Map Tool Updates

[Greebo]

Thought I'd stick this here to notify the DMs when I've uploaded new terrain and avatars to the map tool.

ES provided us with water terrain. I fleshed out the roads to give more corners.

Several new avatars including some goblins and hobgoblins (and 1 tiefling) are up now. Working on some more this morning.

Attached is a list of counters I have available. Probably a fair bit of dups in there but there are THOUSANDS. Suggest you do a search on keywords if you wanna find something you want me to prioritize uploading.

[Greebo]

Several new avatars are available thanks to Sagar's request.

[DinbinFanfoom]

Note: Greebs: If'n you see any glaring bugs in the mapcode that is causing you grief, feel free to tweak and comment it. Do you have access to the code?

[Greebo]

Note: Greebs: If'n you see any glaring bugs in the mapcode that is causing you grief, feel free to tweak and comment it. Do you have access to the code?

No, my root access drops me only in the location of the tiles and such.

[DinbinFanfoom]

No, my root access drops me only in the location of the tiles and such.Does perusing my spaghetti ASP interest you? Give me a "Meh" roll...

[Greebo]

Does perusing my spaghetti ASP interest you? Give me a "Meh" roll...

Didn't you get my PM? I'd love to look at it.

[DinbinFanfoom]

Didn't you get my PM? I'd love to look at it.
If I did, I must have missed that. Try now, I've changed your home dir.

[Greebo]

I see it now thanks

[Greebo]

Wow I forgot how much I hated old ASP.

would you be terribly offended if I took out all the response.writes for the static html? Kinda wastes asp procesing cycles and makes the code harder to read to identify actual script.

[DinbinFanfoom]

No matter to me. I'm (slowly) learning ASP.NET, working on SR V2 stuff. Slowly.

[Greebo]

Really?

Which version of ASP.NET?

Cause what I'd REALLY like is to convert it to .NET 2

[EricStratton]

If you're going to have multiple devs working on it, you might want to think about source control. I'm a big fan of GitHub (www.github.com). Now the downsides are obvious: 1) the source code will be publicly available unless you want to pay for private hosting; 2) You'd have to learn git.

My answers to that are: 1) Yeah, that can be a deal killer; 2) git can be complicated but it's a really great version control program.

Just something to think about instead of having someone ftp their files over totally destroying a change made or messing up something.

[EricStratton]

Just in case Dinbin's not aware looks like there are some connection issues w/ the web server and DB today.

[Greebo]

Can't connect via the back end either :( db server down

[Greebo]

Thanks to Dinbin giving me remote access via the phone, we're back up.

Now to see what the big red button does that says "DONT PRESS EVER"

[Greebo]

FYI Din, I'm continuing, slowly, to move this into .NET 2 framework.

At this point, base look & feel, connectivity to MySql, and ability to log in as a user have been recreated.

Moving onto the actual GM functionality now.

The Games page - the idea is to allow the adding of a new Game, and that maps, scenes, chars and NPCs will be tied to games, is that right?

[DinbinFanfoom]

The Games page - the idea is to allow the adding of a new Game, and that maps, scenes, chars and NPCs will be tied to games, is that right?
Yes.

A GM can have many games, each of a different ruleset. A game can have many scenes and characters and NPC's and maps. Scenes tie it all together.

I'll try to take a gander at your code this weekend... Zip has been slowly coaxing me through expanding my knowledge of .NET. I've actually got a "test" master page working that places a header and sidebar block ATM. (for SRV2, of course)

[Greebo]

I'd have to put my code up there for you to gander at first. I'm doing all this locally.

[Greebo]

And I'm having to recreate the db from scratch, because on this pc I can't log into your mysql server... No big deal though because I have some thoughts on map construction that would totally negate the existing map schema, and possibly scenes, anyway.

[DinbinFanfoom]

And I'm having to recreate the db from scratch, because on this pc I can't log into your mysql server... No big deal though because I have some thoughts on map construction that would totally negate the existing map schema, and possibly scenes, anyway.
I can't remember if SQLYog enterprise is on the virtual server or not. If it is, log into that (via remote desktop) and export the whole kit-n-kabootle to an .sql batch script. Copy it locally and run it.

[Greebo]

Thanks but it wasn't really a problem I was looking to solve. ;) I can't remember the login info anyway

[DinbinFanfoom]

Here's a question for you (and other .NET programmers):

Where is the best place to put your generic db connect code so it's accessed automatically? This connection would be created on every page refresh anyway... so where should it reside?

In (each) master page itself?

[Lycos]

Get it out of the page code, and think about putting it in your business (back-end) objects. I have used a single SQL connection object per session in the past with success. Make it available to all classes (there are different ways you can do this). And they can grab it as they need to make a query.

[Greebo]

I like to create a derivative of System.Web.UI.Page and put all common functionality to all pages in that, then derive my usual pages from that derived page.

I'll upload my work so far, Din, so you can have a look at what I mean.

[Greebo]

I'm finding that mySQL doesn't integrate too well with databound controls, which is disappointing, because it means all the database codign will have to be hand written.

Grr.

[Greebo]

Well this was a pita, but in the long run, better to solve it now.

I try to parameterize all my queries - to better avoid issues like sql injection. .NET has a plethora of built in data bound controls that make development really easy, cause you can bypass all the txtbox.text = mydatafield.value and later myparameter=txtbox.text code. You just bind controls to datasource controls and good to go.

