Story Book navigation reworked

[Urieldhynne]

Hi. After the recent change that groups the entire chapter into a single page, I've encountered several issues:

Many modules (including custom ones that I don't want to write again) now have broken formatting.

Editing is unreliable: some layouts can't be moved or adjusted properly.

Performance has dropped to the ground in large chapters, even on a R9 5900X.

I'm not sure if grouping the whole chapter in one page is an intended change of the new structure or a bug. Is there any way to restore the previous FGU version? In its current state, it's unfortunately unusable for me.

[Zacchaeus]

Can you give some examples of what you mean by some layouts have broken formatting; and also what you mean by layouts can't be moved or adjusted properly?

Grouping chapters onto one page is not a bug and is intended.

[Urieldhynne]

I used AI to fix grammar and errors:

In modules like Dolmenwood, which aren’t locked and can be edited, I could change whatever I needed to add my notes — modifying layouts, moving them up or down. That no longer works. Same issue with my own modules: even if they’re unlocked, I have to duplicate the story entry to make any changes.

In modules like DCC, the book is a mess — it's all double-columned, with each column duplicated throughout, plus some errors.

Regarding the grouped chapters… the problem is that some books have very long chapters with tons of text, tables, and entries. It’s impossible to resize the windows, and extremely hard to read — they were originally built to work under the previous system, not this new layout or grouping format. That’s the core issue: I now have to rework every book in my own modules, and I don't know if the ones I've bought will ever be “optimized.” And even if someone does optimize them, they're still way too slow — even the smaller ones.

I have a strong PC (and it's struggling), but my players have weak setups — they can't handle this. If a chapter is long enough, it basically freezes their entire system. Reading a book becomes impossible unless you break it up into subchapters every 5 small pages...

I’m not sure what the point of this change is, but it’d be great to at least have an option to disable chapter grouping.

[Urieldhynne]

I want to add, "D&D Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse", the Bestiary, is impossible to handle, is a chapter with 250+ NPC with text, tables and images in one single book page... not even my 5900x can handle it, I can't even resize the windows without freezing my PC.

Maybe the module is updated and reformatted with all the other modules. As I said, an option to avoid "Chapter Grouping" would be fantastic. Is not nice to read and is hard to handle.

[Zacchaeus]

I'm not familar with either Dolmenwood or DCC but you can still move layouts around. If you unlock any of the pages you'll see a small brown symbol to the right of the header that you can use to move elements around (Click, and drag to where you want them). You can also use the copy page and paste into a new page; and you can still move pages around by unlocking the index and using the small up/down arrows to move pages up or down (Shift Click will move to top/bottom; CTRL Click will move up or down 5 places).

I agree that the Mordenkainen chapter you mention does struggle a bit; it does take a few seconds to open the page and resizing it takes a while as well. That's one that might need some optimizing by splitting that one chapter into several subchapters. Any other sizeable modules I've tested (like Dungeon of the Mad Mage) don't have any issues that I've seen.

I believe that the point of the change is to make things easier to read on a phone presaging the upcoming reader app.

[Urieldhynne]

I know, but it’s not up to me to optimize every module—I simply can't. Either they're blocked, or the edit feature doesn’t work properly, at least for me. Moving things with the small brown box does nothing in the modules I've tested (the unlocked ones), and adding new elements sometimes changes the order of existing items on the page—probably a bug.

To be honest, many modules still have significant issues before this. I'm not sure if every book will eventually be reformatted for this new layout. Books like Mordenkainen aren’t just slow—they freeze the PC for some people. It needs to be agile, not a pain to open or resize in a program where windows are central to the interface IMO.

I ended up using PDFs on a second monitor to build my session, and I’m considering migrating at least a few things to another platform while this gets fixed or rolled back. But it’s really hard to manage, and I don’t see how it can work unless the entire community reworks every module into a new format.

