Extension's

[houseofdexter]

Now that my extension collections are getting very large. It's hard to know what extension you are really loading in FGU Launcher. It would be nice if we could get more detail on the extension in the loader. As this is not really part of FGU, I don't really understand why this part has been ignored. Maybe a window that opens when you hover over the extension with detail like the Author, file name, version, what games it' written for, knowing if it came from forge or other...

[Zacchaeus]

If you are struggling with figuring out what extensions are doing then you are probably using too many. Try to only use a select few extensions and make sure you know exactly what they do; don't just install extensions willy nilly.

Extensions will only appear on the selection list if they are relevant to the ruleset you have selected for each campaign. You can view what you have subscribed to in your account on the Forge. Additionally most extensions will give you a note in chat when you load up a campaign giving you a version number and some details as to what they do. Adding a system where mousing over an extension in the list to get a tooltip would be problematic since that's not something the extension author would be able to do and so it would fall on SW and the resources to do that are just not available,

[houseofdexter]

The problem is I have a couple that have names that are very similar...and it's hard to figure out which extension is linked to what file...Just getting the filename and name would be helpful.

[LordEntrails]

Please add to the wish list if its not already there. Link in Mr Z's signature :)

[Sterno]

If you are struggling with figuring out what extensions are doing then you are probably using too many. Try to only use a select few extensions and make sure you know exactly what they do; don't just install extensions willy nilly.

Extensions will only appear on the selection list if they are relevant to the ruleset you have selected for each campaign. You can view what you have subscribed to in your account on the Forge. Additionally most extensions will give you a note in chat when you load up a campaign giving you a version number and some details as to what they do. Adding a system where mousing over an extension in the list to get a tooltip would be problematic since that's not something the extension author would be able to do and so it would fall on SW and the resources to do that are just not available,

“If you are struggling with figuring out what extensions are doing then you are probably using too many” isn't a very satisfying answer for someone who has a lot of extensions and is having trouble figuring out which is which when it comes time to select one. He doesn’t want to use less so as not to be confused… he just wants to not be confused! It smacks of the type of "just avoid holding your phone that way" response to people who had iPhone problems when they held it a certain way.

As for feasibility, extension authors already have a spot in the extension.xml where they enter text that could be used in the tooltip description (or wherever it might appear). It doesn't seem like it would be terribly difficult to read that and load it in a tooltip. SW resource are what they are, and you're probably right that this won't make the priority list, but I gotta say, it feels bad as a user to make a suggestion or report for the tool and have people immediately respond with essentially "You're just using it wrong and the devs don't have time to deal with that" before a dev even comments.

[Zacchaeus]

Perhaps I misread or read too much into what the user meant when they said it was hard to know what extensions were being loaded since the user has to select them before they launch the campaign and they announce themselves in chat on loading. I took that to mean that they'd added a whole bunch of extensions without really reading or understanding how they affected FGU. In which case my advice is sound. Don't load a bunch of extensions unless you know what they are doing and you want to have whatever it is they do in your game.

However if I have misunderstood the problem then my apologies.

[damned]

"You're using too many and that's why it's confusing!" isn't a very satisfying answer for someone who has a lot of extensions and is having trouble figuring out which is which when it comes time to select one. He knows it's confusing. That's why he's filing this suggestion! It smacks of the type of "just avoid holding your phone that way" response to people who had iPhone problems when they held it a certain way.

As for feasibility, extension authors already have a spot in the extension.xml where they enter text that could be used in the tooltip description (or wherever it might appear). It doesn't seem like it would be terribly difficult to read that and load it in a tooltip. SW resource are what they are, and you're probably right that this won't make the priority list, but I gotta say, it feels bad as a user to make a suggestion or report for the tool and have people immediately respond with essentially "You're just using it wrong and the devs don't have time to deal with that" before a dev even comments.

Strawman. Dont quote someone else and then deliberately misquote them.
Its not a satisfying answer but the Devs do recommend you dont load lots of extensions.

