Coming Soon: Moving Character Sheet Tab before Bio & Info Tab

Hi everyone! We are making a minor change in the next couple of weeks, and I wanted to give you all a head up in case it impacts any Mods. When opening a character, we plan to make the Character Sheet tab the first tab and Bio & Info the second tab. Today, when users open a character, it automatically opens the Bio & Info tab (the first tab). For the overwhelming majority of existing users who actually want the Character Sheet tab, this is a minor annoyance as they have an extra click to get the data they want. For new users who expect a Character Sheet when they create a character, this can become a major pain point since they don’t know to go digging through tabs to find the character sheet. They might not even know if Roll20 offers character sheets or might think it's a premium feature. We won't change the Token Hotkeys (Shift+click for Bio & Info and Alt+click Character Sheet). We intend on releasing this change the week of November 14th. Thanks!

I have all character sheets visible to all players. Currently, when a player opens a character sheet for which they do not have edit permission, all they can see is the Bio and Info page. Will that stay the same?

Players will not be able to see a tab they don't have permission for.

Oh, I don't like this. I use Bios as the character sheets :-(

Gallaher said: Oh, I don't like this. I use Bios as the character sheets :-( If you use no character sheet, then it should open to the bio. There won't be a character sheet tab.

Now Live! When opening a character, the character sheet will be the first tab. If you'd like the ability to open to the Bio & Info tab instead, please vote on product board here .

I very much like the principle here. Far more likely to want to get to sheet/statblock. First Issue: When editing the bio page, saving changes returns you to the sheet, not the bio page you were just editing. This is counterintuitive, and makes editing the bio cumbersome. navigate to bio tab edit bio save changes Expected: See your changed bio page Actual: You are moved to the sheet tab and must navigate back to bio to see edits.

I agree with Keith, due to how the Avatar impacts the view of the Bio & Info tab formatting getting things to look a certain way on the Bio & Info tab is not going to be a simple one and done edit process. Previously: Edit, make changes to the Bio & Info tab, save, look things over, re-edit.... Now: Edit, make changes to the Bio & Info tab, save, click on Bio & Info tab , look things over, re-edit.... A new step has been added to an already labor intensive process to get things to look right due to the Avatar image. 

Sorry, but this doesn't seem to fix a problem anyone I know of was seriously having, and seems to make an already somewhat cumbersome process (editing bio and info) even more laborious to save people 1 click with a mouse. Would it be possible to implement this as a display option? So players and GMs who would rather open on character sheets and do not use Bio and Info can do so, while those (like in my group) who make extensive use of the Bio and Info tab can continue on as before? 

This change does not make me happy. I have hundreds of sheets across many games and like others have said, I use the bio as the sheet, and I use the crunch only when I need it. In the middle of games where I'm GMing, I want to quickly look at the stat blocks I've neatly summarized, not a sprawling sheet full of widgets and click buttons. Can we please have this be a game setting, like how we can change the position of the bars or the colors?

I, too, really dislike this change (and already voted on the Product Portal). We use the Bio & Info Tab for direct Infos to the Characters and I as a gm really need to look THAT Info up from time to time. Now there is this 1 extra - unnecessary - click instead of just opening the sheet from the journal! I really do not understand why the editing process was NOT tested before releasing this (proof given by Keith and Gauss)! Otherwise this extra step Keith mentioned would NOT be necessary... Well... I hope many people vote for the Bio & Info to be the number 1 tab again...

One other small issue. If a Character is set to be in everyone's journals, it used to be that when they clicked on that character it would bring up the Bio and Info Page so they could see the avatar image and the description of the character.  Now you have to actually click on the Bio and Info Tab to view it even if you don't have access to the Character Sheet.  It may not be much but I can see a lot of players not noticing the tab and wondering why the pages in the journal are just blank now when before when they clicked on them they got a picture and details of the NPC

Oenanthe said: One other small issue. If a Character is set to be in everyone's journals, it used to be that when they clicked on that character it would bring up the Bio and Info Page so they could see the avatar image and the description of the character.  Now you have to actually click on the Bio and Info Tab to view it even if you don't have access to the Character Sheet.  It may not be much but I can see a lot of players not noticing the tab and wondering why the pages in the journal are just blank now when before when they clicked on them they got a picture and details of the NPC Agreed. The code recognizes if no sheet is present in the game and opens to the bio page in that case, but when the user has no sheet access , bio page should be the default.

