Author Archives: Armin

I sometimes wonder how some bits are missed (b177)

b177 (b176 was used only for the last Release Version.)

Modified the output of the character’s QuickRulesOptionsCode() a bit: it now defaults to separating the pieces with commas; the dice+adds code is now ‘d+a’; the allows stacking for Deflect and Fortify codes now spell those out; added ‘-deffrom’ for when default level discounts are turned off; now outputs ‘n/a’ when no codes apply.

On the main window’s Traits menu the “Bonus Granting” option was changed to “Active/Inactive” to match right-click menus. I also added the “Loadout” options that were missing.

Changed how Options sizes the options panels, in an attempt to fix an issue with Windows 11 when high DPI scaling is turned off.

Added an error trap to the code when export sheets are run, to catch run-time errors in the export sheets.

The independent routine that returns the weight of all unassigned items wasn’t properly updated when the routine that returns all unassigned items was, so it was still double counting unassigned items that are chilren when totalling weights.

Since characters were changed some time ago to always recalculate the virtual ‘all unassigned items’ loadout (because that’s used as the default for various things), I have now changed the calculation code in the character to use the weight of that loadout for the character’s current load weight when using the unassigned items loadout. It was previously using the routine that just calculated the weight of all unassigned items separately, which is an unnecessary and redundant call in this situation, since we already know that value.

Character equipment lists now use an adjusted DisplayName that includes modifiers, as the various other traits do. This means you should now see the applied modifiers listed (in ‘short name, cost’ format) with the item. This will automatically flow through all lists and character sheets that use DisplayName when displaying the lists (all of my sheets use DisplayName). This *does not* apply to Attack Tables.

The Sheet Options dialog will now cap the sizing of the options blocks to prevent them from getting unreadably wide or unusably narrow.

The Sheet View toolbar should no longer be obscuring part of the Sheet View area.

* Campaign Settings

Campaign Settings should now honor Tablet Mode.

I’ve made some changes when initializing Campaign Settings to try to help adjust for issues with the sizing of the boxes in Windows 11 when high DPI scaling is turned off.

Campaign Settings has been changed to be a sizable window. This should help with better fitting everything as the user would like when the window is scaled in size.

Because of the change to a sizeable window, I’ve adjusted where the errors list appears when there are issues. This now appears inside the content area, under the panel displaying the info boxes. This will resize that flow panel, so when the errors list appears, the boxes may be re-flowed.

I’ve adjusted the checkboxes to help with accessibility. I’ve also left-aligned the various labels to fit in with the checbox change.

Package Updates

2022 April 6

* NPC Record Card

This should no longer chop off trait section headers when they have no traits in them.

The card will now use FullNameTLExpanded for the attack names. This shows the modifiers applied (using short names, without costs) in parentheses after the name.

* Official Character Sheet

Added some options to allow some customizing of the footer text.

Package Updates

2022 April 2

Dungeon Fantasy RPG.gdf

[EQUIPMENT]
<Armor – DFRPG Adventurers>
Normal ‘head’ armor covers only the skull (not the face) unless full face coverage is included, so these items all had ‘head’ changed to ‘skull’ in location().
“Light Cloth (Head)”
“Heavy Cloth (Head)”
“Light Leather (Head)”
“Furs (Head)”
“Heavy Cloth (Head)”
“Heavy Leather (Head)”
“Light Mail (Head)”
“Light Scale (Head)”
“Light Segmented Plate (Head)”
“Mail (Head)”
“Scale (Head)”
“Segmented Plate (Head)”
“Heavy Mail (Head)”
“Heavy Scale (Head)”
“Heavy Segmented Plate (Head)”
“Brigandine (Head)”
“Plate (Head)”
“Heavy Plate (Head)”
“Extra-Heavy Plate (Head)”
“Epic Plate (Head)”

