Transform items to tables (e.g. starship items)

[Aquitaine]

Hi there,

I am a brand new FG user so I am sure this has come up before as it's not unique to SF, but as a fairly experienced tech nerd but also a new FG user I have a limited window of "first impressions of things" and this is the biggest item on my list after an hour of playing around with the rules and the Starship builder (which looks fantastic, by the way!)

When I go to look at lists like 'Starship Items,' it's great that I can filter based on Type and SubType -- but it would be better still if FG were clever enough to show me tabular data rather than just a list of names, especially for items that only have a couple properties. Like if I ask for a list of power cores, it's a safe assumption that I want to see PCU and BP, and maybe Size, but since there are only three properties on this SubType FG ought to just put them all in the table ... and let me sort them ... instead of making me click on every item.

I understand that this is just one use case of a very powerful "list of things" manager and that this request is not as simple as it sounds, but for a lot of these SubTypes there is not a whole lot of information there and this would be a wonderful quality of life / usability perk if it could transform them into a sortable table.

Thanks for reading!
Aq

[Trenloe]

Welcome to the forums!

Have a look at a couple of the links in the library -> Starfinder Core Rulebook -> Starship items. This presents a table (not sortable though) that displays item name, PCU and BP Cost. You can click on a header to close it and just see specific types.

You can also view details in the reference manual: Library -> Starfinder Core Rulebook -> Reference Manual - Chapter 9: Startships -> Building Starships This presents the tables from the books - unfortunately there aren't any clickable links here. That would be a good feature request! :)

[Aquitaine]

OK, I see the table you're referring to, but this is quite cumbersome.

Why is there a giant button labeled "Starship Items" that gives me a cut-down version of the table I get from Library --> Core Rulebook --> Starship items?

The Starship Items button seems like a more exhaustive table, because it's pulling in sources other than the core rulebook. But they're all common objects, so my original question remains: given the ready access to 'starship items' right from the main UI, why can it not transform the data (at least when filtering by a subType) to present a useful table on-the-fly rather than making me look up the same information somewhere else if I want PCU and Cost in the table?

[damned]

OK, I see the table you're referring to, but this is quite cumbersome.

Why is there a giant button labeled "Starship Items" that gives me a cut-down version of the table I get from Library --> Core Rulebook --> Starship items?

The Starship Items button seems like a more exhaustive table, because it's pulling in sources other than the core rulebook. But they're all common objects, so my original question remains: given the ready access to 'starship items' right from the main UI, why can it not transform the data (at least when filtering by a subType) to present a useful table on-the-fly rather than making me look up the same information somewhere else if I want PCU and Cost in the table?

It would require a rebuild of the current table coding. It would be a good idea but it is also not something Ive seen requested before. You can add it to the wishlist and post the link back here for people to add their votes to it.
https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

[Aquitaine]

Done: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/fg2app?ia=118559

[Octavious]

Hey Aquitaine,

I am developing a utility called "Starship Studio" which is a ship builder for FG starfinder star ships.. it will export a FG xml starship module. only takes a few minutes to build a ship and export.. It calculates as you add and remove items. It also calculates the DC for everything too and will add that to the FG starship sheet... it will be far more advanced and dynamic than what is present.. so it will make a good addition partner to FG Starfinder I believe.I am almost done with it.. Only have to add the weapon mounts purchaser and custom frames dialog.. then write the exporter. here is a pic of the pcu combo box. It shows pcu ,bp and sizes of ships it will fit. I think this is what you were talking about..

23508

[Trenloe]

Why is there a giant button labeled "Starship Items" that gives me a cut-down version of the table I get from Library --> Core Rulebook --> Starship items
That button is not really designed to present a detailed table. It gives access to the base campaign (and module) database records with the underlying base FG functionality - allowing creation of new records, sharing of individual records with players, etc..

I agree, it would be nice to have more data displayed in these areas.

[Aquitaine]

That button is not really designed to present a detailed table. It gives access to the base campaign (and module) database records with the underlying base FG functionality - allowing creation of new records, sharing of individual records with players, etc..

I understand why it works the way it does and it is a nice bit of "quick" functionality to have it pull in items from all sources. It's exactly what I'd want for a quick reference.

But since it's clearly polling the underlying data to fetch the item names, it seems that -- at least for the "big button" summary tables -- it shouldn't be too tough to have it transform the underlying data into a couple more columns. Some outer limits are in order because I can easily see how a button like this could be polling something like NPCs or Monsters where you have tons of properties on the underlying data; knowing exactly what to transform and how is a tougher question, but an easy starting point should be "if the data I'm polling only has 3 properties, show all of them."

