Category Archives: HeroMachine 3

For the last week and a half or so I've been trying to figure out one key feature that presents as two different ones. To wit, I've been trying to load saved characters from the server instead of just from the ones you choose to save locally to your hard drive.

The key factor here is that these server-based character templates are in XML. Which is basically text.

Which in essence means this feature also would allow you to import and export characters as text, just like you could in HeroMachine 2.

I've made a lot of progress so far. I can successfully import saved XML files from the server and translate them into actual live characters in the program. I can also export any currently loaded character as an XML text list which you can copy to your clipboard, paste in a text file or email, and send to friends or whatnot.

The last piece of the puzzle programming-wise is to figure out how to let you paste the XML text into the program directly.

The other piece is figuring out where to put all these new choices. Right now I have introduced tabs to the File Load/Save screen, named "Your Characters", "Templates", and "Text". The Text one is what I haven't really coded yet. But basically it'll turn the traditional file list into a big empty text box which if you're in Save mode will be filled with the text representing whatever character you've got loaded up at the moment. And if you're in Load mode, it would be empty, waiting for you to paste some text into it.

Anyway, it's been slow going, with lots of false starts slowing things down, and even more niggling little details that have to be worked out along the way ("Where does this menu go", "What kinds of warnings do they get", "Why can't I convert a string to a &$%@#% date", etc.), but I am getting closer to having it ready for test.

I know it's been a while since the last update, so I just wanted to keep you all informed about what's been going on behind the scenes here.

I just uploaded a minor update to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. First, I've introduced a "Current Layer" indicator in the Layering box (Transform tab) showing which layer the current item is on. It should update automatically as you raise or lower the current item's layer.

Second, I've added a "minimize" button to the "view" toolbar just below the character creation canvas:

It's a little hard to see, which I may tweak down the line, but clicking it hides the view toolbar, leaving just the button. So now you can have the entire left side of the screen for character viewing.

I want to thank Worf for pointing out this problem -- the toolbar was hiding the very bottom of the illustration, so if you wanted to do a screen capture you'd lose that bottom portion. Hopefully this will resolve that issue.

Just wanted to give you a heads-up that a minor tweak to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha has been uploaded (version A.22) that improves the performance of the scroll bars in the Load/Save window. You can now hold the arrows down and the list will scroll on its own, or you can drag the little handle in the middle for more rapid manual scrolling.

I thought I'd fixed the "sort by date" bug on that screen too, but it turns out it's still broken. Feh.

I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up regarding three minor tweaks I uploaded to the HM3 Alpha this morning:

1. The manual entry box for resizing items used to be limited to 200%, but now goes all the way up to 999%. That should allow for some interesting effects.
2. The label formerly known as "Scale" has been renamed to "Size", on the recommendation of UI specialist Mark Shute. I agree with him that this is a much more universally understood way of saying what the tool does.
3. While you could previously click on the three "current color" swatches to change color areas just as if you'd clicked on one of the buttons over to the side, you can now also click directly on the numbers themselves to do the same thing. Before this tweak, the numbers were not clickable, creating a non-functional blank spot right in the middle of the swatch.
4. It doesn't get much more minor than this, but I added "%" indicators to the manual entry boxes for the Size tool.

One question for you all, is it obvious that you can manually change the settings in the Transform area?

I've just updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with the long-requested Color Swapping feature! Here's how it looks:

I'm dubious I've nailed the best possible arrangement here, but this is at least functional. That new row below the color name and alpha slider shows all three color areas, appropriately numbered in the big color swatch.

Each of the three blocks has three parts to it: The big current color swatch for that color area; smaller color swatches for each of the other two color areas (again, appropriately numbered); and buttons for either copying the main color (one arrow) or swapping the main color and one of the other colors (two arrows).

Look at the first main box, labeled with a big "1" in the light green swatch:

• If you were to click the the top button having only one arrow, that light green would get copied to color 2, currently a tannish-brown.
• If you were to click the bottom button having only one arrow, the light green would get copied to color 3 (line color), currently a very dark green.
• If you were to click the top double-headed arrow, color 1 and color 2 would swap, so color 1 would become tannish-brown and color 2 would become light green.
• If you were to click the bottom double-headed arrow, color 1 and color 3 (line color) would swap, so color 1 would become very dark green and color 3 would become light green.

It looks confusing, but I think once you've used it for a minute or two it'll make sense. Note that clicking any of these new buttons does not change which color is currently active, as indicated in the buttons to the left with the white outline around them ("Prime Color" in the screen capture).

One question I have for you obviously is, does this work? But I also would like to know if you think it makes sense or is too confusing. Should I add numbers so the selection tabs read "Prime Color (1)", "Second Color (2)", and "Line Color (3)" or something?

Just as a reminder, here's the color swap box in HeroMachine 2:

With three colors, I couldn't do this exact layout, but the basics are the same -- big color swatch, one-headed arrow for copying color from one to the other, and a double-headed arrow for swapping them.

Thanks in advance for your feedback and patience as we all continue working together to improve the program!

I've just updated the main HeroMachine 3 Alpha version with the latest User Interface. Holler if you have any problems with it! This should not affect your saved characters in any way.

I just updated the HeroMachine 3 alpha to A.20, which adds a cap of 20 actions to the number of undo levels. If that's not enough, let me know -- it's easy enough to change.

If you have more than 20 saved characters, I'd strongly encourage you to make a backup of your hmcharacters.sol file before you do too much today. This shouldn't impact the save file at all, but ... yeah, it makes me nervous, too. Better safe than sorry.

Hopefully this will stop the irritating Flash pop-up asking how much file space you want. Although, if you see that, just right-click on the HeroMachine app, choose "Settings" from the flyout, click the little folder icon, then set the file size to the next level up. 1MB usually works. You can check the "Don't bother me again" box if you want as well.

But like I said, hopefully this will stop it from being an issue at all.