Ruleset documentation available

[Goblin-King]

The first version of the ruleset documentation has been released.

The documentation is divided into two sections:

The Ruleset Modification Guide (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/modguide/) is a manual type of document, explaining how to get started and the operation of the mechanics of the ruleset, along with some examples of the most common definitions.

The XML and Scripting Reference (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/) is a reference document, containing one page per each element available and containing all the parameters and functions available.

These documents will be available through a dedicated documentation section on this site after the user guide is released.

We would like to develop the document further, and thus hear any input on the documentation.
Subjects needing more explanation and subjects that are not covered in sufficient detail
Sections that are confusing or where the explanation is unclear
Obvious mistakes or typos causing examples to fail or points to be misunderstood

[sunbeam60]

Sweet, this is awesome. TY!

[Dachannien]

Fantastic! Looking forward to reading through it when I have the chance. :)

[robertsconley]

.
Subjects needing more explanation and subjects that are not covered in sufficient detail


I would like to see a tutorial covering a creation of a ruleset from scratch. Now I know RPGs can get pretty complex. My suggestion is for something that would be a tutorial that would have a character sheet with name, background, possessions, and using a combat tracker. Plus adding custom die types like (3d6, 2d6, 1d100) that are common to other RPGs.

It would result in sort of a generic ruleset that would be statless and be of somewhat useful to any RPG.

After the tutorial the author could build up the character sheet to include stats and other pertinent game information.

I know some parts of my proposal are vague because I still figuring out what is exactly added to to Fantasy Grounds by a rule set. I.e. what icons along the right hand side are controlled by fantasy grounds and what controlled by the ruleset.

Again the ruleset would be a generic package useful for any rpgs.

[FlatNineSharpFive]

My suggestion is for something that would be a tutorial that would have a character sheet with name, background, possessions, and using a combat tracker. Plus adding custom die types like (3d6, 2d6, 1d100) that are common to other RPGs.
...

It would result in sort of a generic ruleset that would be statless and be of somewhat useful to any RPG.

After the tutorial the author could build up the character sheet to include stats and other pertinent game information.

I agree. I'd really love something to help me create a True20 character sheet.

[Dachannien]

A couple things I've noticed so far:

The documentation for a message passed to a chatwindow is incomplete. Looking at the d20 scripts, it's clear that there are many more fields that the functions like deliverMessage can handle than are described on the chatwindow (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/chatwindow.xcp) page. (I'm also having problems getting those functions to work - it complains about "invalid messagedata" - but that's another story.)

The documentation for windowcontrol seems to be in error. The onDrop event handler is only passed three parameters (the button parameter is not included).

[DrDeth]

This is excellent work from the Devs - thanks guys!

However, as pertinent as the information in the RuleSet Modification Guide is, it is more of a companion to the reference documentation rather than a 'step-by-step' guide - which Im sure a lot of people need and want. Dont get me wrong - its excellent and exactly the kind of information I've been waiting for, but I think that there should be more - perhaps a "RuleSet Creation Tutorial" - as some of the other guys said.

Something else I would like to see is a "These are the elements/tags/files that are absolutely required in your ruleset" ... for example, pretty much all of the tags in the gameelements.xml file.

[sozin]

great stuff!

goblin king, can we expect to see xsd schema definitions, or are we going to have to reverse engineer it?

[Traygin]

Many thanks on geting the Doc's out.

[Malovech]

Two things.


1) Add search functionality to the reference and the guide


2) Details on the method getModifier(). This doesn't appear to be a custom function and so I assume it is a method built into the engine. Details on the <modifiercontrol> would also be very helpful.

Thanks,

Mal

[DrDeth]

As far as I can tell, <modifiercontrol> is based on the 'modifiernumber' number template, and the getModifier() function is defined in 'template_modifiernumber.lua'

[Malovech]

Thanks Dr. Deth, that helps. That also shows that my Dreamweaver needs to be properly configured to recognize lua files. I did a full search in my custom ruleset folder and it didn't find getModifier() in any file but charsheet_template.xml. This sheds a lot of light for me now!

[DrDeth]

Is there an error in the RuleSet Modification Guide with regards to icons??

On the Resources page of the guide, it says the icon tag looks like this:

<icon name="button_maps">icons/button_maps.png</icon>

But, all of the icons in the d20 ruleset look like this:

<icon name="dmdieicon" file="icons/dmdie_icon.png" />

I've also noticed inconsistencies in the way certain elements refer to things. For example, in the gameelements.xml the frame is referenced in different ways by different 'controls' - some with attributes, some with values...


<pollbox>
<frame name="diebox" />
...

<hotkeybar>
<frame>hotkeybox</frame>
...


Is there a reason?

[Foen]

I have also seen this with <tabtarget>, both the following work:


<tabtarget>
<next>nextcontrol</next>
<prev>prevcontrol</prev>
</tabtarget>

and


<tabtarget next='nextcontrol' prev='prevcontrol'/>

The second is much neater!

