Sidebar button to access reference manuals?

[Vass_Dts]

On the note of reference manuals, isn't it high time that a dedicated button for reference manuals be placed in the sidebar? The way adventures now rely on Ref Manuals and the way us DMs now use the Ref Builder much more extensively as a byproduct of that for own home-brew stuff, it really is counter-productive that the Ref Manuals are hidden inside the Modules library.

[Zacchaeus]

On the note of reference manuals, isn't it high time that a dedicated button for reference manuals be placed in the sidebar? The way adventures now rely on Ref Manuals and the way us DMs now use the Ref Builder much more extensively as a byproduct of that for own home-brew stuff, it really is counter-productive that the Ref Manuals are hidden inside the Modules library.

I agree and it's in the pipe line as far as I know. However other things have a higher priority at the moment. (Having a button to open the refmanuals will be more complex since it would open the refmanuals for every loaded module - so some thought needs to go into how that would work)

[Trenloe]

I've moved these posts to their own thread as the original thread had little to do with this discussion. Please only post in another thread if it is 100% related to your question/issue. It's fine to start a new thread so please don't hijack other threads if only vaguely related.

[LordEntrails]

This is actually a really good suggestion for the Wish List, so that they can be tracked, searched, sorted and voted on by community members. http://fgapp.idea.informer.com/

That does not mean that a forum post isn't valuable for discussion. I suggest you do both, and place a link in each one to the other so that people vote on the Wish List and discuss here.

But a forum post alone is a poor means since it will soon get lost in the numerous forum threads.

[damned]

Agreed. It should be in the campaign tools somewhere.

[Lo Zeno]

Zacchaeus rightly points out that there are potentially lots of reference manuals to load, depending on the number of modules used, and definitely a button for each would make the sidebar massive; I'm spitballing here, but one thing that could be done is to add, in the module activation window, another button beside the "Load" and "Allow Player Load" button to choose whether I want the reference manual of that specific module available on the sidebar; it might default to "Yes" for Core Rules and Adventure modules, and to "No" for Supplement and everything else, which I think would cover most of the common scenarios.

[Trenloe]

What I envision this to be would be a single button that works similar to Story, Images, etc. - it will display a list of Reference Manuals in the activated modules, clicking on an entry will open that Reference Manual.

As an aside - you can always drag the links for frequently used Reference Manuals from the library to a hotkey slot for quick and easy access. Or drag the links to a story entry for a high-level table of contents to all Reference Manuals you want access to.

[Lo Zeno]

As an aside - you can always drag the links for frequently used Reference Manuals from the library to a hotkey slot for quick and easy access. Or drag the links to a story entry for a high-level table of contents to all Reference Manuals you want access to.

That's what I do right now, and I suspect what most people do; but they occupy precious hotkey slots, and while yes, there's a fairly large number of hotkeys (by using the various combinations of shift, alt, ctrl buttons) they are hard to navigate because only the "standard" 12 hotkeys are always visible, and scrolling through all the hotbars to find the reference manual you need is a decent waste of time, especially when...
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=59652&stc=1&d=1704456879
...one of these is the Player's Handbook, one of these is Xanathar's Guide to Everything, one of these is the adventure module and one of these I don't even remember which one I loaded. Probably DM's Guide but it's been a while since the adventure started. So I'd have to open all four to figure out which is which since they're all called the same, "Reference Manual".

[Zacchaeus]

That's what I do right now, and I suspect what most people do; but they occupy precious hotkey slots, and while yes, there's a fairly large number of hotkeys (by using the various combinations of shift, alt, ctrl buttons) they are hard to navigate because only the "standard" 12 hotkeys are always visible, and scrolling through all the hotbars to find the reference manual you need is a decent waste of time, especially when...
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=59652&stc=1&d=1704456879
...one of these is the Player's Handbook, one of these is Xanathar's Guide to Everything, one of these is the adventure module and one of these I don't even remember which one I loaded. Probably DM's Guide but it's been a while since the adventure started. So I'd have to open all four to figure out which is which since they're all called the same, "Reference Manual".

You do know that you can right click over a hotbar slot and rename the slot right?

[Lo Zeno]

You do know that you can right click over a hotbar slot and rename the slot right?

I did not.
One of the many things that I haven't figured out despite reading the whole FGU manual back and forth six times.

Still doesn't alleviate the fact that if it's not in the "standard" hotkey bar it's not visible until I press the correct combination of shift, ctrl and alt.

[Trenloe]

Still doesn't alleviate the fact that if it's not in the "standard" hotkey bar it's not visible until I press the correct combination of shift, ctrl and alt.
That's up to the individual user to organize their own hotkey setup - put reference manuals under the CTRL hotbar, for example so you know where the reference manuals are - and as Zacchaeus mentions, you can rename the links so you know which one is which.

Otherwise I'm confused by this comment because, yes, that's how the hotkey bar works - unless you have a particular suggestion for hotkey bar functionality?

Anyway, my mentioning the hotkey bar was to give users quick access solutions they could use right now. I think a sidebar button to access all reference manuals is a good idea - but I don't think anyone's added it to the wishlist?

[Lo Zeno]

Otherwise I'm confused by this comment because, yes, that's how the hotkey bar works - unless you have a particular suggestion for hotkey bar functionality?

Nothing like that, it was just to show that there would be some added value in finding a dedicated spot for the reference manuals in the sidebar, maybe under the Campaign banner. How much is that added value and if it's worth pursuing this idea is probably very subjective.

[Vass_Dts]

Nothing like that, it was just to show that there would be some added value in finding a dedicated spot for the reference manuals in the sidebar, maybe under the Campaign banner. How much is that added value and if it's worth pursuing this idea is probably very subjective.

You mentioned hotkey bar initially, so he thought you meant something else.

[Vass_Dts]

Now, on to the main topic.

There are currently two issues in my mind.

One: if you need a reference manual, you have to open library modules, click your loaded module, and then click on the reference manual itself to open it. I know ppl who don't even know most modules have reference manuals.

This is indeed alleviated by dragging frequently accessed modules in the hotkey bar (as I have done for the PHB and DMG) or in an improvised master index of sorts, in a story entry containing said links (including specific Ref Manual pages).

But this status quo breaks the conventions of the FGU interface, where important stuff have a place in the sidebar. This didn't use to be an issue when ref manuals were a bit of an extra in a way. But since adventures rely on them exclusively (and I applaud that change), it feels extremely weird and out of touch with the rest of the interface to have to look for them in modules library.

I envisioned a sidebar button/category (whether under Library or Under Campaingns--the former makes more sense in my head) that's like the story entries, but contains links to all the ref manuals from the loaded modules. I assume it would the pull the 'reference manual' entry from the module, and rename it in that list with the name of its module.

Two: The ref builder. When we create our own modules, there is only one place we can open the builder: from within library's dedicated button for it. Now, you can drag a link for individual articles and navigate from there, but if you want to open the full thing with its Contents sidebar, that's the only place you can do that. Making that button a draggable link would help immensely.