HTML5 Datalist for Character Sheets

HTML5 Datalist for Character Sheets Hello Roll20. I am a custom sheet creator that previously found out that the html component datalist is not currently supported by Roll20 character sheet. This suggestion is to allow the usage of datalists. Datalists are a helpful tool for sheet authors to guide players toward filling out input-fields. Datalists combines the precision of a dropdown-field with the flexibility of an input-field. &lt;input list="abilityScores" name="attr_abilityScore"&gt; &lt;datalist id="abilityScores"&gt; &lt;option value="@{strength}"&gt;Strength&lt;/option&gt; &lt;option value="@{dexterity}"&gt;Dexterity&lt;/option&gt; &lt;option value="@{constitution}"&gt;Constitution&lt;/option&gt; &lt;option value="@{intelligence}"&gt;Intelligence&lt;/option&gt; &lt;option value="@{wisdom}"&gt;Wisdom&lt;/option&gt; &lt;option value="@{charisma}"&gt;Charisma&lt;/option&gt; &lt;/datalist&gt; A great example is if you need your players to select an ability score for a roll button. Using a datalist empowered the input-field to help players input the correct reference to the ability score, ensuring that the button works. Players can: Use the field as a straight dropdown: Write and seach for the desired input: Still use any custom value they like for house rules. A more advanced case is if a sheet author wants the player to input a calculation into an input-field. Using datalist the players are guided towards the right calculation: Straight dropdown: Search for the name: Search for a value in the calculation: The problems with IDs From Roll20's point of view, the problem with datalists is that they use IDs and Roll20 has banned nearly all usages of ID-referencing. As far as I know, from the wiki, there are two problems with ID-referencing&nbsp; ID-fields are globally available so if an input-field has an ID, then all players would read from that single field, thus reading data from other players character sheets. Any updates to that input-field would overwrite whatever other players has written in that field, thus resulting in loss of data. However, this is not a problem with datalists. When a datalist is defined it will contain static information that does not change. This means that it is well suited for global referencing for all players and there is no data loss as the data in the options cannot be overwritten.&nbsp; Further more, even if one of the option's value is an attribute, the actual attribute will not be referenced by the ID. The attribute has no power until added to an input-field . When selected, the attribute will be added to an input-field on a character sheet, and once the input-field is referenced, then the correct value from the related character sheet will be used for calculations. Reference to the Wiki <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Building_Character_Sheets#Restrictions" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Building_Character_Sheets#Restrictions</a> HTML Elements that doesn't work: &lt;section&gt;, &lt;header&gt;, &lt;title&gt;,&lt;footer&gt;, &lt;a&gt;, &lt;datalist&gt;, &lt;meter&gt;, &lt;progress&gt;. Trying to add any of these to a sheet will either result in Roll20 removing them or behave like they are a &lt;div&gt; <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Building_Character_Sheets#Only_Use_Classes.2C_not_IDs" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Building_Character_Sheets#Only_Use_Classes.2C_not_IDs</a> You should not use IDs on your tags (for example, DO NOT do &lt;input type='text' id='name' /&gt;). Since there are multiple copies of each sheet in the DOM at once, using an ID is incorrect since IDs should only be used on unique elements. This does mean that you cannot utilize ID-linked &lt;label&gt; elements (eg, &lt;label for="my_id"&gt;My Label Text&lt;/label&gt;). From this link it appears that it is possible for a label to link to another element via ID, so therefore it should also be allowed for input-fields to link to a datalist via ID. Finally some other sheet authors that have also run into the absence of datalists, and tried to create suggestions for it but without luck Suggestion by Scrott C.: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/6051734/html-5-datalists-for-character-sheets" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/6051734/html-5-datalists-for-character-sheets</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Related post: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/6045689/html-5-datalists-possible-to-use" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/6045689/html-5-datalists-possible-to-use</a> Suggestion by Sam: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/3439349/allowing-datalist-tags-for-character-sheets" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/3439349/allowing-datalist-tags-for-character-sheets</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Related post: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/3366128/do-character-sheets-not-support-html5" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/3366128/do-character-sheets-not-support-html5</a> Some other sheet authors wanting datalists: <a href="https://github.com/khendar/Roll20_StarWars" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/khendar/Roll20_StarWars</a> "Reverted the initial class and specialization to a text box until roll20 supports the DataList HTML5 tag" <a href="https://github.com/AndrewHolder/roll20-character-sheets-Testing/blob/master/AEON-Aberrant/aberrant.html" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/AndrewHolder/roll20-character-sheets-Testing/blob/master/AEON-Aberrant/aberrant.html</a> . Out-commented datalist in the code <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3438176/" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3438176/</a> Sam here also wants datalists for the same reasons.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

Wow, this would indeed seem useful, didn't know about this. You have my upvote.

will up this as well...

