Generic Actions extension for Fantasy Grounds Unity 5E ruleset

Printable View

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

July 6th, 2020, 21:09
LordEntrails

Thanks :)

I don't disagree with how you envision grapple for your table. And if that makes sense and fun for your table,I'm all for it.

My take, for my table, is I try not to read intentions or implications into the rules. We don't worry about it (and many of us play with a 3.5E DM who does, and we find it tedious and inconsistent because he changes his house rules all the time). So for me, since RAW doesn't say it does anything else, then for us grapple is something that only reduces the speed to 0.

Their are some NPCs (roper & choker maybe?) that do more than just grapple a creature with an attack. And in those cases (if I remember correctly) they specify that they do more than just apply the grappled condition. And we're good with that :)
July 6th, 2020, 21:59
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordEntrails

Thanks :)

I don't disagree with how you envision grapple for your table. And if that makes sense and fun for your table,I'm all for it.

My take, for my table, is I try not to read intentions or implications into the rules. We don't worry about it (and many of us play with a 3.5E DM who does, and we find it tedious and inconsistent because he changes his house rules all the time). So for me, since RAW doesn't say it does anything else, then for us grapple is something that only reduces the speed to 0.

Their are some NPCs (roper & choker maybe?) that do more than just grapple a creature with an attack. And in those cases (if I remember correctly) they specify that they do more than just apply the grappled condition. And we're good with that :)

Oh I'm all for not making things tedious and calculation heavy. Why I write these extensions when I get annoyed at figuring things out and why I like FGU :)

I love it when I have to figure out why all the dice were rolling only to find after doing a forensics of chat - that yes, FGU knew to break the concentration, add advantage, etc. and was correct.

I'm essentially a lazy DM and like all these things magically done for me. And at some point I'll probably not even forensics the chat when I see mysterious extra dice flying out of some roll, I'll just say...

It knows what its doing :)

Here's to reaching that point someday!
July 8th, 2020, 16:57
4wire

Have we been violently cordial to one another? :)

Thanks for the update my man.
July 8th, 2020, 17:45
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4wire

Have we been violently cordial to one another? :)

Thanks for the update my man.

Indeed ;)

Let me know if it worked.
July 8th, 2020, 18:34
4wire

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentRuin

Indeed ;)

Let me know if it worked.

Works indeed!

Now for the extra comment/suggestions:
- I try to avoid double negatives in my workday code, something like "Apply Grappled Effect" ON/OFF may have been better UX but that is subjective.
- The IF statement where you check for the Conditions (e.g. line 170 to 178 of manager_generic_actions.lua) would make a nice little function and avoid repeating that chunk of code for all "verify" logic.

Feel free to ignore me, I'm a Sr. Software Manager, can't help myself.
July 8th, 2020, 19:59
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4wire

Works indeed!

Now for the extra comment/suggestions:
- I try to avoid double negatives in my workday code, something like "Apply Grappled Effect" ON/OFF may have been better UX but that is subjective.
- The IF statement where you check for the Conditions (e.g. line 170 to 178 of manager_generic_actions.lua) would make a nice little function and avoid repeating that chunk of code for all "verify" logic.

Feel free to ignore me, I'm a Sr. Software Manager, can't help myself.

:)

The option wording is subjective. But, when considered from my perspective, the one who has that OFF always and wants it considered an override to IGNORE the good and wholesome interpretation of those rules...

Well, you can see that it is correctly worded ;)

If you note one of the comments near the top of all the .lua code I've written, it might answer that observation on my lack of breaking out common "functionality" and even templates!

A more detailed answer is quite simple, I had to - and continue to have to - change things and experiment with things to the point I'm willing to duplicate things to make it easier to read at a glance what is going on in that area of the code. Not as clean, for sure, but ever so much more convenient when any of these may change from "identical operations" to unique.

Feel free to ignore me, I'm recently retired from 35 years of software development, just learning LUA for the first time :)
July 8th, 2020, 20:08
4wire

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentRuin

Feel free to ignore me, I'm recently retired from 35 years of software development, just learning LUA for the first time :)

I knew it! :)
July 28th, 2020, 14:19
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4wire

I knew it! :)

After running a session with my group yesterday - I've come around to your way of thinking so changed the default to ON so that grappled will allow attacks by default. To many NPC's can specifically attack while grappling someone - so if I have a need to prevent any attacks while grappled I can just set the options to off for that situation.