Someone, Im guessing the OP has taken the suggestion and added it to the wishlist.

https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=137877

[Sterno]

My misquote was a summary to show the part I was responding about. Are you saying that I was fundamentally wrong with my characterization there in my misquote? Is “if you’re struggling you have too many loaded” really different enough from “you’re using too many and that’s why it’s confusing” that you feel the whole thing became a strawman? Really?

And it’s not just loaded extensions that are the problem… it’s everything in your extensions folder that’s available to be loaded. I’m pretty sure they say not to load too many extensions for conflict/performance reasons, not “our UI is badly designed to let you know which is which” reasons. If it is the latter, I mean, that’d be a pretty sad thing, right? When users complain about softwares UX/UI, that’s valuable feedback about how to make your software more accessible and appeal to more users, not a reason to tell them they’re doing it wrong.

There a big pattern on these forums of people saying “I don’t like thing <x> about FG. Here’s what I think could improve it…” and it being met with people saying “Oh, that’s not really a problem, just don’t do that thing you’re doing!”

It is a problem, for them. That’s why they posted. I agree that telling people to add it to the wishlist is appropriate. Telling them “just don’t do that” kinda misses the point of their complaint, though.

[damned]

Your misquote was not accurate.
You cant misquote someone and use that to argue against what they actually said.

Thats exactly what I am saying.
if you want to read more into it thats your call.

[Ulric]

I agree the extension window on the load screen is too small to easily find and read the extension names. Adjusting the size of the window to make it easier for a user to read is a useability improvement not a feature request. There are plenty of people that responsibly use large amounts of extensions in their campaigns, so suggesting the player needs to use fewer extensions when the just want to see basic information about what they are loading should not be the solution. I would like to have a search field that allows me to type the name of the extension to find any matches and I might make a wish request for that feature to be added.

[Sterno]

Your misquote was not accurate.
You cant misquote someone and use that to argue against what they actually said.

Thats exactly what I am saying.
if you want to read more into it thats your call.

Fine, since it bothers you, I’ll go edit it out. Everything else in that post still applies. The entire point of my post was that telling someone to just not do the thing that there’s a bad user experience for is the problem. The presence of the “misquote” or lack thereof is irrelevant to that point.

[LordEntrails]

Usability improvements & feature requests all go on the Wish List. They can certainly also be discussed on the forums as well, and hopefully they will be linked in both directions.

One should also realize that the proliferation of extensions is a relatively new thing. Its one of the causes that resulted in the creation of the Forge. The UI has yet to be updated to account for such. Vote for the idea, and give it time to be for it to be worked on. Also note that UI enhancements of this nature are probably going to be heavily dependent upon the extension developers updating their extensions with additional information, something many of them might not bother to do.

[houseofdexter]

I do have a batch of extensions...and I haven't been having problems with them, but when they don't work correctly...it can be a pain spot trying to figure out who is the culprit...when you hardly get any information from the loading screen on who the author and what extension filename is...

[Zarestia]

but when they don't work correctly...it can be a pain spot trying to figure out who is the culprit...when you don't get hardly any information from the loading screen on who the author and what extension filename is...

Even with the author name and filename a "normal" person probably won't figure out what extension clashes with another one.
I'd rather ask: What do you inted to do with the author name and extension file name? In what way would they help you?

From where did you get your extensions? You must have downloaded them from somewhere (Forge, forum). The author is always listed in the Forge or forum thread. Most extension file names are the same as the extension name listed in the load/create campaign menu (unless they are encrypted in the vault).

[houseofdexter]

I might be unique in that I also have different types of extensions for different types of campaigns. I have my default 5e extensions, I have extensions that are meant for pathfinder, and I have extensions on designing my modules. There is no organization ability for extensions and the loader gives you the bare minimum of info. The beauty on adding more functionality on the loader is that it shouldn't effect or break anyone's extensions or modules.

[houseofdexter]

Even with the author name and filename a "normal" person probably won't figure out what extension clashes with another one.
I'd rather ask: What do you inted to do with the author name and extension file name? In what way would they help you?

From where did you get your extensions? You must have downloaded them from somewhere (Forge, forum). The author is always listed in the Forge or forum thread. Most extension file names are the same as the extension name listed in the load/create campaign menu (unless they are encrypted in the vault).

