Goblin-King
March 6th, 2005, 16:04
As some of you might have noticed, I've been absent from the boards for a while, and been unable to work as closely on Fantasy Grounds as I would have liked. This should change for the better now, however, and you can expect to see me around a bit more again. Here's a little update on what is going on with FG right now.
During the past weeks, we've been working on some non-technical issues we hope will, in the long run, allow us to keep working on FG as it keeps improving with the help and feedback of the user community.
I also wanted to give everyone a peek at what we have planned for the spring. Please note that the list below is the current plan, and might change in part as we go along. We also want to reserve the highest priority for critical bug fixes, for which the exact work needed is usually hard to estimate ahead of time. For this reason, I'm not going to include any dates with this. Note also that the steps don't really reflect patch versions or such. The steps mostly reflect what we, as the developers, want to see happen with the application. We might even decide to go ahead and grab a part of step 2 or 3 and include it before all of step 1 is in.
Step 1: Content creation
First, we will be taking a look at the means Fantasy Grounds has for users to enter data, and make sure the current implementation works as well as it could. Some of the issues here are:
Token management (token box organization, grouping and management)
Text entry (clipboard use, improved functionality for text controls)
Module creation (bug fixes and some additional functionality)
Step 2: Content management
As we get more information from users' experiences with larger amounts of data, and as users start taking advantage of modules, a need will arise to be able to access all that information more effectively. We will be looking at possibilities to improve the way you can index, search and link the content in your adventures you run as the Gamemaster.
Better search controls for encounter, item and NPC texts
Links on images and maps
Better organization for data exported and imported through modules
Improved user interface feecback (hover texts, labels)
Step 3: Community support
The community has got started with custom assets, but we would like to offer a better chance for everyone to make their creations available to the rest of the community, as well as make it easier to search the files others have made public. This also includes better mechanisms for people to meet and set up games, campaigns and sub-communities.
As we get more concrete plans for the items in this step, I'll post more information.
I also wanted to give you a sneak peek at the upcoming token system, as we have it planned at the moment. You will be able to define a hierarchy for tokens, that will be based on a directory structure in the token folder. You will have a top level "bag" of tokens, which can, in turn, have more bags in it, and so forth. Each user can also move tokens from a bag to another, and come up with a setup that feels best for the particular user.
As you open a bag, the contents of the token box will change to reflect the contents of the bag. There will still only be one token box, to keep it simple and usable.
In the image below, you can see the top level bag. At the bottom of the token box is a row of "bag slots" that you can use to quickly reference and open any bag. You can drag any bag to the empty slots, and access it with just one click. As you can see, the first two slots are reserved for the system, and always refer to the top level bag, and the bag directly above the active bag in the hierarchy (like the "up" button in windows explorer). They are both dimmed in the image because the picture was taken on the top level.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/images/boardposts/tokenpreview.jpg
Please feel free to comment on the issues touched upon in this thread.
During the past weeks, we've been working on some non-technical issues we hope will, in the long run, allow us to keep working on FG as it keeps improving with the help and feedback of the user community.
I also wanted to give everyone a peek at what we have planned for the spring. Please note that the list below is the current plan, and might change in part as we go along. We also want to reserve the highest priority for critical bug fixes, for which the exact work needed is usually hard to estimate ahead of time. For this reason, I'm not going to include any dates with this. Note also that the steps don't really reflect patch versions or such. The steps mostly reflect what we, as the developers, want to see happen with the application. We might even decide to go ahead and grab a part of step 2 or 3 and include it before all of step 1 is in.
Step 1: Content creation
First, we will be taking a look at the means Fantasy Grounds has for users to enter data, and make sure the current implementation works as well as it could. Some of the issues here are:
Token management (token box organization, grouping and management)
Text entry (clipboard use, improved functionality for text controls)
Module creation (bug fixes and some additional functionality)
Step 2: Content management
As we get more information from users' experiences with larger amounts of data, and as users start taking advantage of modules, a need will arise to be able to access all that information more effectively. We will be looking at possibilities to improve the way you can index, search and link the content in your adventures you run as the Gamemaster.
Better search controls for encounter, item and NPC texts
Links on images and maps
Better organization for data exported and imported through modules
Improved user interface feecback (hover texts, labels)
Step 3: Community support
The community has got started with custom assets, but we would like to offer a better chance for everyone to make their creations available to the rest of the community, as well as make it easier to search the files others have made public. This also includes better mechanisms for people to meet and set up games, campaigns and sub-communities.
As we get more concrete plans for the items in this step, I'll post more information.
I also wanted to give you a sneak peek at the upcoming token system, as we have it planned at the moment. You will be able to define a hierarchy for tokens, that will be based on a directory structure in the token folder. You will have a top level "bag" of tokens, which can, in turn, have more bags in it, and so forth. Each user can also move tokens from a bag to another, and come up with a setup that feels best for the particular user.
As you open a bag, the contents of the token box will change to reflect the contents of the bag. There will still only be one token box, to keep it simple and usable.
In the image below, you can see the top level bag. At the bottom of the token box is a row of "bag slots" that you can use to quickly reference and open any bag. You can drag any bag to the empty slots, and access it with just one click. As you can see, the first two slots are reserved for the system, and always refer to the top level bag, and the bag directly above the active bag in the hierarchy (like the "up" button in windows explorer). They are both dimmed in the image because the picture was taken on the top level.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/images/boardposts/tokenpreview.jpg
Please feel free to comment on the issues touched upon in this thread.