Training Videos

[frostbyte000jm]

Hey everyone, I am not sure if this has been discussed before but I wanted to try and bring it up.

TL(did not)R
Training videos for development would be awesome. I would even be willing to pay.

TL(did)R
I have wanted to develop rulesets for Fantasy Grounds for a few years now. One of my problems is obviously time (probably sounds familiar), but the other is when I sit down to start developing I fumble around for a few hours getting a grip on what I can do with the code. Then I am spending more time trying things that sometimes don’t seem to do what I expected.

I am a c# developer by profession. I have roughly 12 years of experience. I may not have a master’s degree, but I know my way around code.

The manuals and guides are a big help and thank you to everyone that keeps them updated. The problem (at least for me) is these guides appear to be more useful for people that have gotten over the learning the ropes stage and now uses them for reference (I could be wrong).

My suggestion (that I would even be willing to pay for) is training videos. A 10ish episode video series where we watch someone(s) develop a “new” ruleset.

I am not talking about a complete ruleset, like I do not want to watch someone develop 5e all over again. But a mock ruleset that each episode covers a new topic like: Custom dice creations, designing a new character sheet with custom commands, revising the combat tracker and how to communicate with a character sheet, designing custom NPC sheets, making a dice modifier (like a dice pool or a second modifier box that adds dice instead of just a bonus), and more.

We can watch how the veteran FG developers debug, how you use the available resources, we can even code it alongside you so we get the experience.

I am not looking for a how to code, I have a good grasp on that. I am looking more for a conductor to show me around FG development side.

When I started at my job, I knew c#, but I still watch videos and slides (sometimes with lots of coffee) of developers showing me how to create new worksheets and statements, how to pull in a tax tables, or how to setup cycling printing... I did this because it was efficient and got me familiar with this company’s code structure, what I can access in the code, and useful tips on setup and gotchas.

Idk, maybe I am alone on this… But I think we have an awesome community and I would like to help out on my free time. I just need a little help getting a tour of the place.

Again, this is something I would be absolutely willing to pay for. I know many of you have spent an ungodsly amount of hours learning the ins and out of FG and that knowledge is worth something.

Let me know if I am silly.

[damned]

Im no programmer - not much good at making videos either - but you might get some value from these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Cu...668LyJXmfk25Yv
In some I explain how to find stuff in the code without going in to any complex examples.
In others I talk about the basics of the graphic elements.

Your specific examples are too specific.
You are far better off looking at existing code for those.

[frostbyte000jm]

Hey Damned, it's been a while. Don't sell yourself short. I am loving what you and the others have done with MoreCore. I queued those videos up last night when I thought about this (totally not original) idea. I wasn't trying to be too specific with my specific examples. I was actually trying to be general.

Custom dice creations: I should have said custom die roll creation. How to create dice that don't follow the norm of roll and add. I guess showing how to create custom dice here as well would be cool too, so people want to do one of the Fantasy Flight kind of Games. But just how does the math interact with the chat window and how you can get different values to display. What are even all the options you have? How to sort? How to do different colors? How to explode? show the dice? hide the dice? just make a single number appear? Add up just the even dice? add up how many dice are above a specific number? ...

Designing a new character sheet with custom commands: Every game has their own character sheet. Show a way to setup attributes and skills on a character sheet and how you can interact with it in other parts of the app. For example when you click the dice it will need to calculate a few skills on the sheet before rolling. idk. I am still spit balling here. I am sure I could grab 10 books off my self and come up with multiple examples of things that are needed for automation that there is not an easy solution in any of the products (yet). A lot of them are available in your MoreCore, but popping open one of those lua files there... sometimes has a lot of stuff that may not be needed. Like someone copied code from someone else and left a bunch of dead code, because they didn't know what it was doing (I am not pointing a finger at 2016 me, but if I was...). Actually breaking down what each piece is accessing, could really help guide some of us to coming up with our own customizations.

For example the other night, I comment out a huge chunk of code in one of them because I wanted to see what specifically it was doing, and the roll still worked. I thought "I must have the wrong file" so I commented out another piece and FG got mad at me when I reloaded. I finally understood what was going on, but I was a little surprised that there was a huge chunk of code that didn't (noticeably) do anything. Still learning so it may have a reason, but having someone break down those pieces would be a huge trailblazer.