With the author and filename...I can at least figure out where I got the extension, i.e. Forge or DmsGuild. I can also figure out what campaign the extension is meant for. Even without the author...I can figure out if it came from DmsGuild and if didn't come from DmsGuild, it must be Forge then.

[Zacchaeus]

The beauty on adding more functionality on the loader is that it shouldn't effect or break anyone's extensions or modules.

I'm afraid it will. Extensions overwrite the code of a ruleset; so if you load in one extension which does something it overwrites a part of the existing ruleset to do what it needs to do. If you load in another extension then there is a chance that it will overwrite the same part of the code that the first is also overwriting. Thus you may get a conflict - which may throw an error - or if it doesn't may cause either or both extensions to not work as expected. And it may not be all that noticeable that things are going wrong. Knowing who wrote the extension and the name of the file isn't going to help you in deciding which extension is causing an issue nor will it help to track down which extensions might be conflicting. There's really nothing you could add to the extension list by way of tooltip or any other method which would allow you to know that an extension is broken or will conflict with another extension, or indeed just doesn't do what you think it does. Many extensions require extensive documentation to tell you what you need to know about them and the only place you'll find that is wherever you downloaded the extension from - either the forge or the forums or the DMsGuild. Reading the threads in the forums can sometimes help in tracking down conflicts where they get reported by users.

But all this is really hypothetical to some extent. I suspect that you have encountered some kind of issue but haven't really said what that issue is. Perhaps if you could give us some examples of what is not working for you then we may be in a better position to help.

[houseofdexter]

Most extension file names are the same as the extension name listed in the load/create campaign menu (unless they are encrypted in the vault).

If that was the case I wouldn't be having this problem.

[houseofdexter]

I'm afraid it will. Extensions overwrite the code of a ruleset; so if you load in one extension which does something it overwrites a part of the existing ruleset to do what it needs to do. If you load in another extension then there is a chance that it will overwrite the same part of the code that the first is also overwriting. Thus you may get a conflict - which may throw an error - or if it doesn't may cause either or both extensions to not work as expected. And it may not be all that noticeable that things are going wrong. Knowing who wrote the extension and the name of the file isn't going to help you in deciding which extension is causing an issue nor will it help to track down which extensions might be conflicting. There's really nothing you could add to the extension list by way of tooltip or any other method which would allow you to know that an extension is broken or will conflict with another extension, or indeed just doesn't do what you think it does. Many extensions require extensive documentation to tell you what you need to know about them and the only place you'll find that is wherever you downloaded the extension from - either the forge or the forums or the DMsGuild. Reading the threads in the forums can sometimes help in tracking down conflicts where they get reported by users.

But all this is really hypothetical to some extent. I suspect that you have encountered some kind of issue but haven't really said what that issue is. Perhaps if you could give us some examples of what is not working for you then we may be in a better position to help.

What I'm asking has nothing to do with what extension is being loaded. This information is all preload. It's about getting information to decide if I should load this extension. The more information I can get from the extension the more it will help me. It will not break anyone's extension or module if this is done in the loader.

Note I don't think you are understanding why I'm asking this. My issue is organizational. I have lots of extensions. There are batch's of extensions that are not meant to be used in my 5e campaign. Some are for my test environment, some of them are meant for my pathfinder campaign, and some are for my designing. When everything is working no problem, but when something breaks, it can be a pain point on finding out what extension and where it came from.

[LordEntrails]

I get the need. I see two areas that you are interested in.

Organization - Perhaps ability to group or categorize extensions. The only current functionality FG has around this is per ruleset. Extensions can (and should) be marked by the developer as to what ruleset they are available in/for. Organization by folder or such would have its own challenges.

GUI Information Display - Having the GUI display more information about the extension. Right now, the only things I think are accessible to FG is (assuming the extension developer included the tag in the extension); extension name, file name, version, author, description, ruleset, loadorder. Their is a substantial amount of info that could be included, if the GUI had a way to display it, and the developers actually add that info.

Note, if you have "sets" of extensions you like to load, their is a xml file in the campaign that you can copy between campaigns. So tat when you create a new campaign you can copy this file to your new campaign and have all your extensions set to be loaded.

