Now with Columns and Rows

Hey all,

Minor update, really, but I felt it's been to long to just edit a previous post.  I got my character windows to start putting things down in their own columns and rows.  Take a look:

With the character list to compare

It's still listing the tab as each field's name, and text boxes for multiple entries aren't working right yet, either.  Again, just a minor update, but pro is the opposite of con, and I am making the opposite of congress.  Next step will be making the click-on text show up correctly on the right and text boxes spawn.

ZBott

Now With Fields!

Hey all,

Mostly just another screen cap today, but this time, I'm generating fields per entry!  Take a look:

Notice the poor formatting, because it won't be there much longer!

As you can see, it's put down the tab name for each entry, and it lays out everything in a line.  I'm in the middle of making things work faster, so I'll be fixing that soon, too.  It also just has the generic info, and I'll be fixing that soon, too, but that'll come after some generalizing and adding parts for each venue to the master control file.  The goal is by two weeks it starts to populate the correct data in, but first I needed to generate the proper fields.

ZBott out!

Character Window in the Rough

Hey all,

Back at it, I've finally gotten the character pane to start to generate tabs.  Take a look:

Important data coming soon!  I probably should have focused on a vampire or werewolf, but I picked what came up first.

As you might notice, I have major inside yet.  It's a-comin', but the tabs are completely generated from an XML control file!  Soon I should have all parts there at this rate by the end of October, and hopefully be able to save and delete, too.

ZBott out!

Back to the XML!

Hey all,

So I'm back to rebuilding the MET MGV XML file. (AKA Mind's Eye Theater Mobile Grave Vine eXtention Markup Language).  This file will determine lay out for the files, and, after a bit, save and file printing functions.

Here's what I got so far:

Yay, code!

This only covers what you'll find all classes, and it's missing several parts that determine if a field is a small box, like Name, or a table like XP.

I'll keep you all posted when I get the actual program to eat this and spit out something worth looking at, till then, say class.

ZBott

Update!  I now have it sorting out character types by the second file:

Now it will pull out all appropriate character types, not just me having to specify.  Getting much closer to soft coding all of this.  Next week, I'll be working on making the character windows actually spawn correctly, the character list populate with correct data, and the details show actual details.

Now with Character List

Hey all,

So lately I've been working on streamlining towards my game specific rules files, and I've gotten this much to show:

With Grapevine's character list for comparison

Not very pretty yet, I know.  A friend of mine says it looks like Windows 98, so I'm tempted to make the background that sickly green felt color just to get back at him.

Soon I'm going to have it stop spawning the character files, instead you'll need to go to the character list.  I'll make the character list close-able, too, when I get it working right.  I'll also start to sort out the game files by game dates, game specs, items, plots, and so on, and they will get their own list windows, too, which will be accessible from the menus.

This step means both I'm still at it, but more importantly, I can start to work on making the columns game specific, and start to present important details.  Sadly, it means that at this pace it'll be a while before the applet gets to a website.  Sorry, I hope to have it done by the end of the year, and that might not happen with only two days a week to focus on this.  Still set on a summer release of the android version, hopefully better news next time.

Tell me what you think in comments below.

ZBott

Update!   I got the pictures rolling, though not the data pane.  Take a look:

This is including all data gathered, even if faultily displayed at the moment, will work to correct soonish.

Hopefully it gives a better idea on what to expect.  I don't have pictures for the icons, those belong to Grapevine, and as I'll be capitalizing this privately, I'll only use Grapevine's icons if and when I can buy the rights from Adam Cerling and co.

Update 2!  Just some more edits to the pane so it looks closer to right:

Also at full size, so you get a good idea of what to expect

The character name, group, sub group are going to be populating soon, the NPC will be check boxes, and the active will list full status such as dead or harrowing.  For now, I work 7 days in a row, so this won't really get much loving till then.

Prepare for some code!

Hey all,

Sorry I'm late, just been a busy week.

I've stepped over one problem to work on another, so I'm going back to XML code.  Here's what I got so far:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mgv game="grapevine">
   <classes>
      <werewolf>
         <stats>
            <attributes>
               <physical type="text" tab="2" placement="right_top" />
               <social type="text" tab="2" placement="center_top" />
               <mental type="text" tab="2" placement="right_top" />
               <negPhysical type="text" tab="2" placement="right_bottom" />
               <negSocial type="text" tab="2" placement="center_bottom" />
               <negMental type="text" tab="2" placement="left_bottom" />
            </attributes>
         </stats>
         <abilities>
            <ability />
            <background />
            <influence />
            <merits />
            <flaws />
            <gifts />
            <rites />
            <renown>
               <honor />
               <glory />
               <wisdom />
            </renown>
            <other />
         </abilities>
         <items />
         <history />
      </werewolf>
   </classes>
   <game />
   <rules />
</mgv>

What all that is, is the prototype for the Grapevine data format class thing (technical term there) which my Mobile Grapevine will use to parse in, then read out per class, item, etc.  This is only a very limited bit, focusing again on my test case of Werewolf characters.  When it's working, whenever it sees a Werewolf character, it will pump out a properly formatted window pane, and the data will go into the correct fields.  My two week goal will to be that screen shot.  Stay tuned!

