Another Enhancement Request

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:54 pm

Ok, unless I am missing something, the only way to start an encounter is to go to the Actions menu and select Start Encounter or press the keyboard Shortcut CTRL + E.

It would be very useful to have a fairly large button on the main tool bar to start the encounter and roll (or prompt for entering manual rolled init) for each combatant.

As an alternative, pressing the Next Initiative button on the tool bar would check to see if the encounter has already been started and if not, it would start the encounter, and move to the first round with whoever has the highest init.

The current process is very unintuitive, and took me 30 + minutes to figure out the first time I took a look at the program. I keep trying to figure out how to enter/roll for each combatant's initiative!

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:11 pm

As an alternative, pressing the Next Initiative button on the tool bar would check to see if the encounter has already been started and if not, it would start the encounter, and move to the first round with whoever has the highest init.

If this is implemented (which is what i would prefer/suggest), I would also suggest a preference setting to turn this off so users who drag/drop combatant's into the tool in the proper initiative order do not get things reshuffled on them.

jay · Post by **jay** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:36 pm

I'll add a tracker for a Start Encounter button. That's a good idea. I'm not so sure about how useful the Next Init button would be unless you create new encounters all of the time. But, it is easy to add so I can do that too. I'll add a warning dialog before actually starting the encounter so nothing is messed up.

The Tools->Options dialog has the flags that let you turn on manual initiative. Start encounter will automatically roll initiative and resolve ties if the game settings are set. You can find these on the Miscellaneous tab of the Tools->Game Settings dialog. In 1.0 you can only enter the die roll and select from a short list how ties are resolved. In 1.1 you can script the whole thing.

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:49 pm

jay wrote: I'm not so sure about how useful the Next Init button would be unless you create new encounters all of the time. But, it is easy to add so I can do that too. I'll add a warning dialog before actually starting the encounter so nothing is messed up.

No, but I would hope that most of the time, users open an encounter saved or drag/drop combatants from 1 or more groups. having the Next Initiative button that is already right there on the toolbar start the encounter would be ideal in most situations so it would roll init or prompt for manual entry depending on your settings.

Hmmm... Now that I think of it, what would be the best flow for if there are multiple encounters in a single gaming session. If the next init button started the encounter if it was not started already, then the GM would still have to go to the menu and reset encounter OR load a new encounter to "reset". Perhaps removal of a combatant resets the encounter? or not... now that I think of this, perhaps it would just be best to put a dedicated button on the tool bar to start/reset (toggle with different icons to indicate state?) the encounter.

jay · Post by **jay** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:27 am

I think the extra button is the way to do it as well. I hadn't though about making it toggle between the two, but that seems like a good idea as well. Does anybody have a good icon for start and reset?