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PCGen and Roll20 character sheets

As many here know, PCGen 6.02 can export D&D3.5 and Pathfinder character sheets to HTML format. And the Roll20 documentation describes how users can edit CSS and HTML markup to change data or the appearance of their sheets. Now, I know how to hand edit and tweak markup plenty but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about how to how to automate this a bit to quickly import PCGen character data, in HTML, into Roll20. Any tips?
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Sam M.
Pro
Sheet Author
I'm not familiar with pcgen but it might be possible to do something with it
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Alex L.
Pro
Sheet Author
Im not sure what you are getting at, you couldnt use the data from PCGen in HTML format any easyer than in any other format, you would still need to import all the data via the API. If you are thinking that you could just put the sheet in as a custom character sheet you would just end up with a party of clones.
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Sam M.
Pro
Sheet Author
The least we could do is write an exporter that creates attributes from the HTML fields but like I said I know nothing
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Edited 1403675890
Alex L. said: Im not sure what you are getting at, you couldnt use the data from PCGen in HTML format any easyer than in any other format, you would still need to import all the data via the API. So, any existing scripts that do that? PCGen's own format (*.pcg) is just text file with markup so I suppose that could work as a data source too.
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Alex L.
Pro
Sheet Author
Mr. Farlops said: Alex L. said: Im not sure what you are getting at, you couldnt use the data from PCGen in HTML format any easyer than in any other format, you would still need to import all the data via the API. So, any existing scripts that do that? PCGen's own format (*.pcg) is just text file with markup so I suppose that could work as a data source too. Not as far as I know. If anything the pcg format would be better than the html.
The pcg file is only a pointer to the program to know what choices were selected. I don't think that is what you want. Starting with 6.03+ we are going to be switching to using the Freemarker token system to generate output sheets. There isn't any reason why you couldn't write an custom xml file to import the character file. <a href="http://wiki.pcgen.org/Template_Engine" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.pcgen.org/Template_Engine</a>
Alex L. said: Not as far as I know. If anything the pcg format would be better than the html. Paul G. said: The pcg file is only a pointer to the program to know what choices were selected. I don't think that is what you want. Starting with 6.03+ we are going to be switching to using the Freemarker token system to generate output sheets. There isn't any reason why you couldn't write an custom xml file to import the character file. <a href="http://wiki.pcgen.org/Template_Engine" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.pcgen.org/Template_Engine</a> So, at the moment, the support just isn't there yet (But interesting news about PCGen!) but that's fine, I can live with that. I'm just so glad to have the character sheet functionality in Roll20 anyway, that a little hand data entry is hardly an issue!
I am in the very early stages of a Hero Lab character importer using the XML output. I was unaware that the .pcg files were just text, looking at them it might be feasible to write an importer as well, though I expect there would be some serious challenges after looking at it, an XML option for PCGen would be very interesting... if they could mimic the XML of hero labs it would be great. One of the big challenges I am having (besides being a complete novice coder) with the HL export right now is that it doesn't handle that "Class Information" section well, because there simply isn't a breakdown of HP/BAB/etc... based on class, you only get totals. Also there is no way to determine from the output where HP bonuses come from... anyway several challenges right now that I am slowly tinkering my way through.
There isn't really a need to handle each bit of HP gained separately, all you need is to count how many classes of each have a particular dice count. take that information bring it over stripping out the CON bonus which can be done even without api on the client end. As for the other sections, BAB, saves etc, you run into some other issues, but the largest issue isn't with the character statistics but with static text based fields. What do you do with them? Personally, I would strip them out and have it converted to an HTML and stick it in the GM notes, but other people might want to auto populate spell like ability fields from them. Again cumbersome, I don't have anywhere near the javascript knowledge for the roll20.. it is VERY different from web based. In theory you should be able to use the XML just like you use the eval scripts, and you can easily use those to check for tags and tell the system if it is. Listed as a Spell-like, Supernatural or extrodiary then assign it to Field X. But then you need a way of keeping track of how many class levels vs hit dice for DCs, and it rapidly devolves into a cluster. I hope someone does it, and I'd be more than willing to help match a character sheet to it (3.5 Only, I don't know the rules well enough for the other systems to try them).