ZBott

Frames, JFrames, and the #test Menace

Hey all,

After a day of working on it, I got this to show:

What does this mean?  I now have frames!  Nothing is inside them at the moment because I'm just testing frames from a .GEX file.  In here I'm going to put tabs, and inside said tabs I'm putting the data you want to see, and I mean your game data of course!

I have another day of code with my only other plan to be a long bike ride.  Until then, feel free to make a bizarre background out of my screen shot if you have nothing better to do.  As gamers, I hope you do have something better to do, otherwise we have no plots!

ZBott

After thought: What other games are people looking to have a Grapevine like program for?  I know the Fate system has someone working on an app for it, and there is one for Legends of the 5 Rings, but what do you want, personally?  Leave the game you want to see Grapevine-ified in the comments below.

Update!

I got a little farther, so I wanted to post showing what it looks like with tabs:

I'm having some weird error drawing in the correct data, but I'll be fixing that, and the sizing issue soon.  I might just skip ahead a little and make it where the areas that should have data (instead of 'null') will be a text field with the correct data inside.  -ZBott

Fun with Tabs

Hey all,

I know some people have been keeping tabs on me (Puns!), so I want to show what I have so far.  Nothing amazing, but it does have promise.  This is the very rough stage of making an entire GEX file load up all it's pertinent data into tabs.

Problems I'm working out: It's full of odd junk data (#text:  is half of my tabs!), it doesn't layer quite right so the traits aren't nesting under the character sheet, and is quite limited on how far it can grow.  All this will be fixed soon, it's all just stupid bugs that need smacking.

I wanted to go on to match the full image length, but this post is mostly a rush to have it out this week sort of deal, and not leave people wondering where I am when I promised to get back to work.

ZBott

PS: Still exceedingly poor.  I couldn't go to Gen Con this year, though I don't exactly have a lot to show if I went.  Even going there as a spectator is wildly out of my price range.  I hope to go next year, though, and to many more showcasing a working, in-phone version of the app.

Question to the Vampire: The Masquerade Crowd

Hey all,

Odd problem has been causing me some grief, and I realized I might not need to worry about it.  How many use the Aura field for both level and name?  Or even at all?  If it's used it make XML all made because of duplicate attributes.

It looks like this for those who don't know what I mean.

If it's important to games, I'll make sure it flows over nicely, but otherwise for each thing I don't need to worry about the better off I am.

ZBott

August Returns

Hey all,

All this summer till now I've been exceedingly busy, but now I have some more time on my plate to work on the program.  Each week I'll be trying to get at least one post out covering my progress toward Applet Grapevine, the test bed for all things going into the final app.

I did a little coding today:

This is a more sophisticated used of XML compared to last time, where I'm choosing what I pull instead of just dumping everything into the terminal.  Still pretty much just spitting out data like I did months ago, however it's using pure XML instead of me pulling it out and turning it into a text string.

For now my plan is to use just XML for the data, and then finding a way to have users generate rule sets for games.  This will eventually lead to there being 3 files related to the game: The game's data itself, the official rule set, and then house rules addendum file.  I know most of this is reiterating everything, sorry if it seems redundant.

With my next post I hope to have things back to a graphical user interface for people, instead of dry text.

ZBott out

Web Based Options

Hey all,

Still alive, still kicking, still reading up on stuff.  I finally got my book on XML, and working on streamlining the back end so it's worth, well, stuff.  It's given me several new options that will be alot, LOT easier to work with versus the way I was planning on making it.  Literally a quarter of the typing needs to be done with XML parsing over the previous way.

In the pursuit of this info, though, I came across a job offer looking for a JavaScript guy, which at some point I studied.  While brushing up on my 'Script, I realized if there might be another option, hinting back at the web-based solution for Mobile Grapevine.  Still the same great service, and making the rules set something to be downloaded instead of hard coded, but I can program it once for all systems (iOS, Android, WebOS, even the dreaded MS8!) and get the same functionality.  The problem then becomes you need to always be connected.  I might be able to even work around that given enough time.  A second problem is that JavaScript is not related to Java (JavaScript came out a little after Java and tried to suck in programmers with a confusing name), so everything I worked on so far would have to be completely redone.

Still looking into it while I work on XML parsing for Java.  I'll hopefully get some screen shots by the end of next month and work toward multiple windows in one applet by September.  The pole shows people want tabs over a single window, so I WILL have that functionality, but it comes after I get the back end working correctly.

