Referencing descriptive text

Is there a way to reference the text blocks from a macro? e.g., the content of the "Bio & Info" field of a character journal? Or the "GM Notes" field of a token? I'd like to be able to have a macro for outputting descriptive text on a creature. I could do it by putting the text into an attribute, but that's a bit messy. Also, I'd like to be able to output room descriptions from within the map. I was thinking of having tokens on the GM layer which had descriptive text in the "GM Notes" field, then have a macro button which dumped that text to the chat window. Is this possible, or is there a better way of doing that?

You can't reference that text from a macro, but you can from an API script. It wouldn't be too difficult to write you an API command that sent the text of a specified character's notes to the chat, or whispered the GM Notes to the GM. If you want to go that route, post a request in the API forum detailing out your use cases, including what text you want displayed where, and what command you want to execute to do it, etc. Someone *cough* *cough* will probably write it for you. =D

The Aaron said: You can't reference that text from a macro, but you can from an API script. It wouldn't be too difficult to write you an API command that sent the text of a specified character's notes to the chat, or whispered the GM Notes to the GM. If you want to go that route, post a request in the API forum detailing out your use cases, including what text you want displayed where, and what command you want to execute to do it, etc. Someone *cough* *cough* will probably write it for you. =D In other words, he's already written it, while simultaneously responding to your question, and is just waiting for you to formally request it ;)

*snicker*

API is probably the only way to reference the bio and gm notes. Using a "description" attribute isn't a bad option, especially if you are using a character sheet. For room descriptions and such; you can create text boxes on your gm layer, read from there or move them to the token layer for everyone to read. You can keep them positioned along the edges of your map to prevent clutter. You can also use images of text(screen shots of descriptions, maps, detail, etc.) drag them on the map and resize as needed, use the zoom function (Z or Shift+Z to show all players) or give the player's permission and they can use Z to zoom in. You can also reference handouts and/or url's in your macros so that you can click on the hyperlink in the chat output for more information.

Ziechael said: The Aaron said: You can't reference that text from a macro, but you can from an API script. It wouldn't be too difficult to write you an API command that sent the text of a specified character's notes to the chat, or whispered the GM Notes to the GM. If you want to go that route, post a request in the API forum detailing out your use cases, including what text you want displayed where, and what command you want to execute to do it, etc. Someone *cough* *cough* will probably write it for you. =D In other words, he's already written it, while simultaneously responding to your question, and is just waiting for you to formally request it ;) He usually mentions a book as well...

Vince said: He usually mentions a book as well... 'Javascript, the good parts' you mean...?

UH OH , you said Java instead of Javascript ! ^_-

GenKitty said: UH OH , you said Java instead of Javascript ! ^_- did no such thing... you can't prove anything!! (ps. that edit on my post was to... err... put quotation marks on, nothing else!) Feel kinda bad, we've gotten off topic a lil' lol

Thanks Aaron for the suggestions, and the offer :-) If it needs to be done in a script, then it actually sounds like it might be a good learning exercise, so I might have a stab at it myself! As far as using text boxes on the GM layer go, that might work for simple descriptions on maps with only a few rooms, but where I have dozens of rooms that's going to get messy.

Samuel Penn said: As far as using text boxes on the GM layer go, that might work for simple descriptions on maps with only a few rooms, but where I have dozens of rooms that's going to get messy. I hear you. You can use handouts as mentioned and/or just reference an external source (doc, pdf, html, etc) I like your idea of having "clickable" access from the map. I use the zoom trick often for this.

I currently use Google Docs, but I'm having a play to see what Roll20 can do for me.

What about something a little more complex? Set up a token in each area of the map where the graphic is just the number of the room/area. Enter description text into GM Notes. Have script that copies GM Notes of currently selected token into a handout entitled Description (overwriting any notes currently there). Pop up the handout (have flag to allow options for DM-only or all players). Got a script for that, Aaron? I was going to try to write one, but haven't gotten around to even seeing if it's possible. I usually leave the chat window closed, so handout pop-ups would be much more helpful to me.

You guys.... I take one 4 hour drive... =D Anyway, it should be easy to write (no, I didn't write it yet, but I would...) it would be a great way to get your feet wet with the API. Let me know if you need any help or have any questions. :)

I've got something working, which is dumping the GM Notes into the chat. A lot of tidying up of the presentation to do, but the core functionality is there. The hardest part is waiting for the script changes to sync with the game - I'm never certain whether I've broken something or it's just taking an awful long time to pick up changes.

API seems to be slow right now with making changes...

You can add something like this to your script: on('ready',function(){ log('API Ready!'); }); that will print to the API log once everything is up.