Yeah this is a pretty horrible fix for the problem, ngl

Agreed. The code recognizes if no sheet is present in the game and opens to the bio page in that case, but when the user has no sheet access , bio page should be the default. Good point, some of my players have been saying the same thing. They can't see the other stuff anyway, so it should just see the bio. And if they can make this change for players, please give us a toggle to do it for GMs. I understand the new player confusion angle, but what about players like me who have built thousands of hours of content (and habits!) based on the way the system worked before? I think we should be given some grace.

It looks like this has been addressed. I just tested with my  Dummy Account  and if no edit access has been granted, a player's character journal opens directly to the bio page.

keithcurtis said: It looks like this has been addressed. I just tested with my  Dummy Account  and if no edit access has been granted, a player's character journal opens directly to the bio page. Yes, this has been adressed. But it still opens the character sheet (first tab now) after clicking on "Edit" for editing Bio & Info, Uploading avatar and token etc. Votes are increasing on the Product Portal...

True. I was addressing only that particular issue.

To clarify, although I pointed out what I feel to be issues with the editing, I think that most users (not all, of course—witnessed by this thread) are more affected by the extra click previously required to get to the statblock during play. Keep in mind that the people voting for a revision are going to be the only votes, as asked. Even if a dozen votes are collected, that means not a lot. Roll20 gathers play style info from many sources. Very few changes to any system receive a lot of attention. People post in order to effect change. If people agree with a change, there is very little impetus to add their voice.

You also have users, that take things as they are and don't complain just because they don't know how or use roll20 not very often... And since there is also a suggestion in the forums pointing to that and suggesting to implement a switch on what Tab to be No. 1 in the sheet, there are people annoyed by this... This change would NOT be that bad IF (and only if) after Editing the Sheet (Bio & Info, Avatar etc.) it puts you back to the Bio & Info Tab and NOT on the first Tab (which now is the character sheet)... Though following the suggestion mentioned earlier, I'd like to have a switch, too! (so that I could select which tab should be No. 1 for me)... keithcurtis said: To clarify, although I pointed out what I feel to be issues with the editing, I think that most users (not all, of course—witnessed by this thread) are more affected by the extra click previously required to get to the statblock during play. Keep in mind that the people voting for a revision are going to be the only votes, as asked. Even if a dozen votes are collected, that means not a lot. Roll20 gathers play style info from many sources. Very few changes to any system receive a lot of attention. People post in order to effect change. If people agree with a change, there is very little impetus to add their voice.

In my marketplace products, I have some nonstandard NPCs (traps, vehicles, siege weapons) use only the bio page and the attributes and abilities tab. The bio page had all the description of the object, with hyperlinks activating the different abilities (such as a trap using a template roll for a dexterity save or the creature takes damage). Customers are just going to see an empty character sheet and skip the bio tab now.

Please give us an option to change it back to the way it was. It makes getting to my notes on the bios of everyone a pain. 

Garrett H. said: Please give us an option to change it back to the way it was. It makes getting to my notes on the bios of everyone a pain.  Reminder, please use the feedback mechanism provided here .

Hi, I use both a custom Character Sheet for my players, then I use my own creature template for NPCs that I have in the Bio, As a DM can you set up an option so I can revert this to open bios first? Its getting very frustrating to tab back on lots of NPCs just to see their stats.

Garrett H. said: Please give us an option to change it back to the way it was. It makes getting to my notes on the bios of everyone a pain.  If this feature were a toggle, I think it'd be a win/win for however anyone likes it.  But this is surprisingly annoying change given how minor it is.  

