Severe Bug with 'Builder'

[MadBeardMan]

Hi All,

Started to use the internal Builder to convert 'A Cold Fire Within' for Chaosium.

After a good day on it I had converted 37 pages (should have done 3 x that) but I was learning and I found some pro's and con's compared to building a module using the official internal tool.

Pro's
Makes Data easier if there's only a few items, it lots of repetition then it's a bit quicker
Layout is easy and you can see it straight away, bit clunky how you add images in (via Assets/Create from Campaign Assets - not the builders fault)
Linking considerably easier and quicker
Ability to add LoS to maps without exporting and tinkering or building a module just for them

Con's
Much slower entering text, as no find/replace for bold on stats etc If it's plain text then it's as quick, but formatting is a terrible still.
Very fiddly creating tables, considerably easier using internal tool
No ability to create Story Records if you do the Ref Manual first

But I have to say it's great for the majority of people and it's very easy to see a WYSIWYG, though I'm a professional coder and like everything in script.

But today, it went horribly wrong. I've lost all of my work for today.

Last night I exported, looks good, but the Builder still had all my chapters, sub-chapters and pages. Though I noticed when I added a new page it would be locked by default.

So converted another 30 pages in half the time, exported and then quit FGU. I came back to FGU and then I re-loaded my Builder and I had lost all of my work for today! I was back to where I was last night. I opened up the db.xml for the campaign and it was all missing. No sign of it.

I opened up the Module I had exported and voila it had all the missing text/pages etc, huh, odd.

So I then renamed the .mod, a .zip and unzipped. I opened up the XML and discovered my work today wasn't in that module either! How can it show it on the screen in the mod if it's not part of it?

Finally, I went into the campaign folder, into the moduleDB (where it stores overrides) and there was a file called 'A Cold Fire Within.xml', a bit strange as I've not overridden any data, but opening up that .XML I found my missing text/pages.

I'll fix this and then try and re-create it, but looks like it doesn't like export and then carry on with builder, it's got its paths in a pickle.

Cheers,
MBM

[Zacchaeus]

I’m not seeing this and I’ve been using the builder since before release on a project.

It sounds to me like you started adding new stuff to the module rather than to the builder in your creation campaign. The fact that it wrote to the moduledb suggests editing a module rather than adding to the campaign files. But I’m pretty sure such as yourself wouldn’t make a basic error like that so it’s a little puzzling.

[MadBeardMan]

I’m not seeing this and I’ve been using the builder since before release on a project.

It sounds to me like you started adding new stuff to the module rather than to the builder in your creation campaign. The fact that it wrote to the moduledb suggests editing a module rather than adding to the campaign files. But I’m pretty sure such as yourself wouldn’t make a basic error like that so it’s a little puzzling.

Hi Zacc,

Thanks reply first, but it's still a Bug, because if I did it, someone else will do it, and all I did today was use the Builder, so why was that edited the module, rather than the campaign.xml? Surely it shouldn't do that at the time.

Plus I've never edited a module. Normally you can't edit modules, just stories.

I've fixed my data now, it's easy for me as I've built about 70 modules for FG.

Thanks,
MBM

[jharp]

Not a native solution but I just continued using author like before. It still works and the new functions eliminate the possibility of repeated work.

Jason

[MadBeardMan]

Not a native solution but I just continued using author like before. It still works and the new functions eliminate the possibility of repeated work.

Jason

Hi Jason,

I've never used Author myself, as I have an internal app for building modules that I've used for nearly 5 years. But I wanted to test Builder for this one book, just to see how it worked. I do know that other people have used Author, the Vampire Ruleset that I helped build used Author to create the reference manual so I know it's good.

Cheers,
MBM

[Moon Wizard]

You should never load a module in the development campaign that you are creating it in. You always inevitably end up editing the module version on accident; which does not get saved into the database.

If you insist on doing so, you'll have to be extra careful that you "always" open the reference manual for editing using the Builder button in the Modules window. Or, even better, set your module as read-only, and then you can't edit it.

Regards,
JPG