PDF Monster Parser for DN's D&D4e Character Sheet Framework

[static]

Uhmmm, what did I do wrong here? I followed directions step by Step....double checked....I promise!

RPTools - 006.png (257.36 KiB) Viewed 5201 times

Help, as ever, is greatly appreciated!

[travist627]

Uhmmm, what did I do wrong here? I followed directions step by Step....double checked....I promise!



Help, as ever, is greatly appreciated!

You didn't do anything wrong. Since D&D is all about having abilities that break rules, it's almost impossible for me to write code that will account for every value that will show up. That message pops up when it runs into something it's not expecting. More often than not, you can just click the OK button and it will still go through. PinkRose posted on that somewhere in one of these pages.

[static]

You didn't do anything wrong. Since D&D is all about having abilities that break rules, it's almost impossible for me to write code that will account for every value that will show up. That message pops up when it runs into something it's not expecting. More often than not, you can just click the OK button and it will still go through. PinkRose posted on that somewhere in one of these pages.

Oh, sorry... I think I missed that whole page.

I got my config back up and running 512 high, 128 low, and 8 stack... Is that enough?

I have a couple new quirks though... At least I think their new, I didn't see it anywhere...

1) When I hit the save button on the Monster Input window, I get the StatCard and most of it looks fine, but I don't get any Tactics or Lore on either the StatCard or the Character Sheet. The Notes section has a double inverted chevron so there's nothing there (I clicked anyway, to make sure), and I did several attempts with different monsters and made sure the save checkboxes were checked.

2) In the Character Sheet:
a) the monster name always duplicates into the DM Name
b) The Origin and Type end up in Race (I have to cut and paste them into Keyword section to get it to look like the card)
c) The Size is nowhere to be found so I have to type that in manually at the begining of the keyword section

3) The special character diamond that shows up between the Action and the Action Keyword is replaced by a ? (This is not a biggie... may be a font issue, I don't know, just thought I'd list all the kajiggers at one time.)

4) The icons for the actions are ussually 'm' or 'M'. (again not a biggie, but since the Character Sheet has icons for different things, I thought I might be missing something.

Thanks.

[travist627]

I got my config back up and running 512 high, 128 low, and 8 stack... Is that enough?

I run mine with 1024 for high, but for the parser, the stack size is more important. 8 should be more than enough.

I have a couple new quirks though... At least I think their new, I didn't see it anywhere...

1) When I hit the save button on the Monster Input window, I get the StatCard and most of it looks fine, but I don't get any Tactics or Lore on either the StatCard or the Character Sheet.

The StatCard is a holdover from James's original PDF parser. I haven't done anything with it, so none of the stuff that I've included, like lore, etc. will show up there. It is basically for quick dice rolls and not much more.

The Notes section has a double inverted chevron so there's nothing there (I clicked anyway, to make sure), and I did several attempts with different monsters and made sure the save checkboxes were checked.

Not sure what to say on this one. I never have any problems putting tactics in. Post the text for a monster you're seeing this on, along with the text you are putting in the tactics window. That might help to track down what's going on.

2) In the Character Sheet:
a) the monster name always duplicates into the DM Name

This is by design. The players can't see what's in the GM Name, so sometimes I change the token name to be something less obvious, like "Creepy Guy" instead of a NPC name, so that they have to do some investigation. I keep the real name in the GM name box so that I can remember what it's really called. Do you do something different that might make a new feature for the parser?

b) The Origin and Type end up in Race (I have to cut and paste them into Keyword section to get it to look like the card)

Different versions of monster cards handle keywords differently. What is the source you're copying from, and did you change the input option to match either MM1 or MM3 style? It works pretty well for me copying from Adventure Tools. Again, posting the monster text will help me see what you're seeing.

c) The Size is nowhere to be found so I have to type that in manually at the begining of the keyword section

The size shows up as the physical size of the token. The parser actually resizes your token so that medium creatures will take up one square, large take up 4, etc. There's no real need to have the text on the card for me, so I didn't include that in keywords.

3) The special character diamond that shows up between the Action and the Action Keyword is replaced by a ? (This is not a biggie... may be a font issue, I don't know, just thought I'd list all the kajiggers at one time.)

