Do I Need to Upload a custom sheet.json to Github to use it in my own game?

Short version: I'm looking to run a Timewatch game, which is very closely related to Trail of Cthulhu. ToC has a sheet in the Github that I wanted to modify lightly (change the names of some skills and rename a few value). My thought was to just update the sheet.json from Github to adjust the appropriate values (since they're stored there as the default). I'm having an issue that the "Custom Character sheet" option in Game Settings lets me update the html and css, but not to specify a sheet.json sheet for the game.  I'm having trouble finding clear instructions on how to use a sheet.json, but the impression that I'm getting is that you have to upload the sheet.json to Github and submit for approval before using in a private game (a process that sounds a lot like one that would be used for making the file world-accessible, which I doubt my modifications would be useful enough to justify). Can anyone confirm that this is the only way to use a customized sheet.json for a game? Any help you can provide would be appreciated.

AFAIK, the sheet.json is only required if a sheet is contained on roll20's github repo.  There isn't a way (other than a sandbox game) to access your sheet.json settings in a custom game.

Fascinating. The official Gumshoe sheet has a dropbox where you select which of the two supported systems you are going to use and updates the sheet accordingly. In the sandbox, I'm able to change the available options by modifying the sheet.json file. When I import the sheet using only the html and css, everything is jacked up, since all of the values are displayed, instead of only the ones relevant to one game. It seems there's something in the .json that controls all that. But, in theory, the entire sheet could be written without the sheet.json, and there's no way to use that without Github?

That was a BIG issue when setting options were added to the sheet.json.  Authors had no way to test their code before it was live...  Now we at least have the sandbox to test the sheet.json, but I'm 99% sure this only works for sheets that show up on roll20's character sheet template selector from the game's settings page and is "pointless" for custom games.  ;-(

Thanks a bunch for the fast response. Looks like I'll have to roll my own from scratch; the whole Github thing is way out of my league for right now. I appreciate the help, though.

I use a horrible custom sheet of my own (really need to ask Vince to help me make it legible and functional for my Roll20 players.. GiGs and Aqua Alex have each given me some assistance already and I'm still slow and more than half lost). I've never uploaded a github or made a json but yes my Custom Sheet shows up in Roll20. It would be great if someone could translate those 2 bolded words into American English so I can learn what they even mean. Those words seem to be written in programmer vocabulary. Please don't say github is a " repository where you git ", and json is a " JavaScript ", because those words are also fairly opaque. I did ask around, and only HTML + CSS were required for Custom Sheet.

Gold said: I did ask around, and only HTML + CSS were required for Custom Sheet. This is accurate. The "sheet.json" can't be used unless it's submitted to Roll20's repo, where it's paired with the sheet. When using a custom sheet in a game, you can't utilize a sheet.json in any way, and only need the HTML & CSS, and with sheet's that have translations embedded into them, you also need your language's .json file, or the the default tag content will appear in red on the sheet. It would be great if someone could translate those 2 bolded words into American English so I can learn what they even mean. Okay, I'll attempt to explain both of them, as well as define a few related words. The explanations should stand on their own, but I added some links if anyone wants to learn more about some of them. GitHub: a online site meant to store code, keep it organized, and make collaboration easier. The files & their versions are kept in order with a program called Git . Git is the most popular version-control system(program) when it comes to code & text. It can be used by itself, or use sites like GitHub, BitBucket or GitLab who all relies on Git. The sites just have some extra features layered on top of Git, with some differences between each other. GitHub vs Git: the difference. GitHub is still by far the most popular and widely used by a variety of people, to the point many think GitHub & Git is the same. This have led to confusion among several sheet author here when starting to learn how to use GitHub. Not understanding the distinction between Git & GitHub makes things harder to understand & learn, when people have tried start using GitHub, especially among sheet authors here. Most issues they run into is that they fundamentally don't get that it's Git that handles mostly everything and is the cause of most of their troubles when "something goes wrong". Repository or "Repo": a collection of data(code, text-files, images etc.) that stores some extra info regarding the files history, using a version-control system such as Git(and by extension, GitHub). So when people here are talking about the  "GitHub repo" or the "Character Sheet repository", it refers to the distinct collection of data about all Roll20 community character sheets, found here . People can then make copies of other people's repos and send things between each other in a organized manner, without directly interfering with each other's work. If you want to understand them better, the Git & GitHub for Poets -youtube tutorial is a short and clear guide that explains how things work and can be used, to the non-technical person(hence the "for Poets" name). JSON or .json : a file format to store lists of info in a simple  & human-readable way. It's an abbreviation that stands for " JavaScript Object Notation ", and as the name implies, designed with the JavaScript programming language in mind. As it's so simple and popular, most modern programming languages have code that can be used to manipulate and filter through .json files. Before json became popular, XML was a file format that held a similar position, but it looked more like HTML and was as simple. We in the Roll20 crowd have currently two guides on how to interact with Roll20's GitHub, The Beginners Guide , and the Git Command Line Guide .

Thanks for the explanation, Andreas. So, if my plan was to modify the existing sheet (which relies on data from its existing sheet.json), the only "easy" way to do so would be to fork the version in the Git repo, make modifications to the forked version, and submit for inclusion in the publicly available sheet list, correct? 

Tom L. said: Thanks for the explanation, Andreas. So, if my plan was to modify the existing sheet (which relies on data from its existing sheet.json), the only "easy" way to do so would be to fork the version in the Git repo, make modifications to the forked version, and submit for inclusion in the publicly available sheet list, correct?  What kind of do you have in the sheet.json that make it so important? It's only used to save default values and setting for new sheet, you can just create a default sheet with the right starting attributes and then copy it when you want to create a new instance. You can then create more "templates" in the same manner. You could set the most common default values on the sheet code itself, I'm sure some inputs already have a value="" part that defines the default value, even if it can be changed with sheet.json if one exist for the sheet used. If your sheet fulfills Roll20's minimum requirements for new sheets, and isn't a duplicate of an existing one, you could try to submit it.

It's the GUMSHOE sheet, and it sets default values between the two supported games (Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents). It hides the values that aren't used in a particular game and renders the sheet comprehensible (without the sheet file, every value shows and it looks like the css isn't even reading properly).  I'm running a different GUMSHOE game, with still different values. I wanted to operate from the base of Trail of Cthulhu and just modify a few skill names, but it doesn't look like I can do so without being able to edit the json file.

Hm, yeah that sounds like a tricky implementation.

If you can identify the names of the attributes used (and they should be right there in the json file), you can change them to act however you want.  All the json file does is set those attributes to specific values. You can edit the html to manually modify those attribute values to whatever you need them to be. 

Thanks, GiGs. I'll keep that it mind going forward. Honestly, there was so much going on with the sheet (a ton of different fields for what are essentially two different games I'm not playing), I've started to roll my own sheet. Having a little trouble with the sheetworkers because I'm really new to this, but it's coming along ok and is mostly usable if we're willing to do pretty much everything manually (not too bad, though, since it's GUMSHOE and thus not real crunchy).

If you have any issues with the sheet workers post questions about it, in separate threads for each issue. That's my favourite sort of question to answer.

Not a problem. The thread is here:&nbsp; <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/8363954/basic-sheetworker-help-needed" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/8363954/basic-sheetworker-help-needed</a>