Personally, I (and my players) generally like the new setup. I only have one quibble: when you shift-click on a token to open that token's sheet, you get the Bio&Info page, not the character sheet as before. The system should be consistent. Shift-click on a token should open the character sheet.

Alt-click on the token to get the Character Sheet.

Saul J. said: Personally, I (and my players) generally like the new setup. I only have one quibble: when you shift-click on a token to open that token's sheet, you get the Bio&Info page, not the character sheet as before. The system should be consistent. Shift-click on a token should open the character sheet. I just tested the Dev server (which didn't get this update). Based on that I don't believe the Alt+click vs Shift+click behavior changed.  Based on memory (and some forum research) it has always been Alt+click to open the character sheet while Shift+click opened the Bio & Info tab. 

I am not a fan of this feature.  It makes it seem less like a roleplay game and more of a mechanics game.  It also triggers my OCD a lot as I am used to things being RP = left, mechanics = right. When I open my sheet, I don't see a character.. I see statistics and mechanics.  I want to see what I write and my character. Is there an option to turn this off and change it back so that Bio & Info is back in its original place?

There is a link to the product portal where you can vote for Bio&Info being No. 1 again... it has 120+ Votes right now... Daeva said: I am not a fan of this feature.  It makes it seem less like a roleplay game and more of a mechanics game.  It also triggers my OCD a lot as I am used to things being RP = left, mechanics = right. When I open my sheet, I don't see a character.. I see statistics and mechanics.  I want to see what I write and my character. Is there an option to turn this off and change it back so that Bio & Info is back in its original place?

Good change as far as I and my players see it we/they use the Bio & Info tab faorly infrequently, maybe once or twice per game.  I guess a switch to allow a gm to revert to the old ordering would make sense.

TheMarkus1204 said: This change would NOT be that bad IF (and only if) after Editing the Sheet (Bio & Info, Avatar etc.) it puts you back to the Bio & Info Tab and NOT on the first Tab (which now is the character sheet)... Though following the suggestion mentioned earlier, I'd like to have a switch, too! (so that I could select which tab should be No. 1 for me)... I am feeling this so much right now. I am running an academy campaign and have 30+ student and faculty sheets that I pop up (bio only) for players to get basic details, a picture, etc, and as you would expect they get updated as things evolve. I'm doing maintenance today and it's so tedious.  Click on character from sheet menu. Flip to bio to see if I need to update it. Edit. Make change. Flip back to bio to see if my change looks good.   Also: I never had to load the crunch to edit the bio before and take a memory hit, now I do. After enough times in a row I'm stuck refreshing whether I want to or not. "Thanks, I hate it!" as they say.

Please let us select whichever order we want for those two tabs, and stop makins us go back automatically to the Character sheet after editing the Bios :( Also, if you could add the option for the GM to hide the Attributes tab to the player, that'd be delightful !

Kinji said: Please let us select whichever order we want for those two tabs, and stop makins us go back automatically to the Character sheet after editing the Bios :( I don't care about the order. A toggle might be of value, but the sheet has sooo many toggles already. But yes, going back to the tab you were on after editing would be a big plus.

Would prefer to have a personal choice of whether to open as character sheet or bio.  Either as an overall for each person in the game settings or by sheet.  It takes me forever to open my players' sheets just so I can go into Bio and reassign the sheet!

I typically open the character sheet by selecting the token and using "Alt double-click" to open the sheet on the Character sheet page or "Shift double-click" to open the Bio page. To me this is simple and easy.

Ajax DM said: Would prefer to have a personal choice of whether to open as character sheet or bio.  Either as an overall for each person in the game settings or by sheet.  It takes me forever to open my players' sheets just so I can go into Bio and reassign the sheet! HI Ajax DM! You don't need to get to the bio page to reassign. The edit button exists in the journal header, not on any particular tab.

Hi everyone! We've added a hotkey to help users get to the Bio & Info tab more quickly. Now users can Shift-Click on a character in the journal to open the Bio & Info tab. This follows a similar pattern for using Shift-DoubleClick on a token to open the associated character's Bio & Info.