An app would be great if you could actually play there, it's already hard enough convincing new people to download a program and play on PC. But if it's just for reading books… I don’t know. I really don’t see the point. I hope you can play in the app because I love FG and is already really hard to get people into, mostly because the needed of download something and play on PC sadly, and more now if it runs poorly.

At least, can you check if the problem editing things works fine or is just me? I mean, I see the brown boxes and I can move them, but nothing happens if it is a module, it works fine if I make a copy of the story entry tho.

[Zacchaeus]

I posted the moving elements not working in a separate thread here https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?85526-Story-Issues-(or-maybe-not)

[LordEntrails]

You may be able to go back to the previous build by using the Prev Channel on the settings and running an Update. But since this is a minor version release (4.8.x) all of your players will also have to do this as well.

[GrumpyGramp]

I will have to figure out how not to have that update. I also received news from my players that their computer cannot handle the "super good" new feature, and they would like to switch to a stable VTT. I also lost a significant amount of work on broken modules and extensions that can no longer function. It made me tired. I understand that the update is for a new customer base, and letting some go is probably the right choice.

[ddavison]

Thanks for sharing your feedback and specific examples of what is not working for you.

I would request that you give us some time to work through the issues. We always plan a week or so of hot-fixes and minor adjustments whenever we have a major release and we can normally find a good solution to issues presented. We performed internal testing and had it in the TEST channel for several weeks and these were not discovered during that period. With your feedback, we have some solid test cases we can work with to find a solution. I would not recommend rebuilding all your modules at this point until we finalize how it will work going forward.

[Jiminimonka]

I will have to figure out how not to have that update. I also received news from my players that their computer cannot handle the "super good" new feature, and they would like to switch to a stable VTT. I also lost a significant amount of work on broken modules and extensions that can no longer function. It made me tired. I understand that the update is for a new customer base, and letting some go is probably the right choice.

Nothing is lost, there are backups of the db.xml files in your campaign folders. Restore those (make backups first) once the bugs are fixed.

Also, it is patch day (every Tuesday), and a big update rolled out too. Not really an unstable VTT. Usually after a big update (because only 5 people actually bother to use Test channel to Test and break new features) it takes a few days to iron out bugs.

[Urieldhynne]

Thanks for sharing your feedback and specific examples of what is not working for you.

I would request that you give us some time to work through the issues. We always plan a week or so of hot-fixes and minor adjustments whenever we have a major release and we can normally find a good solution to issues presented. We performed internal testing and had it in the TEST channel for several weeks and these were not discovered during that period. With your feedback, we have some solid test cases we can work with to find a solution. I would not recommend rebuilding all your modules at this point until we finalize how it will work going forward.

I will.

I know these types of changes takes time to adjust, I see some hotfix has been pushed but those fixes now broken other of my modules. Dolmenwood Campaign boos is useless now, there is A LOT of missing columns (it was working in the morning).

I guess the benefit of this change is for the app, because I don't see, at least right now, any benefit for the users. The way books were composed was for the old format, you can just hide the index, make the window smaller and change pages with buttons... long endless scroll down isn't better IMO and is very slow even in short chapters.

But well, lets see.

EDIT: Missing columns was fixed by Moon Wizard.

[Moon Wizard]

@Urieldhynne,

I'm working on helping the Dolmenwood developer with some adjustments needed for the NPC sheet; but I haven't heard any reports about Dolmenwood campaign book.
I just opened up a Dolmenwood test campaign, and loaded up the 3 main modules. I'm not seeing any issues with the Campaign Book there.
Could you point me to an example of where it is broken?

Also, are you running any extensions?

Regards,
JPG

[Moon Wizard]

Think I might have found the issue, and pushed a fix. Can you run a new Check for Updates, and let me know if you still see issue? (If yes, an example location would be great.)

Regards,
JPG

[Urieldhynne]

Thanks, the issue is gone. Dolmenwood books and others with that issue has been fixed and the NPC sheet looks great now.