[Moon Wizard]

From historical experience, other than the display name (for launcher), raw extension name and raw file name; the rest of the information is sporadic and unreliable.

The full extension display name can already be seen in the launcher UI by hovering over entry. If the extension display name is not sufficient, please reach out to the developer to have them improve the display name. We already ask them to prefix display name by extension type (Dev/Feature/Setting/Theme), as well as the ruleset if specific to a ruleset.

Regards,
JPG

[houseofdexter]

I get the need. I see two areas that you are interested in.

Organization - Perhaps ability to group or categorize extensions. The only current functionality FG has around this is per ruleset. Extensions can (and should) be marked by the developer as to what ruleset they are available in/for. Organization by folder or such would have its own challenges.

GUI Information Display - Having the GUI display more information about the extension. Right now, the only things I think are accessible to FG is (assuming the extension developer included the tag in the extension); extension name, file name, version, author, description, ruleset, loadorder. Their is a substantial amount of info that could be included, if the GUI had a way to display it, and the developers actually add that info.

Note, if you have "sets" of extensions you like to load, their is a xml file in the campaign that you can copy between campaigns. So tat when you create a new campaign you can copy this file to your new campaign and have all your extensions set to be loaded.

Yes...you get it...thanks for the .xml idea...

[houseofdexter]

From historical experience, other than the display name (for launcher), raw extension name and raw file name; the rest of the information is sporadic and unreliable.

The full extension display name can already be seen in the launcher UI by hovering over entry. If the extension display name is not sufficient, please reach out to the developer to have them improve the display name. We already ask them to prefix display name by extension type (Dev/Feature/Setting/Theme), as well as the ruleset if specific to a ruleset.

Regards,
JPG

The raw filename would be nice...

[LordEntrails]

Perhaps the tool tip could be changed to a box, that includes those properties that are defined. Though not sure how performance on more than the filename would be.

[Sterno]

I'm afraid it will. Extensions overwrite the code of a ruleset; so if you load in one extension which does something it overwrites a part of the existing ruleset to do what it needs to do. If you load in another extension then there is a chance that it will overwrite the same part of the code that the first is also overwriting.

I think you might be misunderstanding his problem. He's trying to find out all this information at the campaign selection screen, well before the campaign itself or any extension is loaded. I'm pretty sure this is the screen he's talking about where he'd like to be able to get more information about the extension:

https://i.imgur.com/qGI90wV.png

[houseofdexter]

Ok...I was in development of loading, decompressing, and reading the extension.xml

The properties information would be very useful:

<properties>
<name>MNM Charsheet Effects Display</name>
<version>4</version>
<author>Mad Nomad Media</author>
<description>MNM Charactersheet Effects Display - DMsGuild Version</description>
<ruleset>
<name>CoreRPG</name>
</ruleset>
<ruleset>
<name>5E</name>
</ruleset>
</properties>

Smiteworks has thrown a monkey wrench in my program. Forge can place the extension in the vault directory in a *.dat file. The problem is that these zip files are password protected. I assume this is by developers request.

[LordEntrails]

Smiteworks has thrown a monkey wrench in my program. Forge can place the extension in the vault directory in a *.dat file. The problem is that these zip files are password protected. I assume this is by developers request.
Yes, some developers wish to protect their intellectual property. Others chose not to. If their is something you need such to resolve an extension conflict, you can always ask the develop of the extension that is protected for help.

[houseofdexter]

Yes, some developers wish to protect their intellectual property. Others chose not to. If their is something you need such to resolve an extension conflict, you can always ask the develop of the extension that is protected for help.

It gets back to not having enough information at the load screen about the extensions. No way to organize, group, information from the extension, and tag additional information outside of what the developer gives you.

This really came to light with the extensions that were broken by Smiteworks with the getActor being deprecated.

Also it would be nice to have a way to prerun/precompile an extension to see if it's compatible with the current FGU.

[LordEntrails]

Sorry, I misunderstood the context of your post from earlier today. As Moon said earlier, much of the info you are looking for relies upon the extension developers to include it right? And as we know, that is a challenge to get everyone to include.