Carlos S. said: Hi everyone! We've added a hotkey to help users get to the Bio & Info tab more quickly. Now users can Shift-Click on a character in the journal to open the Bio & Info tab. This follows a similar pattern for using Shift-DoubleClick on a token to open the associated character's Bio & Info. Nice, now if only it would return you to the tab you had open when you finished editing. :)

Nice Workaround, though I'd prefer having the choice which tab would be No. 1, especially regarding the EDIT Button, that returns you to Tab No 1 (Now character sheet) Carlos S. said: Hi everyone! We've added a hotkey to help users get to the Bio & Info tab more quickly. Now users can Shift-Click on a character in the journal to open the Bio & Info tab. This follows a similar pattern for using Shift-DoubleClick on a token to open the associated character's Bio & Info.

Hey Carlos, out of curiosity: you say that the overwhelming majority of existing users want(ed) Character sheet to be No 1 and the extra click is (was) an annoyance for them. Did you get this data from surveys or just from the amount of clicks in game or any other source? Carlos S. said: Hi everyone! We are making a minor change in the next couple of weeks, and I wanted to give you all a head up in case it impacts any Mods. When opening a character, we plan to make the Character Sheet tab the first tab and Bio & Info the second tab. Today, when users open a character, it automatically opens the Bio & Info tab (the first tab). For the overwhelming majority of existing users who actually want the Character Sheet tab, this is a minor annoyance as they have an extra click to get the data they want. For new users who expect a Character Sheet when they create a character, this can become a major pain point since they don’t know to go digging through tabs to find the character sheet. They might not even know if Roll20 offers character sheets or might think it's a premium feature. We won't change the Token Hotkeys (Shift+click for Bio & Info and Alt+click Character Sheet). We intend on releasing this change the week of November 14th. Thanks!

I and my players realy dislike this feature! As they have control on some npc, they dont see the avatar picture when I "pop" a npc to show everyone who is talking or entering the area.  Now they see the character sheet.  It's really boring!  Really the worst change you ever made!

I doubt most people use that method, since if you are using "show to players", it puts the character in their journal. Many, many monsters have bio details the GM would prefer not to reveal. Since you are a Pro user, may I suggest the Supernotes script? It can show (among many other things) just the avatar picture in chat.

keithcurtis said: I doubt most people use that method, since if you are using "show to players", it puts the character in their journal. Many, many monsters have bio details the GM would prefer not to reveal. Since you are a Pro user, may I suggest the Supernotes script? It can show (among many other things) just the avatar picture in chat. I for myself use it, but not for characters. I use it only for Handouts... and there it works just fine. But I am otherwise with Zholtar and wish for a TOGGLE, the GM can set whether they want Bio&Info to be No 1 or the Sheet itself! As a GM I put Infos on the Bio&Info so that I know what I can tell my players about it... SUPER annoying when you see the Character Sheet instead of Bio&Info (YES, I know there is the shift+Click Shortcut, but it is STILL really annoying)

Is there a way to have this as a toggle in Settings?! Cause EVEN WITH the shortcut it is annoying as hell!

TheMarkus1204 said: Is there a way to have this as a toggle in Settings?! Cause EVEN WITH the shortcut it is annoying as hell! The most annoying part to me is when you edit something on the Bio & Info tab, hit the save button, and it then switches to the Character Sheet tab instead of showing you the Bio & Info tab that you were just working on.  It seems there is a bunch of stuff "hard wired" into the order of tabs. 

Kraynic said: TheMarkus1204 said: Is there a way to have this as a toggle in Settings?! Cause EVEN WITH the shortcut it is annoying as hell! The most annoying part to me is when you edit something on the Bio & Info tab, hit the save button, and it then switches to the Character Sheet tab instead of showing you the Bio & Info tab that you were just working on.  It seems there is a bunch of stuff "hard wired" into the order of tabs.  That was my initial and largest point of feedback. Editing the journal is very much oriented around editing the bio page. Going back to a tab other than the one you were working on is unexpected behavior and a time waster.