<recordname>reference.backgrounddata.caravanspecialist@Mulmast er Bonds and Backgrounds</recordname>
<description>
<field>name</field>
</description>
</link>
<source type="string"/>
</caravanspecialist>
</index>
</typeletterC>
<typeletterE>
<description type="string">E</description>
<index>
<earthspurminer>
<link type="windowreference">
<class>reference_background</class>
<recordname>reference.backgrounddata.earthspurminer@Mulmaster Bonds and Backgrounds</recordname>
<description>
<field>name</field>
</description>
</link>
<source type="string"/>
</earthspurminer>
</index>
</typeletterE>
<typeletterH>
<description type="string">H</description>
<index>
<harborfolk>
<link type="windowreference">
<class>reference_background</class>
<recordname>reference.backgrounddata.harborfolk@Mulmaster Bonds and Backgrounds</recordname>
<description>
<field>name</field>
</description>
</link>
<source type="string"/>
</harborfolk>
</index>
</typeletterH>
<typeletterM>
<description type="string">M</description>
<index>
<mulmasteraristrocrat>
<link type="windowreference">
<class>reference_background</class>
<recordname>reference.backgrounddata.mulmasteraristrocrat@Mulm aster Bonds and Backgrounds</recordname>
<description>
<field>name</field>
</description>
</link>
<source type="string"/>
</mulmasteraristrocrat>
</index>
</typeletterM>
<typeletterP>
<description type="string">P</description>
<index>
<phlanrefugee>
<link type="windowreference">
<class>reference_background</class>
<recordname>reference.backgrounddata.phlanrefugee@Mulmaster Bonds and Backgrounds</recordname>
<description>
<field>name</field>
</description>
</link>
<source type="string"/>
</phlanrefugee>
</index>
</typeletterP>
</groups>
</byletter>
</backgroundlists>

[ronalmb]

so it isn't something that is inherent to FG and it is something that requires it's own module...
alright. I don't know if I can figure out how to make it work... but I'll try to figure it out. Thank you.

I feel this is an excellent feature that should be included in FG out of the box. Maybe the developers will find time for it down the road. It seems useful to most, if not all rulesets, and makes organization of somethings a LOT easier. It's a Quality of Life feature that shouldn't be overlooked. Thank you.

[Trenloe]

so it isn't something that is inherent to FG and it is something that requires it's own module...
The functionality is inherent in FG (most rulesets) but it is included in the library portion of the product. Only library modules are displayed in the library, hence the data to display there needs to be in its own module.

I know what you're saying - you want to be able to create your own modules within the interface?

There is this functionality available for the Savage Worlds ruleset, but not others at this point.

[LordEntrails]

The way I see this being really useful is in the Story entries. I would love to be able to expand and collapse within the various menus (Stories, Images, NPCs, etc). The tabs are nice, but at least for Undermountain, aren't quite enough (i.e. ~400 story entries for level one, ~75 maps, ~100 NPCs, ~50 items). Either alphabetical like the library modules (i.e. Monster Manual), or by attribute, like the group field in modules.

[Griogre]

I've personally found tabs to not be that useful in large dungeons. Since you can basically either have dozens of them or one. I would suggest you number your story entries by level or area and then use the filter to just show the entries for that level or area. The problem with collapsible entries in my mind is they are awkward when you need say 30% of 500 entries open because there is not an easy way to only open a specific arbitrary portion of entries. I think using a filter is much better at that. Here's some old screen shots of me doing this for the upper levels of Rappan Athuk.

Showing entries for the upper levels:

https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/books2.png

And filtered for just the Main 2nd level:

https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/books2S.png

Just make sure you use leading zeros if you don't want your 2s and 20s together. :p For really large mega dungeons you might find it useful to do more than one module. I also made another module for the deeper levels of RA. When I did Halls of Undermountain for 4E I did something similar though I used the Modules numbers which I don't think would have scaled as well.

[LordEntrails]

I'm doing one module per level.

Filtering based on the entry name is ok, and what I'm forced to at the moment. But, it's annoying to have to prefix the name with something just for organization purposes. Especially for non-linear adventures, or for ones you don't develop in order (Remember programming in Basic? Remember how we had to add a line number in order to control compilation/execution order? Remember how you number by tens so that you could go back and insert a line later on...?)

Given that the functionality is already in FG to have collapsible headers, what would it take to write an extension to have that in more than just the library?

[kylania]

Given that the functionality is already in FG to have collapsible headers, what would it take to write an extension to have that in more than just the library?

That functionality seems to be part of the reference manual section of a module and not the tabbed story page interface. We don't really have proper tools to create content on the fly for that though.

[Griogre]

I personally think one level per module might be too often. If if works for you then, great though there's no compelling reason for either way. I usually eventually have hundreds of campaigns though, so I typically try not to do anything to make more of them than I need. :)

For nonlinear adventures I'd use a flow chart "map" and just pin the "map." The numbers will be arbitrary anyway probably time or scene based.

To be clear on the semantics you need the functionality to be built into an individual ruleset (or you would have to add it). Making a list use drop open lists it would be easy in an extension (assuming you know the syntax, etc), the work would be manually indexing the sublists or at least splitting the data into subsections that could be used to make sublists. Doing this for static lists like in most library modules is straight forward. To work with you story entries you would want to do things dynamically and while there is some sort/filtering functionality in some of the lists I don't know how to use it dynamically. That would be a good question for Moon Wizard.

[Trenloe]

This kind of stuff was discussed last year: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21145-Content-Categories

And also a prototype journal was investigated: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-21243.html

I don't think you'll see what you're asking for in the current release of FG - unless someone makes an extension for it. Interface redesign is pretty much being left alone until after the Unity move. There's little point in committing development time to something that might be completely different/easier to do once on Unity.

[LordEntrails]

Thanks Trenloe. I wouldn't want developer time spent on this. I was wondering about the feasibility for an extension though.

I would envision it like adding an attribute to the entry field and then that attribute be used to generate the collapsible headings. Maybe I'll consider it for my first extension, but maybe a bit challenging for a first one.

[dulux-oz]

As an alternate idea you could use the Locations Extension to organise your dungeon rooms into a hiracy (of sorts) and then open each sub-location from inside each location entry.

Just an idea :)

Cheers