You won! ;)
July 28th, 2020, 16:40
mattekure

I enjoy the extension, but I am not clear on what all of the Options do. Specifically all fo the "Verify X" options. They all default to on. Can you make a post explaining what they are doing?
July 28th, 2020, 17:07
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

I enjoy the extension, but I am not clear on what all of the Options do. Specifically all fo the "Verify X" options. They all default to on. Can you make a post explaining what they are doing?

Sure - that bottom of DMsG for that extension you'll see

Quote:

There are also Generic Actions (GM) options for attacks and spell casting commands that prevent them from working if out of ammo (weapons only) or in a state (effect) that would not allow that action. If you set them to off and want the overrides to no longer be executed in code (done in onInit), then you will need to restart FGU (in case overriding these results handlers interfered with some other extension and you wanted them completely disabled not just off from the users perspective).

To translate,

Normally, you can attack anything. This annoyed me as I would always forget to track what state they were in and whether they actually could attack anything. So I added to every type of attack a check on their current effects to see if they could attack. Including a check on ammo.

So, If they are

Paralyzed
Stunned
Unconscious
Incapacitated
Petrified
(optionally grappled)

A message will pop up in chat telling them they can't attack because they have one of those effects.

I was worried that some people might not like this or it would interfere with other extensions and they would want to the ability to turn them off.

So for each type of attack (in the code, not really visible to you as the user) I gave an option to turn off the verification against those effects.

So basically in the code, you can turn off the overrides on the ruleset for each of those types of things (Attack, Cast, Cast Effect, Cast Save, Damage, Heal, Power Save). Each of those are actual pieces of code I'm overriding to make these checks. Probably should have just made one option that said "do verification on effects" or not. But at the time I was more worried about other extensions (I've now learned caring about other extensions is not really something extension writers do to much).

As far as the Ignore Grappled Effect - I had actually included grappled as one of those effects (with a big explanation of my reasoning earlier in this thread) where I eventually conceded to make an option so you did not have to have it.

Just today I changed it to default NOT to use grappled as one of those effect verification checks as I realized to many NPCs can have you grappled and still attack you. Hence, by default its no longer in the checks. Its worded really poorly because I wanted that effect as part of the checks as default - and I'm to lazy to make it any better now (working on other extension that's taken 4 weeks of hell but am closing in on it).
August 21st, 2020, 19:52
vaughnlannister

Hi Silentruin, not sure if you noticed, however unfortunatley the latest FGU update afflicts your extension, I get an error message "Unable to find extension".
While the extension is still in my extension folder.

Thank you for taking a look!
August 21st, 2020, 19:58
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by vaughnlannister

Hi Silentruin, not sure if you noticed, however unfortunatley the latest FGU update afflicts your extension, I get an error message "Unable to find extension".
While the extension is still in my extension folder.

Thank you for taking a look!

Yeah THANK you for confirming I'm not the only one seeing this. It's literally for every extension I get these errors. At least the one's I run which include Death Indicator. Please note in this thread that you have also seen this with this update. I have no idea what is going on.
August 21st, 2020, 20:08
mattekure

I tried it out and dug into your extension. The error is because your XML files have comments between the <xml declaration at the top and the <root tag. If you take out any comments between those, the extension loads just fine. This is due to the FGUnity xml parser being much more strict than the one from FG Classic. Classic allowed a number of things which are really bad xml, and just ignored it. Unity doesnt allow them.

If you want to include comments, just do it right after the opening <root tag. so they would look like.

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <root>  <whatever code>
August 21st, 2020, 20:13
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

I tried it out and dug into your extension. The error is because your XML files have comments between the <xml declaration at the top and the <root tag. If you take out any comments between those, the extension loads just fine. This is due to the FGUnity xml parser being much more strict than the one from FG Classic. Classic allowed a number of things which are really bad xml, and just ignored it. Unity doesnt allow them.

If you want to include comments, just do it right after the opening <root tag. so they would look like.

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <root>  <whatever code>

So the most recent update just killed it now? Ok - I can fix all that I guess. Let me give it a try. So 4 extensions I have to fix. Wondrous. Thanks much for the news. Please post that in this other thread.
August 21st, 2020, 20:18
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

I tried it out and dug into your extension. The error is because your XML files have comments between the <xml declaration at the top and the <root tag. If you take out any comments between those, the extension loads just fine. This is due to the FGUnity xml parser being much more strict than the one from FG Classic. Classic allowed a number of things which are really bad xml, and just ignored it. Unity doesnt allow them.

If you want to include comments, just do it right after the opening <root tag. so they would look like.