Revising the combat tracker: Most games have different things to track in combat. It would be nice to know how to modify that. Sure I could borrow from some other ruleset. but having a little guidance before i deep dive into all the possibilities would make the experience better for everyone.

Communicate between different pieces: character sheets, combat tracker, party sheet, NPC sheet, and more. This kind of goes with the above. There is plenty to steal from, but knowing what you're looking for will get people heading in the right direction quicker.

Making extra things: Like a dice modifier (like a dice pool or a second modifier box that adds dice instead of just a bonus) and more. Having this kind of guidance will help when people are borrowing code. They will know what to look for, and more importantly, what to change. For example. I love your dice pool. That thing could totally help with WoD and CoD type games. But it needs some revisions to work for those systems. I have ideas, but instead of fumbling for a few hours having the foresight on what we can access in the code and how it interacts with one another could help me (and many like me) to get to the solution more efficiently.

In the end, having something like this could get developers (noob and vets) on the right trail to help produce cleaner and more efficient code that multiple people can use to build their own rule sets, extensions, and more.

It will also free up a lot of questions I know some of you must get over and over. I know you don't mind helping us noobies out, but this may be a bonus.

This is why I am looking for something like a FGU (Fantasy Grounds University). I know there would probably be a cost to get something like this going. I would totally jump on a patreon, gofundme, kickstarter, or something to help. I am not asking for the developers to do it out of the kindness of their own hearts (though I would not turn it down).

Then one day those of us that are learning from those of you who can teach, we can give back. When we see a solution for something that was needed, we can write a video teaching others how to do it so they can pass it on and keep paying it forward.

[damned]

Hey Damned, it's been a while. Don't sell yourself short. I am loving what you and the others have done with MoreCore. I queued those videos up last night when I thought about this (totally not original) idea. I wasn't trying to be too specific with my specific examples. I was actually trying to be general.

Custom dice creations: I should have said custom die roll creation. How to create dice that don't follow the norm of roll and add. I guess showing how to create custom dice here as well would be cool too, so people want to do one of the Fantasy Flight kind of Games. But just how does the math interact with the chat window and how you can get different values to display. What are even all the options you have? How to sort? How to do different colors? How to explode? show the dice? hide the dice? just make a single number appear? Add up just the even dice? add up how many dice are above a specific number? ...

This is coding and I dont think the purpose of these tutorials should be teaching coding - and if it is then I shouldnt be doing them. There are about a hundred dice scripts in MoreCore. Now MoreCore has got some extra dice framework built into it so Dice rolls built for MoreCore cant be picked up and dropped into CoreRPG but the logic can.

Trenloe wrote a very good post/tute on Dice Rolling here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...(dice-rolling)

Designing a new character sheet with custom commands: Every game has their own character sheet. Show a way to setup attributes and skills on a character sheet and how you can interact with it in other parts of the app. For example when you click the dice it will need to calculate a few skills on the sheet before rolling. idk. I am still spit balling here. I am sure I could grab 10 books off my self and come up with multiple examples of things that are needed for automation that there is not an easy solution in any of the products (yet). A lot of them are available in your MoreCore, but popping open one of those lua files there... sometimes has a lot of stuff that may not be needed. Like someone copied code from someone else and left a bunch of dead code, because they didn't know what it was doing (I am not pointing a finger at 2016 me, but if I was...). Actually breaking down what each piece is accessing, could really help guide some of us to coming up with our own customizations.

For example the other night, I comment out a huge chunk of code in one of them because I wanted to see what specifically it was doing, and the roll still worked. I thought "I must have the wrong file" so I commented out another piece and FG got mad at me when I reloaded. I finally understood what was going on, but I was a little surprised that there was a huge chunk of code that didn't (noticeably) do anything. Still learning so it may have a reason, but having someone break down those pieces would be a huge trailblazer.

When I write a new MoreCore Roll I grab an existing roll and use it as the basis for the new roll. Sometimes I dont need some of the code but I am not that dilligent in cleaning up the code so there is definitely some code in some scripts that is just wasting space... but its unlikely I will ever go back in and clean them up... sorry.

Revising the combat tracker: Most games have different things to track in combat. It would be nice to know how to modify that. Sure I could borrow from some other ruleset. but having a little guidance before i deep dive into all the possibilities would make the experience better for everyone.

