Toolbox of dev-recommended tools for creating adventure/scenario modules?

[romelwell]

Do the devs or other experienced users have a consolidated list of recommended tools and best practices for creating new content, specifically adventure/scenario modules?

I've seen mention of Notepad++ with the XML plug-in...anything else?
Is this vid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt0KfM0nGY8&list=PLb-3vx_pg0tmFiMbqCJAGwbOphAkYHm3U&index=2)on the Fantasy Grounds YoutTube channel the definitive guide for creating modules?

Thanks!

[Valarian]

I use the JEdit text editor as well as Notepad++ for editing library modules and ruleset development.
For adventure / scenario modules, you don't need to use a text editor. Just create a development campaign in Fantasy Grounds and add your story entities, NPCs, items, maps, etc. Then export when done to create your adventure module. You can open your exported module in a new campaign for play.

[LordEntrails]

Sure, I create 99% of my content in FG itself. There are a bunch of community tools depending upon what content you want to create. Are you looking to create monsters? Adventures? Spells? What system or rules to? Are you looking to make extensions or themes or...?

[romelwell]

Sure, I create 99% of my content in FG itself. There are a bunch of community tools depending upon what content you want to create. Are you looking to create monsters? Adventures? Spells? What system or rules to? Are you looking to make extensions or themes or...?

I'm going to begin by creating a FG port of an existing Call of Cthulhu scenario. I planned on exporting the images, maps, etc from the PDF and then copy/paste text. While this seems easy enough, I imagine it can be tedious work, so, before I begin I was hoping to confirm that I was not only following best practices but also the development model that is tried and true...

[romelwell]

I use the JEdit text editor as well as Notepad++ for editing library modules and ruleset development.
For adventure / scenario modules, you don't need to use a text editor. Just create a development campaign in Fantasy Grounds and add your story entities, NPCs, items, maps, etc. Then export when done to create your adventure module. You can open your exported module in a new campaign for play.

Valarian, what does JEdit provide that you can not get in Notepad++? Thanks.

[Valarian]

Slightly different text editing and XML tools. CTRL-J to join lines (useful for formatting cut & paste from PDF). Auto-closing XML tags when you type </
It's going to be a matter of personal preference. I started with JEdit, then moved to Notepad++. I still prefer to use JEdit over Notepad++ at times.

[Talyn]

Notepad++ also uses Ctrl+J to join lines, and with the XML Tools extension, will auto-close tags, can run through the entire file to handle auto-indentation, etc.

Perhaps a more relevant comparison: any idea how JEdit compares on lower-end systems or working with multiple large files? I've heard some of the DLC Developers say Notepad++ can start running pretty slowly for them, not sure if JEdit would potentially work out better?

[Zacchaeus]

Don't copy paste straight into FG. You'll spend all your time getting rid of the double spaces, artefacts and other junk that's in the pdf. Copy into a text editor so you can search/replace all of that and then copy from there into FG. Note also any formatted text is not preserved when you past into FG - so don't waste time prettying it up in your text editor.

[Ikael]

Notepad++ also uses Ctrl+J to join lines, and with the XML Tools extension, will auto-close tags, can run through the entire file to handle auto-indentation, etc.

Perhaps a more relevant comparison: any idea how JEdit compares on lower-end systems or working with multiple large files? I've heard some of the DLC Developers say Notepad++ can start running pretty slowly for them, not sure if JEdit would potentially work out better?

I used JEdit myself and also personally preferred it over Notepad++ due to better regex and beanshell support however JEdit runs into major issues with large files. It simply crashes in my case.

Nowdays I use SublimeText not just for FG development but any text editing where I don't need IDE.

[LordEntrails]

I'm going to begin by creating a FG port of an existing Call of Cthulhu scenario. I planned on exporting the images, maps, etc from the PDF and then copy/paste text. While this seems easy enough, I imagine it can be tedious work, so, before I begin I was hoping to confirm that I was not only following best practices but also the development model that is tried and true...
Ok, in this case the text editor is your best friend, as others have mentioned, for the reasons mentioned. If you want to learn a bit more why PDFs import so poorly you can Google "ligature" :)

If your are pulling maps from the PDF and not other sources, you will probably want the Map Align Utility (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?19813-Map-Align-Utility-to-scale-and-align-map-to-grid). This will help you resize the maps so the drawn in grids are more square and at an even number of pixels to minimize drift.

[romelwell]

Ok, in this case the text editor is your best friend, as others have mentioned, for the reasons mentioned. If you want to learn a bit more why PDFs import so poorly you can Google "ligature" :)

If your are pulling maps from the PDF and not other sources, you will probably want the Map Align Utility (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?19813-Map-Align-Utility-to-scale-and-align-map-to-grid). This will help you resize the maps so the drawn in grids are more square and at an even number of pixels to minimize drift.

Thanks very much for the tips. Is there any way around the ligature issue with PDF sources? This is very annoying...

[LordEntrails]

Thanks very much for the tips. Is there any way around the ligature issue with PDF sources? This is very annoying...
Not once the PDF is created :( There are options that can be done with the PDF is created, but once that's done...

What it is is in some fonts, things like the letter combinations "fl" in a given font might actually be represented by one character, rather than two ('f' and 'l'). So :(

Basically, the best thing it to run it through a spell checker, hence the text editor suggestions.

[Ampersandrew]

I'm a relative beginner, but I use emacs for the text editing part.

If you open a buffer in text mode, set the fill column to 10000, you can then use Alt-q to rewrap an entire paragraph at once. I usually copy several paragraphs from the pdf, then separate them with blank lines and use Alt-q to rewrap. When you get into the flow this is impressively fast.

At the moment, I'm OCRing a scanned rulebook to create a word document with the rules text. I intend to use this later with Fantasy Grounds. I'd be pulling what little is left of my hair out if it wasn't for emacs as the intermediary between the OCR and word.

Vim is also suitably powerful. Any competant text editor, really. If you already know one, use that.