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <root>  <whatever code>

Let me make absolutely sure on this - your talking about where I started with Death Indicator and they had comments in all there XML's with something like this...

Code:



And I need to move that down into the root correct? Because I did copy that format assuming it was the way to go in ALL my xml files. Just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.
August 21st, 2020, 20:23
mattekure

Yes, this

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>  <root version="3.0">

Should look like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <root version="3.0"> 
August 21st, 2020, 20:33
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

Yes, this

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>  <root version="3.0">

Should look like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <root version="3.0"> 

Well crap - just moved all those in death indicator of which there are a bunch - and the same error popped up. Let me double check I did not miss one. You sure you had a failing version and fixed it right?
August 21st, 2020, 20:37
mattekure

1 Attachment(s)

Yes. I downloaded the most recent death indicator. stripped out the comments. and it loads fine in unity.

https://imgur.com/4jJhQg9.jpg

I've attached my version here.
August 21st, 2020, 20:42
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

Yes. I downloaded the most recent death indicator. stripped out the comments. and it loads fine in unity.

https://imgur.com/4jJhQg9.jpg

I've attached my version here.

Stripped OUT the comments. That's different than moving them under the root. I actually have another extension with comments between xml and root that is not giving this error. And when I moved them under root (like you did not) I still get the error.

Something is still weird here. I'm beginning to think there is a special char that's been copied around from the original comments or something.
August 21st, 2020, 20:46
mattekure

thats certainly possible. I know I ran into the issue of comments between <xml and <root before, which is where my suggestion came from. And stripping those comments has worked for both extensions I tested. perhaps the copyright character or something else is causing FG to treat the xml file as invalid.
August 21st, 2020, 20:50
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

thats certainly possible. I know I ran into the issue of comments between <xml and <root before, which is where my suggestion came from. And stripping those comments has worked for both extensions I tested. perhaps the copyright character or something else is causing FG to treat the xml file as invalid.

Crap I'm going to have to literally load your version and try it because deleting them I still get that (notepad++ editor?)
August 21st, 2020, 20:52
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

thats certainly possible. I know I ran into the issue of comments between <xml and <root before, which is where my suggestion came from. And stripping those comments has worked for both extensions I tested. perhaps the copyright character or something else is causing FG to treat the xml file as invalid.

Double crap. Your's works. Time for a bit of winmerge and see what the heck is really different here.
August 21st, 2020, 20:56
SilentRuin

1 Attachment(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

thats certainly possible. I know I ran into the issue of comments between <xml and <root before, which is where my suggestion came from. And stripping those comments has worked for both extensions I tested. perhaps the copyright character or something else is causing FG to treat the xml file as invalid.

Something is different in every single xml file. Here is one of them.
August 21st, 2020, 21:03
mattekure

yeah, thats weird
August 21st, 2020, 21:14
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

yeah, thats weird

Weirder I can't even get anything I edit to work. Do you use notepad++? If you do can you check what you have on encoding or language? I have UTF-8 and Normal.
August 21st, 2020, 21:17
mattekure

Yes, I use notepad++. For all the files I normally work with, I use UTF-8. When I open your files though, they are listed as Western European->ISO-8859-1
August 21st, 2020, 21:17
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentRuin

Weirder I can't even get anything I edit to work. Do you use notepad++? If you do can you check what you have on encoding or language? I have UTF-8 and Normal.

Actually when I'm up in one of these files its iso-8859-1 also.
August 21st, 2020, 21:18
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

Yes, I use notepad++. For all the files I normally work with, I use UTF-8. When I open your files though, they are listed as Western European->ISO-8859-1

It's because the XML states that is what they are.
August 21st, 2020, 21:29
Trenloe

So, there's two places that encoding is used - in the XML and in the file encoding data.

In XML it is just telling XML what encoding the file *should* be in - and as long as the XML engine reading the file reads that, then the file should also be in that encoding. To set the file encoding, in Notepad++ use the "Encoding" menu option. I don't know if this is the issue though, but it's good practice to make sure you're saving the files using the expected encoding.
August 21st, 2020, 21:37
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

Yes, I use notepad++. For all the files I normally work with, I use UTF-8. When I open your files though, they are listed as Western European->ISO-8859-1

This is insane. It has nothing to do with the comments at all. I'm willing to bet if you zip up the original code yourself and deliver it - it will work fine.

I use this script to deliver all my files.

Code:

powershell "Compress-Archive '.\DeathIndicatorEx\*' '.\DeathIndicatorEx.zip'" ren DeathIndicatorEx.zip DeathIndicatorEx.ext move /y DeathIndicatorEx.ext "-----my dir ----\AppData\Roaming\SmiteWorks\Fantasy Grounds\extensions\" Pause

It has always worked. I deliver these files in fact.

