Pathfinder Creature Parser - Alpha release

Hmm...well, I disagree, but it's your parser! I think the blank line between paragraphs is actually very helpful when you have a long block of text, as it enables you to scan through quickly and find the section you're looking for. I've used this layout myself with several high-level monsters, and - like Blackfoot - I found that I preferred readability over less scrolling. Most abilities have more than a line or two of text, so the overhead of one more line per paragraph isn't that great. I realise that the original Pathfinder stat blocks don't have blank lines between abilities, but they have indented paras instead, which allows the quick visual scan to work.

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

Using the paragraph "<p>" tags is exactly what I originally used when I first started doing some formatting in the "other" tab. This creates a double new line - i.e. a blank line between each paragraph tag.

But, as mentioned above (post #155), for creatures with a lot of info in the other tab this results in a very long entry - which has to be scrolled through, even with a big window. It seemed clunky, so I removed the <p> for anything other than new sections.

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Having said that, I have started experimenting with format changes as part of the spell parsing functionality in V1.1 (next release). On the left is an example of the current format of "Cleric Spells Prepared" and on the right is the same creature with <p> tags between each spell level. I'd like to be able to reduce the spaces between each line, but I don't think this is possible in the FG formattedtext control.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...Formatting.JPG

And as a teaser, here is the spell tab for the same creature in V1.1. I still need to do coding for spontaneous spell casting and spell like abilities. And then lots and lots of testing.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...l%20Teaser.JPG

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Originally Posted by Callum

Hmm...well, I disagree, but it's your parser! I think the blank line between paragraphs is actually very helpful when you have a long block of text, as it enables you to scan through quickly and find the section you're looking for. I've used this layout myself with several high-level monsters, and - like Blackfoot - I found that I preferred readability over less scrolling. Most abilities have more than a line or two of text, so the overhead of one more line per paragraph isn't that great. I realise that the original Pathfinder stat blocks don't have blank lines between abilities, but they have indented paras instead, which allows the quick visual scan to work.

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I agree - blank lines between actual paragraphs is what is needed. But not blank lines between every new line/sub-section - which is what I was trying to explain regarding the <p> tags within the FG formattedtext control.

I'm really not going to do much work on this for a while. If you manage to come up with some good formatting without blank lines between sub-sections (i.e. don't just throw <p> tags everywhere) let me know the FG code and I'll look at it.


Thanks. :)

I hope I didn't come across as brusque and dismissive in the previous post? What I was trying to say was: I'll look at putting the <p> tags in sometime in the future, but what I'd really like is a way of doing new-lines without the extra blank line (like the HTML <br> tag). So, if anyone comes up with a way of doing this, please let me know.

Wow, that looks fantastic, Trenloe! If you can get it to automatically populate the Spells tab, that'll save a huge amount of time in getting the NPCs ready for play. You could also then keep the spells listing on the Other tab in its compact form - though I would put spaces either side of the dash that comes just before each level's list of spells, and maybe add a semicolon at the end of each level, too.

I'd still like to lose all the colons, and also the underlining except for section headings, but I can manually change those if you're going to do all the spells for me! ;)

Damn you, you've got me looking at options now... ;)

A couple of options that do compact down the spells without the blank line: the first is using a table, the second is using a list. I'm liking the list. :)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%20Options.JPG

Yes, I like the list, too - it seems odd when you first look at it, but makes sense when you get used to it. I notice that Blackfoot said earlier that he didn't like a bulleted spell list, though, and the table format is closer to the original.

I wouldn't put the spell levels in bold. You could try putting each entire line of spells in italics (eg from implosion to miracle).

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

Damn you, you've got me looking at options now... ;)

A couple of options that do compact down the spells without the blank line: the first is using a table, the second is using a list. I'm liking the list. :)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%20Options.JPG

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I like the list too.:)

Cheers,
SF

i just dont want to meet this monster - ever.

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Originally Posted by damned

i just dont want to meet this monster - ever.

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Oh, come on! Just Once. :D

Cheers,
SF