Fantasy Grounds Unity Kickstarter questions

[Bidmaron]

c# falls in the category of luxury. The lua sandbox we have is inherently safe (too safe in some regards) and limits the mischief someone can get into. We have a viable method of extensions now, and I can't see how creating another programming interface brings enough value to make it worthwhile for SW to expend the effort to create some kind of c# sandbox environment.

If you are interested in API access, we already have it with LUA.

[dazhbog]

The area where I would like to see the most improvement is developing rulesets/extensions. The XML/Lua system is quite archaic and clunky but I don't think it's going anywhere soon. I have a few suggestions though that I feel could boost the productivity quite a bit:

1) Lua console where it would be possible to call Lua functions and inspect the data structures in an interactive way (REPL-style)

2) Graphic layout inspector that would show the outlines of the graphical elements (positions, margins, anchors) and their values and where they come from

3) maybe database/source inspector

4) better documentation

These could shave off quite a bit of reloads/iterations and debug printings and plain guesswork. I love the flexibility of FG (and would like to use it for many games with no official support) but the ruleset/extension development can be very slow and frustrating.

[Quorlox]

The area where I would like to see the most improvement is developing rulesets/extensions. The XML/Lua system is quite archaic and clunky but I don't think it's going anywhere soon.

Obviously I'd hoped that FGU would at least give us options other than XML/Lua, but since that's not the case currently, I would like for some of the stretch goals to be about extensions/etc.

[LordEntrails]

Make sure you check the wishlist for ideas similar to yours, and if they are not there, then to add them. https://fg2app.idea.informer.com

Those ideas are all things of value, but they are also things that would extend the development time. SmiteWorks has been clear from the beginning that they will not add to the development time with any stretch goals. And I wholeheartedly agree with them. IMO, FGU needs to be out ASAP, and then after that other new functions can be evaluated and added.

As for ideas 1, 2, & 3. They all sound great. But, just being on the very edge of such software projects, I suspect they would easily cost twice what this KS has already made. And given their limited appeal, I doubt they would ever be realized. But, I could be way off on that. But I do know that a long time ago their was an effort to pre-finance a GUI tool and it never came anywhere close to being funded.

As for documentation, again, a great idea, but expensive. Right now SW provides and maintains a significant level of documentation. And leaves the rest up to the community to document. It seems to me to be a pretty fair division of labor and it seems to be pretty effective because their are regularly new community developers emerging and they are using the available resources to do so. Could it be better? Certainly. But given the constantly changing capabilities of FG, how much documentation would be wise to invest in?

[celestian]

2) Graphic layout inspector that would show the outlines of the graphical elements (positions, margins, anchors) and their values and where they come from

This would make me cry with joy.

It's seriously the thing I spend the most time doing.

It would go a LONG way to just let us use HTML templates of some sort.

[Quorlox]

Make sure you check the wishlist for ideas similar to yours, and if they are not there, then to add them. https://fg2app.idea.informer.com

Done.

[StoryWeaver]

Personally I'd love seeing a way to create extensions and plug-ins in C#, fully unlocking the power that Unity could offer in that department, being an experienced C# developer myself.

[Quorlox]

Personally I'd love seeing a way to create extensions and plug-ins in C#, fully unlocking the power that Unity could offer in that department, being an experienced C# developer myself.

If you visit https://fg2app.idea.informer.com you can vote to support the idea. You will probably have to show things by date added since it defaults to number of votes, and because this is so new, it has few (if any) votes.

[Bidmaron]

Personally I'd love seeing a way to create extensions and plug-ins in C#, fully unlocking the power that Unity could offer in that department, being an experienced C# developer myself.

I am with you, but I just don’t see it being a viable use of resources since we have a workable alternative. The main reason I would like to see it is for the IDE.

[dazhbog]

I think it might be better if dev ideas were in their own category because developers will always be a small minority and their "use case" is different.