Well I could NEVER get your files to work - not even the exact ones. I finally did the right mouse compress file by hand - renamed it to DeathIndicatorEx.ext - then manually copied it over to the extensions directory - and it worked. Every time. Every time I used my script - it did not.

Nothing has changed on my end at all. I left the comments in and it worked - IF I compressed the directory manually.

WHY is the current delivery choking on power shell generated files? What is different? What changed in how they read a zip that now makes this bad?
August 21st, 2020, 22:08
mattekure

that is interesting. I use a batch file and 7zip to zip up mine and have never encountered an issue.
August 21st, 2020, 22:14
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

that is interesting. I use a batch file and 7zip to zip up mine and have never encountered an issue.

Yeah I never did till now with powershell. Basically even the old ones I did weeks ago stopped working with this release - fine if I go back to PREV release. Gist is I did them all manually leaving the comments as they were - with right mouse and compress files in windows 10 and it worked. Just got done redelivering all my extensions here and in DMsG. What a pain. Glad I figured it out - thanks to you for providing the clues.
August 21st, 2020, 22:15
mattekure

yeah, glad you go it fixed. sorry for the misleading path down the comments issue. I know I experienced that previously, I guess they have made changes to the xml parsing behavior since then.
August 21st, 2020, 22:18
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

yeah, glad you go it fixed. sorry for the misleading path down the comments issue. I know I experienced that previously, I guess they have made changes to the xml parsing behavior since then.

I would not have solved it without that misleading path so don't apologize. The ONLY way this was solved was by taking your files and finding they did not work but your zip of them did.
August 21st, 2020, 22:22
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

yeah, glad you go it fixed. sorry for the misleading path down the comments issue. I know I experienced that previously, I guess they have made changes to the xml parsing behavior since then.

Also I just downloaded 7zip - when next I work on an extension I will be making a file to auto execute using that instead - once I test it of course :) Thanks for that also.
August 21st, 2020, 22:24
mattekure

I use a simple batch file like this to auto build for both classic and unity.

Code:

cd "C:\Users\John\Projects\Shops\extension\" 7z a "Shops.zip" * COPY "C:\Users\John\Projects\Shops\extension\Shops.zip" "C:\Users\John\Fantasy Grounds\extensions\Shops.ext" MOVE "C:\Users\John\Projects\Shops\extension\Shops.zip" "C:\Users\John\Fantasy Grounds Unity\extensions\Shops.ext"
August 21st, 2020, 22:39
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

I use a simple batch file like this to auto build for both classic and unity.

Code:

cd "C:\Users\John\Projects\Shops\extension\" 7z a "Shops.zip" * COPY "C:\Users\John\Projects\Shops\extension\Shops.zip" "C:\Users\John\Fantasy Grounds\extensions\Shops.ext" MOVE "C:\Users\John\Projects\Shops\extension\Shops.zip" "C:\Users\John\Fantasy Grounds Unity\extensions\Shops.ext"

Awesome - already replaced the powershell line with the 7z stuff in my script and all is working fine.
August 29th, 2020, 01:54
mattekure

I'd like to suggest adding another button, "Stand Up" which removes the prone condition.

Also, would it be possible to put the buttons list higher up, under the Weapons list. some characters have a ton of powers that I have to scroll through and having them higher up would be nice.
August 29th, 2020, 02:22
SilentRuin

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattekure

I'd like to suggest adding another button, "Stand Up" which removes the prone condition.

Also, would it be possible to put the buttons list higher up, under the Weapons list. some characters have a ton of powers that I have to scroll through and having them higher up would be nice.

It’s strictly supporting the RAW 5E in the PHB pages I listed. Trying not to keep adding everything that can be added as it would be never ending. Not sure why FGU leaves it to DM to remove prone as I can see a use for something like that - but also players being able to remove effects would need to be limited to only on turn and such.

Gist is “stand up” is not one of the official actions - though I suppose it should be.

For the move up these things are additional actions per PHB - hence they are added at bottom of pc and NPC sheets. NPC sheet is formatted differently than PC sheet but same sub window is appended at bottom of both.
August 30th, 2020, 02:39
SmackDaddy

Very interested in this extension.....sorry if this has already been answered, but I know there's always a possibility that extensions can class, but for a FGU licensed user, will this work with the Rob2e DM and Player tools running along side of it? Thank you in advance for your time.

Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page