This is a limitation of either MapTool or the framework. The diamond gets turned into a question mark, which the parser still tries to interpret to figure out what everything is. The keywords still should get picked up and put into the power correctly.

4) The icons for the actions are ussually 'm' or 'M'. (again not a biggie, but since the Character Sheet has icons for different things, I thought I might be missing something.

Thanks.

This goes back to what I said about the stat sheet being a quick reference and for quick rolls. The original PDFs use "m" to denote a basic melee attack and "M" to denote a melee attack, but they used a font to get the symbols. The parser actually reads those letters and applies the settings to the powers that it puts on the power sheet. The character sheet references a table with the images in it, so the symbols look like they should.

So, what looks like this on the stat card

Capture.PNG (12.15 KiB) Viewed 5191 times

looks like this on the Character Sheet:

Capture1.PNG (9.64 KiB) Viewed 5191 times

I use the character sheet to track powers (which you can't do on the stat card), so I've only put my coding focus there.

My history and philosophy behind making the parser token: I wanted to use MapTool to run my games as easily as possible over the Internet. After spending too much time pulling in monster cards to the handout windows, and writing macros to track everything we did, I found DN's framework to be the best option for me, as it uses a single character sheet window to fully run a PC or a monster (the same way I ran my paper and pencil games). I started using James's PDF parser because I was still spending too much time setting up monsters. After using it for a while, I realized that I wanted the same experience running monsters as we had for running PCs; I didn't want two windows open and I wanted to be able to track power usage and damage.

I began adapting the parser to the DN framework in order to make monster setup and running as easy as possible so that I could throw down a new monster if I needed to and run it off of the same character sheet window. As the parser stands right now, I can setup a monster token that is trackable by dropping in a token, hitting F3, pasting the stat card text, and saving in just a few seconds in the middle of an encounter. It's not 100% on the power information, but the powers will run and can be tracked. If I take the time to setup ahead, I paste in the lore and tactics, and I tweak the powers for the statuses and hit information, etc. so that it's more complete.

Currently on my agenda for the token is to put hit information in the hit window, miss information in the miss window, and parse the powers for "and the target is X until..." I'm confident that I can get in the conditions (blinded, dazed, prone, etc.), but the end of the conditions is trickier.

I hope this helps out a bit lays out the focus of the parser token as I envision it. Posting ideas for where you would like to see things show up (race, keywords) helps tremendously (they show up where they are now because of posters). Posting examples of where it messes up on specific monsters from specific published sources (it doesn't support the Compendium since they don't have one predictable format that doesn't use graphics yet) also helps figure out how to tweak the parsing code. But I'm not going to do anything with the stat card window for a long time, until after I feel it's getting almost all of the power information in so that it doesn't have to be tweaked anymore.

[static]

Ok, got that... will look into it and get back to you. Bad connections tonight, I keep getting booted while trying to respond.

[PinkRose]

Quick post here.
I use 1024, 64, 6 for my settings and never have any issues.
I have never ever used a stat card. The NPC character sheet will have everything you need. You'll get used to it and will wonder how you ever played without it soon.
I go in and actually change the code on each version to get the name to show only in the name section. I understand why it is the way it is, and don't think it should be changed for the masses, but if you, static, want the changed macro, let me know. It also swaps the keywords and race/class, I think. (My game is on summer hiatus for the last month.)
TravisT, thanks for answering all those questions and updating the Parser.

[static]

I have tried all kinds of adjustments and am currently at 1024 high, 256 low, and 16 stack.
Now I am getting the following error now when I try to update my Resource Library. Could this be effecting the Parser, and if so, what do I need to do to correct this, or if not, what forum should I post this in to get help correcting this?