The ‘head’ location covers the skull and face, so listing ‘face’ in addition to ‘head’ is redundant, so these items all had ‘face’ removed from location().
“Light Cloth (Full Face)”
“Heavy Cloth (Full Face)”
“Light Leather (Full Face)”
“Furs (Full Face)”
“Heavy Cloth (Full Face)”
“Heavy Leather (Full Face)”
“Light Mail (Full Face)”
“Light Scale (Full Face)”
“Light Segmented Plate (Full Face)”
“Mail (Full Face)”
“Scale (Full Face)”
“Segmented Plate (Full Face)”
“Heavy Mail (Full Face)”
“Heavy Scale (Full Face)”
“Heavy Segmented Plate (Full Face)”
“Brigandine (Full Face)”
“Plate (Full Face)”
“Heavy Plate (Full Face)”
“Extra-Heavy Plate (Full Face)”
“Epic Plate (Full Face)”

An armor ‘suit’ in DFRPG includes the skull (but not the face), so these items all had ‘skull’ added to lcoation()
“Light Cloth (Suit)”
“Heavy Cloth (Suit)”
“Light Leather (Suit)”
“Furs (Suit)”
“Heavy Cloth (Suit)”
“Heavy Leather (Suit)”
“Light Mail (Suit)”
“Light Scale (Suit)”
“Light Segmented Plate (Suit)”
“Mail (Suit)”
“Scale (Suit)”
“Segmented Plate (Suit)”
“Heavy Mail (Suit)”
“Heavy Scale (Suit)”
“Heavy Segmented Plate (Suit)”
“Brigandine (Suit)”
“Plate (Suit)”
“Heavy Plate (Suit)”
“Extra-Heavy Plate (Suit)”
“Epic Plate (Suit)”

Package Updates

2022 March 29

GURPS Martial Arts 4e.gdf

[Lists]
<Style Realistic Techniques Capoeira>
<Style Realistic Techniques Dragon-Man Kung Fu>
<Style Realistic Techniques Force-Swordsmanship>
<Style Realistic Techniques Taijutsu>
<Style Realistic Techniques Wushu>
#newitem moved later in list

Pyramid 3-71 – The Captain’s Boat.gdf

File added.

Official Character Sheet

Added support for user-adjustable footer text.

Updated Equipment Totals line to honor user settings for formatting values.

Spring Bandit Sheet

Updated loadout weight display in Move box to honor user settings for formatting values.

Package Updates

2022 March 23

* Official Character Sheet

Fixed DR display (when showing a single value) to show Torso value

Added option to show thin solid lines instead of dotted lines where dotted lines would normally be used

* GURPS Supers 4e.gdf
[Stats]
Super ST
newmode(kick,
parry(0) changed to parry(No)

* Dungeon Fantasy RPG.gdf
Added “_New Parent Item” to Advantages, Disadvantages, Skills, and Spells.

2022 March 18

* Official Character Sheet

Now offers a couple options related to including page numbers with traits.

Enabled the ability to expand/collapse child lists for parents in Sheet View.

Package Updates

2022 March 14

* GCA5 User Reference Guide

Updated the Unified View image and the toolbar images to reflect the new Library Pane button that toggles display of the Library Pane.

Updated the Sheet View section a bit.

Added references to the right-click menu to Classic View and Sheet View.

Updated the Options dialog to reflect the new Program Options panes of Windows & Boxes and Lists, which replaced the Display pane. Also updated the Default Character Options to reflect the expanded Symbols and Optional Display pane.

* Official Character Sheet

The sheet now honors the character options for displaying Break, LC or Malf columns.

The sheet now honors the GCA options for formatting dollar costs and weights. If you have those set, GCA will also right-align those columns on the sheet.

* NPC Record Card

The sheet now honors the character options for displaying Malf numbers.

* Spring Bandit Sheet

The sheet now honors the character options for displaying Break, LC or Malf columns.

Malfed the Malf bits (b175)

b175

Added an option that’s a bit hard to explain but useful to folks using Classic View or Trait Dialogs a lot to manage traits. You can now select a highlight color (or ‘any color’) in Options (Program Options > Display) that will allow traits with that highlight to remain in the character list regardless of the current category selected. This means that if you select ‘yellow’ and highlight a trait ‘yellow’ then that trait will always appear in the Character list, no matter what category is currently chosen in the category drop-down. This affects only these lists and has no impact on sheets or displays in other parts of GCA.

Added an option to display an LC column on the equipment library list.

