Community project proposal

[joshuha]

The new ruleset extensions sound like a great idea. However, one sort of downside is that at first they will be heavily ruleset dependent on base structures.

Smiteworks has given a note about this and sort of take a step to make a base ruleset modular using their new desktopmanager.lua file to manage the desktop icons as opposed to these being hard coded.

I am proposing a community project to take that all to the next level and make everything possible into a ruleset extensions with the base ruleset files only having what is absolutely needed.

I have a start on this with a base ruleset with everything d20 stripped out. However, this has to be updated with the files that changed in the new release and restrip out the d20 stuff. Once this is done we will have a base ruleset without d20 that we need to make modular. This means extracting everything out by logical objects into extensions. Thus the Story, NPC, combat tracker, chat, dice rules, etc. each need to be modularized to be able to be hot swapped easily. This also means developing new wrappers that can contain this information similar to the desktopmanager.lua file.

Obviously this is a lot of work but would provide the ultimate generic ruleset that could be easily tailored to a systems needs by applying the extensions that you want. Anyone want to join me in this effort? I would probably form a group over on the FourUglyMonsters site call FG Generic Ruleset once I have any volunteers.

[Bidmaron]

I haven't done any ruleset mods. I'm currently working on the FG2 Help library module, but I'd be interested in this. Would you lead it and assign your volunteers each a module?
--Dale--

[joshuha]

I haven't done any ruleset mods. I'm currently working on the FG2 Help library module, but I'd be interested in this. Would you lead it and assign your volunteers each a module?
--Dale--


There will be discussion to see the best approach to breaking this out.
Then be assign volunteers to break out those items out. This could also include just graphical work to make something copyright free.
Develop documentation on the structure and best practices when writing extensions for this generic ruleset.

[unerwünscht]

If it is an open project and includes a mandatory OGL or open source handler. (ie no one is allowed to take the code and sell it in any way) then you can count me in, and I will see about getting some of the people on our team in on it as well.

[Bidmaron]

I think developers should be able to use some of our work in their own rulesets. Not doing this defeats the purpose of having general-purpose plug-in's. The OGL part seems to be good, but I'd absolutely want new or updated rulesets to be based on the extensible modules. Or, perhaps, I am just totally not understanding what joshuha is proposing.
--Dale--

[Oberoten]

Would love to be part of this, but can't even get the extensions to work on the default d20 thing.

Also, could we possibly use something else than FUM for forum? The groups don't show up very well on the new-posts alternatives.

- Obe

[Ram Tyr]

Would love to be part of this, but can't even get the extensions to work on the default d20 thing.

Also, could we possibly use something else than FUM for forum? The groups don't show up very well on the new-posts alternatives.

- Obe
Have to agree with the comment about the problem that FUM has with the groups posts. Hopefully, it gets fixed sometime; but till then.... blah to the groups.

Later.

[Ram Tyr]

If it is an open project and includes a mandatory OGL or open source handler. (ie no one is allowed to take the code and sell it in any way) then you can count me in, and I will see about getting some of the people on our team in on it as well.
I think this is a good idea. People giving back to the FG community!

Later.

[Oberoten]

Okay. With the uninstall and reinstall of FG it now works as it should.

I'll join in on this if we can use the normal forums instead.

- Obe

[joshuha]

We can use normal forums and just start a thread here. Maybe Smiteworks will sticky the thread.

[Valarian]

I'm interested in joining. I'm no good on the graphics but I'm starting to get to grips with the code (I think :p).
The Attribution Share Alike (by-sa) Creative Commons license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) may be an idea for licensing the work.

[Goblin-King]

We have some plans related to this, I made a post (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9000) about them as well.

[Ram Tyr]

We have some plans related to this, I made a post (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9000) about them as well.
It seems that the community project suggested here could build on the smiteworks project suggested at the other thread. Goblin King, you should make clear whether you are suggesting replacing that project with this project.

Obviously, the smiteworks project seems to me like the responsible thing for smiteworks to do as a business model.

Planning for sibling projects (rather than replacing the community project) would allow those that will not volunteer if their work can be used for a commercial purpose to focus their efforts on the community project. The community project would be able to use the work of the smiteworks project if the licensing decisions are made correctly. Obviously, the opposite would not be true to prevent the use of community project mods in commercial projects.

It may be that most people will simply spend their efforts on whichever project is bigger, but I do not see a need to limit the other project.

Later.

[joshuha]

Currently I have a working ruleset that has no d20 information in it all. I have made basic character sheet with just a name field (same with NPC), a basic tracker with a name and init number field, removed the items and stripped all the OGL/d20 stuff from the headers.

I have rolled the character sheet, story component, NPC component, image component, and combat tracker over to extensions. I also verified without the extensions in place and removing the desktopmanager temporarily it still functions on a basic chat + die rolling level. I just now am thinking of a good way to make the desktopmanager check for the existence of each class to hide the icon if that class isn't loaded in an extension.

I predict by this weekend I could release something that could function as a "base" ruleset as opposed to a "generic" ruleset. Although there is room for debate of a "graphics" extension that can skin the whole ruleset or containing each element within its own to allow for easy replacement of one component. There may be a possibility to do both. Where the default would be the graphics included in the extension but a specially named extension could override the individual declarations. Thus allow people to say release their own sheet with graphics but someone else could come along and skin the whole ruleset and the GM could choose if they wanted the individual or global graphics.

[joshuha]

I just now am thinking of a good way to make the desktopmanager check for the existence of each class to hide the icon if that class isn't loaded in an extension.


Was thinking about this all wrong and found the easy way. Just remove all those declarations from the desktop file (in my case called BaseDekstop.lua) and just put them in the extension.

So now I am just thinking of best approach to organize the graphics. More thoughts for discussion on this later.