java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread
at java.lang.Thread.start0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Thread.start(Unknown Source)
at net.rptools.maptool.client.AppActions$ClientAction.runBackground(AppActions.java:2706)
at net.rptools.maptool.client.AppActions$67.execute(AppActions.java:2552)
at net.rptools.maptool.client.AppActions$ClientAction.actionPerformed(AppActions.java:2691)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(Unknown Source)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(Unknown Source)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(Unknown Source)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.setPressed(Unknown Source)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton.doClick(Unknown Source)
at de.muntjak.tinylookandfeel.TinyMenuItemUI.doClick(TinyMenuItemUI.java:571)
at de.muntjak.tinylookandfeel.TinyMenuItemUI$MouseInputHandler.mouseReleased(TinyMenuItemUI.java:421)
at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.access$000(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at net.rptools.maptool.client.swing.MapToolEventQueue.dispatchEvent(MapToolEventQueue.java:38)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)

[static]

Quick post here.
I go in and actually change the code on each version to get the name to show only in the name section. I understand why it is the way it is, and don't think it should be changed for the masses, but if you, static, want the changed macro, let me know.

That would be great. Thanks.

I am not up to date on my programming skills, which were never anything to write home about anyway, so I'm not much beyond 'see Dick run' with java, but if you wouldn't mind adding a bit of a how to, I would be curious to have a look at the coding involved in these FWs and such.

[travist627]

New version, which checks for conditions that a save can end, and places Effect, Hit, and Miss text in boxes, has been uploaded. See change log in first post for details.

[travist627]

I have tried all kinds of adjustments and am currently at 1024 high, 256 low, and 16 stack.
Now I am getting the following error now when I try to update my Resource Library. Could this be effecting the Parser, and if so, what do I need to do to correct this, or if not, what forum should I post this in to get help correcting this?

I have no idea on that, but it looks like something to post to a bug topic.

[travist627]

Quick post here.
I use 1024, 64, 6 for my settings and never have any issues.
I have never ever used a stat card. The NPC character sheet will have everything you need. You'll get used to it and will wonder how you ever played without it soon.
I go in and actually change the code on each version to get the name to show only in the name section. I understand why it is the way it is, and don't think it should be changed for the masses, but if you, static, want the changed macro, let me know. It also swaps the keywords and race/class, I think. (My game is on summer hiatus for the last month.)
TravisT, thanks for answering all those questions and updating the Parser.

PinkRose, if you want me to pm me or post what you're doing here, I'll take a look and see if it's an option I can include as a checkbox.

[static]

I was wondering if I could suggest a modification to the parser on the monster entry card where the two check-boxes are for saving tactics and lore to the sheet.
Is it possible to set those to be checked at the start instead of unchecked? Or, better still, is it possible to set them to retain their previous setting so that once I check it to save, the next time I use it it will still be checked to save.

Also, I was wondering if a feature could be added to parse characters from the Character Builder the same way as the Monster Builder. I don't know what that would entail, or if it would have to be a whole different token, but if it could read Character PDFs it would save a lot of time in character power input.

The biggest advantage would be when your character has 'non-legal' content (a house ruled power, race, class...) the basic characteristics could be ripped off the PDF and the addition of the non-legal content could be entered by hand making the whole task less time consuming.

What do you think?

[oggmosh]

When I use this for a MM3 monster, it works wonderfully! (eg http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compe ... spx?id=497 after adding brackets around "At will" for Slam and Zombie Grab )

But when I use it for a MM1 monster (whether getting the text from a PDF of the MM, or an adventure, or the compendium) it doesn't seem to add static modifiers to the monster's powers. It shows correctly in the monster stat sheet (eg 1d6+6 damage), but not in the power in the framework's Character Sheet (eg, it would show 1d6 only) (example: Chillborn Zombie http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compe ... spx?id=114 doesn't show the correct damage for Slam. It also doesn't show any effect information for Chillborn Aura, or recognise Death Burst as a power at all)

Is this a case of having to check every power's damage line to ensure that it's picked up properly when using these macros, or is it a bug?

[PinkRose]

oggmosh, are you using the most updated version? Because that sounds like an old issue. But I may be wrong.

TravisT, what source do you use again? Is it the Compendium or the Original Adventure Tools?

[travist627]

oggmosh, are you using the most updated version? Because that sounds like an old issue. But I may be wrong.

TravisT, what source do you use again? Is it the Compendium or the Original Adventure Tools?

I use the OAT. I also test out the MM1 monster parser against the original MM1 PDF.