I'm still just learning FG as a user so I haven't even started to look at what language it's written in to see if any of this stuff is accessible to mere mortals, but I work on this kind of thing every day for web apps so if it's exposed to end-users I'll take a look when I get some time.

[damned]

A lot of this stuff is exposed - however its not as simple as changing a sql query - you will also need to define how the resultant data is displayed and what that data type is and does that data type have further actions associated with it. Rulesets are zip files so you can unpack them and see what is inside. The campaign data is stored in memory and every 5 minutes written to db.xml - type /save in chat to force a write. Enjoy your descent under the hood :)

[Aquitaine]

I don't know how OO FG is. Obviously one could write a specific transform for every item, but is it possible to write a generic one that just says "if subtype has < 5 defined properties, iterate through them and add a column for each one"?

[Blahness98]

Only problem is, the Starfinder rule set is in the vault so you cannot unpack it to poke around in it.

[damned]

Only problem is, the Starfinder rule set is in the vault so you cannot unpack it to poke around in it.

True... but tables are a CoreRPG thing.

[Trenloe]

True... but tables are a CoreRPG thing.
Yeah, but we’re not talking about FG rollable tables here. We're talking about displaying campaign data in a table grid format with additional data columns.

@Aquitaine - sometimes when looking from the outside things might seem not too though to implement. There are many things to take into account here: ruleset layering on top of CoreRPG, desktop real estate (many people already complain they don’t have enough space on the desktop - expanding the size of campaign data lists might annoy users), ruleset specific data, etc., etc..

Maybe an additional button at the top of the campaign data list window that opens a bigger window in a more tabular format might be a way to go - so you’re only seeing the additional data if you want to, otherwise keeping the potentially large data list compact.

Anyway, thanks for adding your request to the FG wishlist. The devs can review and make a decision on what they’d like to do.

[Trenloe]

Maybe an additional button at the top of the campaign data list window that opens a bigger window in a more tabular format might be a way to go - so you’re only seeing the additional data if you want to, otherwise keeping the potentially large data list compact.
I hadn't noticed that the main FG dev had already commented on the wishlist entry for this. He's thinking along this line exactly, and has passed on info to the Starfinder dev. For an example of what we're talking about, have a look in the Pathfinder ruleset -> Items campaign data.

[Samarex]

The main issue is that the Menu you are bringing up with the Main Starship Items Button is still pulled from CoreRPG, and re-writing the CoreRPG would effect all Rule Sets that use it. So it difficult to to create Cols that would be usefull thru out all rule sets.

This issue is running thru my mind. I am trying to think of a good way to do it.

[Aquitaine]

I don't think it is simple or easy even though it may sound that way. I work with OO development every day and I'm just guessing about how the guts work since I barely understand FG as a user, much less a developer.

But from a birds' eye view, I wonder if 'subtype' is the key -- you have those filters that come up from the Main Menu (as opposed to the reference). What if, when I select a subType, that subType can have its own logic on what to display? It'd be a little more tedious since you'd have to go through every subType and add definitions, but it'd give you granular control over when things pop up since, as you pointed out, you don't necessarily want this behavior for every type of thing; it's only a safe assumption when the type of thing you're looking at has only got a couple properties.

I think if you couldn't do it in a way that dodged having to assume things about all rulesets, it'd be more trouble than its worth ... maybe for a future engine consideration!

[Samarex]

I don't think it is simple or easy even though it may sound that way. I work with OO development every day and I'm just guessing about how the guts work since I barely understand FG as a user, much less a developer.

But from a birds' eye view, I wonder if 'subtype' is the key -- you have those filters that come up from the Main Menu (as opposed to the reference). What if, when I select a subType, that subType can have its own logic on what to display? It'd be a little more tedious since you'd have to go through every subType and add definitions, but it'd give you granular control over when things pop up since, as you pointed out, you don't necessarily want this behavior for every type of thing; it's only a safe assumption when the type of thing you're looking at has only got a couple properties.

I think if you couldn't do it in a way that dodged having to assume things about all rulesets, it'd be more trouble than its worth ... maybe for a future engine consideration!

Well my Idea that is bouncing from brain cell to brain cell is to use the Top Button system as has been mentioned before. But I don want to create a ton of buttons for each type of item. What Im trying to consider is having One button up top that uses the Filter system to crate the Pop up Table, this would allow for Col support for all types

But this is still in the mind concept stage. So I am thinking about it and how I can do it, as this is something I also think should be in the system.