Stuart
(Foen)

[Nilliom]

Could we have the RuleSet documentation and the user guide as PDF files. These can be read more easily offline.

Thanks

[Toadwart]

I *think* the differences are because some of them are still using the old FG1 syntax.
Which seems to be accepted for some node types but not others (stringcontrol really threw me as it's still a valid node name but isn't linked to a database node, have to use stringfield instead)

[sloejack]

Could we have the RuleSet documentation and the user guide as PDF files. These can be read more easily offline.

I'm not sure if this is a function of IE7, Office 2007, or Acrobat but I have an option to export web pages from my browser to word, excel, and acrobat. This is what I did and then cleaned up/edited from there.

[Goblin-King]

The officially preferred way of defining things now is to use elements instead of attributes. In many places, where the FG1 syntax (using an attribute) is equivalent to the FG2 syntax (using a child element with the same name), that is still allowed in order to ease the transfer at least a little bit.

The reference documentation should in most cases be the "right" way of doing things.

[Master]

Has this documentation already been released as an offline version? I normally program things like this at work on my lunch our but my computer at work does not have an internet connection. I a have already placed fantasy grounds on the computer and started work on a rule set but without access the the documentation it is slow going. I can go page by page and capture the documentation but that will take a while. I just wanted to know if someone has already done this or if there is any official offline documentation already released?

[joshuha]

I believe there are also tools out there to capture every link from a certain level down into an offline browsable mode.

But in specific are you referring to the Modification Guide or the Reference or both?

[Oberoten]

I believe there are also tools out there to capture every link from a certain level down into an offline browsable mode.

But in specific are you referring to the Modification Guide or the Reference or both?

It would be VERY desireable to have a downloadable package of this allready put into a ZIP somewhere on the site. AKA, I too do a lot of my ruleset work offline.

[Master]

I believe there are also tools out there to capture every link from a certain level down into an offline browsable mode.

But in specific are you referring to the Modification Guide or the Reference or both?

I would think that there would be an offline downloadable package containing the Ruleset Modification Guide, Ruleset Reference and the User Guide. I did not find anything for any of those three. I will probably just capture them for personal off the website for personal use.

It might be something to consider for future versions. Not everyone has a broadband connection so connecting to a website to view the content can become tedious. A one stop download would solve a lot of headaches. I did notice that the demo v1.05 had a downloading User Guide. It must have stopped when the program switched to 2.0 and used a completely online instillation methodology.

[Stevenav]

How about two "quick start" sections at the begining of the manual?

One of the most singularly useful ways to get a person up and running with software is actually showing them HOW to use it from start to midpoint in a series of actions.

For example, the first quick start would be for GM's; "how you get a game going with your friends" and use the demo adventure. With screen shots of the action from start up until the game is rolling.

The second quick start would be from the Player prospective (using lite) and how you go from starting it up to seeing the game in a session.

I only suggest this because every other piece of software I've ever run into has a quick start guide, and not seeing one in the library is surprising.

[Stitched]

Your wish is my command.

Finally compiled all the online docs into a single downloadable package. While I didn't bookmark each and every component, it is at least broken into chapters like the online doc. (Search and Find in Foxit Reader, etc).

Currently being held here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3919708/FG2_Complete_Ruleset_Scripting.pdf



It would be VERY desireable to have a downloadable package of this allready put into a ZIP somewhere on the site. AKA, I too do a lot of my ruleset work offline.

[Oberoten]

Glory. This one goes on a memorystick RIGHT now.

- Obe

[drahkar]

Stitched, I could kiss you. This is fantastic.

[Stitched]

*blushes* well, thanks fellas!

When I have time, I will go in and add the command bookmarks but I think with most PDF readers (Foxit, Adobe), you can do a Find for text in the document so didn't really see the value in it.

Let me know if you find any weird formatting errors. Tried to fix the worst ones but may have missed some.

[SpudmanWP]

I am in the process of creating (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13849) a unified Help & Reference file that will include all the info that is included online. If the powers that be give me the "OK", I will publish it.

I am exporting it in four versions (a CHM, multi-frame HTML, word doc, and a PDF). All of the versions support cross-linking that allow you to jump around a doc without having to do too much scrolling.

I just started on Dec 15th so give me a few days to get the beta ready.

After the basic info is in, I will start to include code samples as I begin to understand it.

[SpudmanWP]

First full version complete in CHM and PDF.

The PDF has a complete TOC.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showpost.php?p=101602&postcount=4

[Bidmaron]

Thanks for the work on this. I look forward to the version with the internal links!

[SpudmanWP]

I have been (and still am) a little out of it with a small case of pneumonia.... It's getting better and I expect to continue work on it by the 1st week in Jan.

[SpudmanWP]

The first Release Candidate is ready with all internal links working.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showpost.php?p=101843&postcount=5

[Bidmaron]

Thanks for all your hard work on this, Spudman!