If you use the option to format dollar costs or weights in character lists, you can now elect to apply those same formats to library lists.

The Display section on the Options dialog was getting a bit messy. I’ve split that into two: Windows & Boxes and Lists.

* Malf

Calculations have been updated to account for default Malf numbers based on techlvl() when an item should have a Malf but one is not provided, and for some special case values.

When GCA is calculating a trait, it’ll check to see if there is a malf() value for each mode of the item. (No modes, no malfs.)

If there is a malf(), great, it will calculate it.

If there is no malf(), it will then check for a cat() that includes “firearm” or “grenade” or a damtype() that includes “pi” or “inc”. If any of those are true, it will proceed to calculate the malf, using a default malf() based on techlvl().

You can use calcmalf(yes) (actually any value except ‘no’ or ‘false’) on the trait to force calculation of malf for all modes. Figured it should be there, but other options are probably better. If you use calcmalf(no) on the trait, it’s the same as setting malf(0) for every mode–all calced charmalf() values will be empty.

If the mode’s malf() is set to 0, this allows you to bypass all calcs, and the calculated charmalf() will be set to nothing.

If the mode’s malf() is set to 99, this allows you to force calculation of that mode’s malf–the 99 is not used as the base malf, that’ll be set by techlvl(). This is similar to using calcmalf(yes) on the trait itself, but applies just to this mode.

If calculating is a go, GCA calculates it as a simple number adjusted by all applied bonuses.

If not calculating, charmalf() is set to malf(), which may be empty.

I think that covers *most* situations. If something isn’t covered, manually setting the malf() to the appropriate value will cause calcs to happen.

* tagdefs.xml

Updated malf() text

Package Updates

2022 March 5

————————————————————
Delvers to Grow.gdf
————————————————————
Brute-ish
Removed the redundant adds() that resulted in a duplicate Trademark Move being added for Thief characters.

2022 March 4

————————————————————
Dungeon Fantasy RPG.gdf
————————————————————
Fixed page references for spells to use DFRPG:S

Thanks to Repertor, a bunch of missing commas across equipment have returned.

————————————————————
Delvers to Grow.gdf
————————————————————
Updated a bunch of page number references for DFRPG to use the proper DFRPG book codes.

 

A bit o’ Malf (b174)

b174

You can now hide the library pane in Unified View, just as you can on Sheet View. I added the same button for it to the leftmost position of the Unified toolbar.

Fixed the tooltip text for the layout button on the Unified toolbar.

GCA should now be better at catching duplicate specified categories for traits when loading traits from books. This will not affect the cat() tags on existing character traits.

I’ve added a new data file command: #ModifierGroupWarnings [On|Off] This is Off by default. When On (and #Verbose is also On), this command will cause GCA to spit out to the log every time it replaces the modifier’s included group() with the one specified by the sub-head group in the file. The group specified in the file must be the official group source for the data, and is considered part of the name of the modifier. However, there are reasons that having a group() specified in the tag block can be convenient. The default behavior of GCA’s book processing has now changed from what was the equivalent of this command being On to this command being Off.

Malf() is now recognized as a mode-tag. CharMalf() is now calculated based on malf().

ShowMalf, ShowBreak, and ShowLC are now settings that can be turned on or off in the [Settings] section of a book file.

There are now options for showing LC, Malf, and Break numbers on the Default Character and Current Character tabs of Options. By default, these are all Off.

The attack boxes on Unified View now respect the character’s settings for showing LC, Malf, and Break columns.

The attack displays on Edit Traits now respect the character’s settings for showing LC, Malf, and Break columns.

Due to some changes in settings and file processing, I’ve also updated the FastFileVersion to force rebuilds of all FastLoad library data.

* viewinfo_template_equipment.rtf

Removed a redundant modifiers output line.

* bookcodes.xml

Added the “Dungeon Fantasy: Spells” and “Delvers to Grow” books.

* GCA5.xsd

Added the overlooked ‘scopeacc’ and ‘charscopeacc’, and the new ‘malf’ and ‘charmalf’ to the GCAAttackMode block.

* tagdefs.xml

Updated for malf() and charmalf().