I am back from vacation so continuing with testing of the "openrpg 1.8.0+ developer" version which is available only by directly downloading it. I am now testing two developer versions against themselves (previously tested older versions vs the new one). This means I am testing the new plugins which only work with the developer version in live sessions for the first time. My group plays about once a week. If you want to help test the new version it is fine to have it and any other version of OpenRPG installed at once (I have about five or six versions). This was not always true as some of the older versions before 1.8.0 had some issues with several being installed and I think 1.7.7 was the worst for that. Here's how to download the developer version (assumes you have mercurial installed which is a fair bet since I think OpenRPG installs it):

Get to a command line / DOS box
get to the directory above where you want the new openrpg install to go
type,



You should get a message about downloading 500-odd files. That's it. The new directory openrp_dev is created and contains the install (there is no install process for OpenRPG beyond copying the files for the newer versions). Ready to go using the start_noupdate.py You don't get any icons on the desktop / start menu this way of course.

Actually when do we download hg with openrpg? I think the windows installer does it but with Mac people have had issues. I suppose because there's no installer and if you add stuff by hand you don't really need mercurial.

As I have mentioned before my live sessions are D&D 3.5 with multiple characters played by one user and a lot of use of the square grid map and miniatures. As a result I tend to add plugins and features and find and fix bugs especially from that perspective. Therefore I especially welcome comments / requests from people using different systems. A lot of the recent changes to this developer version are trying to improve the way referencing works and in general how openrpg character sheets work to store and access data for characters, and also to make it easier to design, create and fill out the sheets to begin with.

I wonder if it would be an idea to sit in on some sessions with folks using the openrpg software in other ways. The last time I did that was about two years ago.

Bugs.

I made some hack changes to the map. "Hack" because I know snowdog is working on a full replacement for the map so the changes to it I have done recently (last 3-4 months) have been just throw something down stuff.

One was trying to make it easier to add a bunch of similar minis eg 8 guards using same icon but numbered to tell them apart. Much of that is in the minilib node code. But I wanted to be able to place them nicely. The old code added them all in the same exact place so it was a huge pain to separate them as you couldn't select one without it asking which you meant. I added code that spaces the minis out (according to whether they are in hex, square or iso grid mode) and initialises them all to "selected" so that the next place you click on the map they all move there per the multi-select move rules (which similarly are new in developer version) -- ie it tries to move them all by preserving their relationship to each other instead of all go to the same place - as you'd hope.

There's a bug I think which makes the new minis selected for all players instead of only the player who added them to the map, and so the newly placed minis can jump about when someone else clicks on the map.

Found that the popular inittool2 already has an /add command so that clashes with the one I added for editing nodes in-line. Maybe. Actually I only had /add as an alias and for /addtonode so it ought to work still but apparently doesn't.

Might be useful to have a way to de-select all selected minis (other than moving them or selecting a new mini, that is)

/bonus and /effect commands help lines don't seem to appear when it would be "helpful"

Another request for multiple-select and drag of whiteboard stuff but in view of the map rewrite that probably won't be happening (by me anyway).

General observation that there is no help whatsoever on all the new features. I suck! But then openrpg help is pretty lame and where it exists horribly out of date anyway. Apart from the tip of the day. I would like to find time and motivation to crack on with all that.

Request for a cool way to help create a character sheet from a minimal string input which just lists a bunch of standard stats for a D&D 3.5 monster. It would be D&D 3.5 specific.

Getting into having to actually use the bonus and effects stuff but so far haven't really used it in live play.

In live sessions I am using Windows vs a Mac but not Ubuntu.

Their are several ways to install hg on mac and the newer OS's don't seem to have as much problem with it.



Is this limited to 10 or fewer mini's. I tried to add 11 yesterday and it crashed my map ?

File "/Users/paul/openrpg_dev/orpg/mapper/map.py", line 282, in on_paint
self.layers['miniatures'].layerDraw(dc, [topleft[0]/scale, topleft[1]/scale], [clientsize[0]/scale, clientsize[1]/scale])
File "/Users/paul/openrpg_dev/orpg/mapper/miniatures.py", line 607, in layerDraw
m.draw(dc, self)
File "/Users/paul/openrpg_dev/orpg/mapper/miniatures.py", line 384, in draw
if len(label):
TypeError: object of type 'NoneType' has no len()

Not really a big deal, just something people should be warned about so it doesn't happen in game play.

OK I realized what caused the map crash.

If you try to add the mini's without a label then it crashes.

If you leave them labeled then it's fine.

Good bug report!
There's some clunkiness but I have found the developer version quite playable despite some annoyances (actually more playable because of the new features).