ZBott out!

PS: Again, whoever clicked the ad: Thank you!  Each click gives me on average $1.50 lately, and for each $10 in my AdSense account, I can transfer over to my bank, and then buy me the foods.  I'd click on them, myself, but it's against my contract.

Still Working on the Vampire Reader

Hey all,

So my time has been broken up between working on the vampire reader, which will take in a .GEX file and read in the vampire data, and researching ways to make it slightly more efficient.

Hopefully everything I've been doing hasn't been the exact opposite of useful, but I'm finding out there are things built into Java that read XML data easier than the way I've been doing it, so it's looking not so likely.  Good learning I guess, but I wanted to bring this to market soon and not have it be a freshmen style project. Frustrations aside, I'll keep plugging away at it.

It seems like a lot of people want tabs, so I'll see what I can do when I get it reading the vampires in correctly, and definitely have it available by the time I start reading in all old WoD critters.

Take time out to vote if you haven't already!

How should Applet Grapevine look?
	One Big Display
	Tabs
	Size Dependent
pollcode.com free polls

If you can see ads on this page but don't have money to donate, please click on them.  I get paid a little bit per click, but every little bit helps.

ZBott Out

Another rough draft

Hey all,

I got some progress today, and I wanted to share it with you all (or Y'all if you are so inclined):

To cover some details: Advantages hasn't been filled out yet, nor has the buttons for adding new traits, ability, or backgrounds.  Not visible is the fact I'm failing to get the boxes for traits, abilities and backgrounds to update when I change to a new character.  Luckily, I have two days off in a row, and my job has moved me into a new position that has slightly better hours.

Now here is a question for you the reader: Do you like the layout so far?  As Grapevine uses tabs, I wasn't sure if I should use tabs as well in my applet version.  Mobile Grapevine will be using it, but that is due to space limitations.

How should Applet Grapevine look?
	One Big Display
	Tabs
	Size Dependent
pollcode.com free polls

Anyways, let me know what you think,
ZBott out!

Update 1: New Screenshot!  Took less time than I thought, but I finished up Advantages, and broke Merits and Flaws into it's own panel.  Still exceedingly rough, but let me know what you think:

Raw Applet Grapevine.  Will work on spacing and proper loading tonight (5/20) and tomorrow (5/21).

Update 2: Got the fields to populate correctly, today is progressing along swimmingly.

Applet in the Raw

Hey all,

Layouts are tough, but I'm tougher, or however the hyperbole goes.  I've gotten the character info pane together enough for a screen shot:

Now I'm going to be bringing in Traits, Abilities, and Advantages into the mix.  Then Vampires will get a treatment, followed by saving and generating an XML GEX file.  Once all of those are together, I'll be find a place to host it and putting it online!  My hope is by June, but as May is half way done and I'm struggling to find time to work on this, no promises just yet.

Details on the Applet's next step:

Traits Pane: Physical, Social, Mental.  Each will just be populating into a text box and allow entries to be highlighted.  The highlighted entries can have their level raised or lowered, but once they hit zero, they delete out.  There will also be an "Add ** Trait" where the stars are the specific category.  Adding will launch a pop up where you can enter the name, level, and any notes.

Abilities Pane: A lot like the Traits pane, but only one box and one add button.  Removing all levels from an ability will drop it.  Adding will launch a popup as well.

Advantages Pane: This one will be a little bit different from the other two, as it will have subpanes of Tempers, Renown, Merits, Flaws, Health, Rites, and Gifts.  Tempers will detail temp and perm levels of Rage, Gnosis, Willpower.  Renown will look like Tempers but cover Glory, Honor, and Wisdom.  Merits and Flaws will be similar to Traits and Abilities.  Rites and Gifts will have the ability to pick between Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, with an out of BTA button to add +1 to the cost.  Health will be closer to Exalted (For those familiar) by having a number of check boxes, some autofilled to normal levels.

With the Vampire update I'll be pulling non-generic info out of the Character pane into a separate venue specific one, where Vampire's will cover things Clan and Coterie, and Werewolf will cover things like Tribe and Auspice.  The Advantage section will be the only other thing that will change, reflecting Disciplines instead of Gifts, Blood instead of Rage or Gnosis, and Combo Disciplines and Rituals instead of Rites.

Once launched, I'll be letting people play with it, finding errors and fixing them, while I work on the next part that'll deal with experience and expenditures, and saving a catalog of previously entered options.  This will in turn be savable to the users computer.  I might even be able to make Applet Grapevine mimic most if not all the functionality of the Grapevine application, so then anyone with access to the internet could use it.  That will be an interesting bonus on the way to Mobile Grapevine!

As usual, let me know what you want to see, any questions you have, or feel free to donate either to my Paypal or by checking out my advertisers, because I'm not above begging.

ZBott out!