But not with mySql because unlike SQL Server which uses @ for parameters, mysql uses ?, and .NET isn't good with that conversion. When you read data, you say "Select myid, myfield from table" and you bind your controls to "myfield" and in SQL Server your query is "update table set myfield=@myfield where myid=@myid" but in mysql its update table set myfield=?myfield where myid=?myid"

.NET doesn't like it if you name your parameters ?myid because you bind to myid, and it doesn't like it if you name your fields ?myid because ? is a parameter identifier...

But I found that if you interrupt the updating event on the databound control you can rename the

parameters before they get parsed, so by adding this event for every datasource:
protected void mysqlGames_Updating(object sender, SqlDataSourceCommandEventArgs e)
{
foreach (MySqlParameter param in e.Command.Parameters)
{
param.ParameterName = "?" + param.ParameterName;
}
}

You can force the parameter names to work w/ MySql's ? but still bind to the regular field names.

Yeah, I know, way geeky - show this to Vork - he may appreciate it.

[DinbinFanfoom]

Yeah, I know, way geeky - show this to Vork - he may appreciate it.
I just showed it to me. Yes. I thank you, and me thanks you too. :D

[Greebo]

Erm...you know who I meant. Anyway let me know if you have any questions about it so far :)

[Lycos]

I'm finding that mySQL doesn't integrate too well with databound controls, which is disappointing, because it means all the database codign will have to be hand written.


wimp! :lowrazz:

[Greebo]

wimp! :lowrazz:

I already solved the issue :P. I work hardest when the result means I can work less hard later. :P

[EricStratton]

Feature Request:

Allow the scene to dictate how much of the map is displayed.

For example, the party is entering a decent sized map. If the DM creates the whole map or even makes the map area as big as it will be but not fill in all the tiles, the players will know it's a big map.

The solution as of now is to not make the entire map right away. But then continuously return to the map tool to add more to the map as the party ventures on.

If the DM can create the map all at once, and then tell the scene to only display a certain area the DM can just make the map once and not worry about it again.


----

Of course if this isn't the way one usually plays DnD forget it. I noticed during my first RL DnD game over the weekend that Greebs had the maps all ready and just displayed the entire thing (well, entire thing that I know of) right when we entered that area.

[Sagar]

I like the idea, ES.

[Greebo]

I did that for convenience more than anything else - because I'm running that exact same adventure this thursday at RPGA night and in those games, time is of the essence.

In principle I do prefer the "gradual unveiling" approach

[EricStratton]

Feature Request:

Allow real blanking of map tiles. I like to use the current "blank" tile (which is actually a kind of fog-looking tile) so I don't want to get rid of it. But I'd like the ability to actually clear a tile (set the location's tile ID = 0). Right now it requires directly editing the map entry in the DB.

And, allow shrinking of a map. Right now this also requires directly editing the map entry in the DB.

[EricStratton]

I did that for convenience more than anything else - because I'm running that exact same adventure this thursday at RPGA night and in those games, time is of the essence.

In principle I do prefer the "gradual unveiling" approach
Ok, gotcha. Cool.

[EricStratton]

Feature request:

I don't know if we'd discussed this or not but the Map Tool should create our status tables for us (the ones that we currently make using Greebo's great Excel file).

This would help in a couple ways. We'd only have to enter the data once - into the map tool. And the tool can already know which map we're using and automatically put the link to the map in the data we're pasting.

It's actually pretty well equipped for this already. The tool already tracks HPs (so it can do bloodied already), stats, etc. It already knows which creatures are NPCs and which are PCs. We'd just have to add a couple more fields (surges, heals, APs, Dailies, Init Roll) and it could do the rest. It could even change the "GM Notes" field into Public Notes and Private Notes. "Public notes" which would be like our current "Other Effects" column and private notes only the GM sees for stuff like "Reminder, atty dies in Round 2."

We could even get crazy where "effects" and other fields (like Dailies) isn't a text field but is instead an HTML multiple select field to which we can add and delete entries.

[Greebo]

I like that - and even better, if we could do initiative tracking, surge usage, etc. Nothing that hasn't been done before, but rolled into a map tool would be really nice.

[DinbinFanfoom]

I like that - and even better, if we could do initiative tracking, surge usage, etc. Nothing that hasn't been done before, but rolled into a map tool would be really nice.
I would throw that table at the bottom of the player-viewed-scene screen. Easy enough to haul together, the data's already all loaded at that point.

[Greebo]

NTS: attribute on creatures for invis and hidden.
Invis: Name shows up on mouseover of the cell
Hidden: No popup rollover

[Zyzzyx]

Feature suggestion?

How about a very basic portal page, with a listing of what maps are available/in-use? While it would still be quite nice to have the DM post the direct link, it would also allow someone to just go to the main site, and then a couple clicks later have their group's current map. No more asking, "link to the map please..."

[Quervo]

The idea of a portal page is cool.

[Greebo]

Looking at Din's menu structure in the admin tools I think he originally intended players to be able to log in and see their active games.

That's a "nice to have" but its worth remembering.

[DinbinFanfoom]

Looking at Din's menu structure in the admin tools I think he originally intended players to be able to log in and see their active games.Yes.

[DinbinFanfoom]

I've updated the live tool so that if you expand a map up or left, the PC's and NPC's on it will shift down or right respectively.

[attriel]

I've updated the live tool so that if you expand a map up or left, the PC's and NPC's on it will shift down or right respectively.

can you update it so i can floodfill with a tile? I hate doing large maps because I have to click in every tile, when really 90% of them are "dirt floor" or "grass" or something :/

[Sagar]

Is the tool messed up? I can't log in.

I get a scrolling "You are not logged in" message.

I log in and it blinks and I get a "You are not logged in" message.

[Sagar]

Never mind. I figured it out.