Communicate between different pieces: character sheets, combat tracker, party sheet, NPC sheet, and more. This kind of goes with the above. There is plenty to steal from, but knowing what you're looking for will get people heading in the right direction quicker.

Anything on these topics will be very broad - or very specific - eg this is how i achieved this specific outcome. Its the methods and pointers that are useful. Every system does stuff differently - as do different programmers so do use the existing examples in the existing rulesets.

Making extra things: Like a dice modifier (like a dice pool or a second modifier box that adds dice instead of just a bonus) and more. Having this kind of guidance will help when people are borrowing code. They will know what to look for, and more importantly, what to change. For example. I love your dice pool. That thing could totally help with WoD and CoD type games. But it needs some revisions to work for those systems. I have ideas, but instead of fumbling for a few hours having the foresight on what we can access in the code and how it interacts with one another could help me (and many like me) to get to the solution more efficiently.

Additional Modifier boxes and Dice Pool boxes are actually fairly complex. I will not go into anything of that detail - its too specific. Anyone really wanting to code that level of stuff is going to have to work thru those using the existing code.

In the end, having something like this could get developers (noob and vets) on the right trail to help produce cleaner and more efficient code that multiple people can use to build their own rule sets, extensions, and more.

It will also free up a lot of questions I know some of you must get over and over. I know you don't mind helping us noobies out, but this may be a bonus.

This is why I am looking for something like a FGU (Fantasy Grounds University). I know there would probably be a cost to get something like this going. I would totally jump on a patreon, gofundme, kickstarter, or something to help. I am not asking for the developers to do it out of the kindness of their own hearts (though I would not turn it down).

Then one day those of us that are learning from those of you who can teach, we can give back. When we see a solution for something that was needed, we can write a video teaching others how to do it so they can pass it on and keep paying it forward.

Part 1 - lets see how far I get with this project...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54PSYMXmyvs

[frostbyte000jm]

This is coding and I dont think the purpose of these tutorials should be teaching coding - and if it is then I shouldnt be doing them.

I know I am skirting the edge of teaching coding, but that is not what I am going for. I think I am looking more for best FG practices. For example I can write an algorithm for any of the suggestions I gave in a couple minutes. I do it every day. My problem I run into with FG development is I don't know what all I can access or if I am even accessing the right things.

When I talk about access, I mean when I send it to the chat box what function [example: VarName.Function()] should I call to show or hide the dice? What function should I call if I don’t want to show the summation of the dice, but show something else instead? If I want to add an arbitrary modifier, what function does that?

Like the /woddice I revised in MoreCore a couple years ago. The calculating success, failure, and botches was simple. Getting the correct number of successes to show as the total [2016 me] couldn't figure out. [2018 me, a much cooler guy and I have to say much better looking] can. But even the suave 2018 me (I'm sorry. I am on my 5th cup of coffee... I get weird. I'll stop) is pretty sure there is a much better way to handle this.

Trenloe wrote a very good post/tute on Dice Rolling here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...(dice-rolling)

This is a really good write-up. He may have mentioned somewhere in there (but I probably missed it) a good form to follow along with so I can see his words in action. I will read again.

but its unlikely I will ever go back in and clean them up... sorry.

Don’t apologize. I was pointing a finger at me. I did it too. I want to be better so I don't do it again.

Part 1 - lets see how far I get with this project...

Wait… really? Dude! You’re about to get a subscriber.

[damned]

onDiceTotal() is used if you want to modify the auto dice output of SUM.
have a look at the /cod roll using syntax:
/cod 4d10x7
This is a newer version of woddice

[Valyar]

frostbyte000jm, welcome to the world of re-inventing the wheel (sorry damned, couldn't resist to say it ).

One year ago I was also looking for better documentation, development tools and ways to make ruleset and extensions, after I discovered that there is almost no support for the games I play in FG. The resources are scattered, outdated a bit (or much?) and without the proper foundation, coding for FG is mainly reverse engineering and trial & error. Not very productive approach, but in time we might get used to it.

Since you are into the programming world, you know the drill when you are handed over a code without comments, documentation and just by looking at it is spaghetti...

[damned]

My early code was well commented - my later stuff is often lacking Im afraid...