Thank you for your votes.&nbsp; Hopefully more Will Come soon :)&nbsp;

This would eliminate so many requests for help I get when people enter the wrong macro in a sheet!

empireofjade said: This would eliminate so many requests for help I get when people enter the wrong macro in a sheet! Yeah, normal title/hover elements can't account for dropdowns, only give the info next to the actual location of the attribute.

ᐰndreas J. said: empireofjade said: This would eliminate so many requests for help I get when people enter the wrong macro in a sheet! Yeah, normal title/hover elements can't account for dropdowns, only give the info next to the actual location of the attribute. Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement, but you can do hover elements within a drop down/select.&nbsp; I have used that on one of my sheets for selecting the base bonus for ranged attacks, that way people know for sure what numeric bonus goes with my labels.

Kraynic said: ᐰndreas J. said: empireofjade said: This would eliminate so many requests for help I get when people enter the wrong macro in a sheet! Yeah, normal title/hover elements can't account for dropdowns, only give the info next to the actual location of the attribute. Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement, but you can do hover elements within a drop down/select. I have used that on one of my sheets for selecting the base bonus for ranged attacks, that way people know for sure what numeric bonus goes with my labels. Kraynic, you are correct that you can do hover elements inside a dropdown. However in areas where more flexibility is required and input-fields are used, no amount of guiding text will ensure that players write the correct information.&nbsp; For instance, despite having hover text on every single attribute in the sheet, my players still do not know how to get the name of an attribute. Despite my input-fields looking like this: I have had players write "Wisdom" or "@Wisdom" or "{wisdom}" instead of the correct " @{wisdom} ". With datalists, this can be a huge help for many non-technical players to input the correct information. In short. Datalists tells players exactly what to write, instead of guiding them closer towards what they should write.

+1'd. This is the exact sort of thing datalists were implemented to do, so far as I can see, and it's there for the taking.

We need this! VERY useful implementation!

I literally just ran into this issue while trying to build a new custom character sheet. My only workarounds are to either create about a hundred independent separate attributes in addition to the normal fieldset I need to implement, or show the normal list of values separately for reference. Datalists would be super helpful!

SmashManiac said: I literally just ran into this issue while trying to build a new custom character sheet. My only workarounds are to either create about a hundred independent separate attributes in addition to the normal fieldset I need to implement, or show the normal list of values separately for reference. Datalists would be super helpful! I had exact same experience! So annoying that datalists gets filtered out by the HTML parser. I currently have a dropdown next to my input fields for autofill which is super ugly . So yeah we need this! Please share this suggestion with all your friends and players for more votes! It is a very long way to 200!

Super cool. Would like to see this!

Super cool! Would like to see this.&nbsp;

I've been using these sheets for many years, so I want to say thanks a TON for all the hard work! This has made, for me, running 2e games a breeze compared to the older sheets that are little better than just a text file.&nbsp; Appreciate the change to NWPs! Always a hassle to manually input strings for each NWP when creating new henchmen or what have you. I do have some requests: can the Worn Equipment section be made collapsable? It takes up a lot of space and neither I nor anyone I've played with using this sheet uses it - not especially a fan!&nbsp; For Birthright, a section for Bloodline powers that can have additional entries added via a button, the same as Granted Powers, which has sections for the level of the power (Minor through Great) and the description. Better even if it has a button to display the text of that power. Been running a Birthright game using these sheets for almost a year and it's pretty tricky keeping track of who has what exact power and at what level/derivation (considering I have about 20 players).

Chronische said: I've been using these sheets for many years, so I want to say thanks a TON for all the hard work! This has made, for me, running 2e games a breeze compared to the older sheets that are little better than just a text file.&nbsp; Appreciate the change to NWPs! Always a hassle to manually input strings for each NWP when creating new henchmen or what have you. I do have some requests: can the Worn Equipment section be made collapsable? It takes up a lot of space and neither I nor anyone I've played with using this sheet uses it - not especially a fan!&nbsp; For Birthright, a section for Bloodline powers that can have additional entries added via a button, the same as Granted Powers, which has sections for the level of the power (Minor through Great) and the description. Better even if it has a button to display the text of that power. Been running a Birthright game using these sheets for almost a year and it's pretty tricky keeping track of who has what exact power and at what level/derivation (considering I have about 20 players). Thank you for your kind words. I will definitely look into this. However this thread is focused on the allowance of Datalists for all character sheets. For specific requests for the AD&amp;D 2E sheet, please create a post on&nbsp; <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/9311682/official-ad-and-d-2e-revised-update-thread" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/9311682/official-ad-and-d-2e-revised-update-thread</a> . Screen shots and references to books would be much appreciated as I have never played Birthright, so I need all I can get to implement anything for it

Sounds amazing! Hope that it succeeds.

This is now on dev for testing!

keithcurtis said: This is now on dev for testing! From your understanding, the new Character Sheet updates WILL satisfy this Suggestion thread?&nbsp; That would be a great step

Gold said: keithcurtis said: This is now on dev for testing! From your understanding, the new Character Sheet updates WILL satisfy this Suggestion thread?&nbsp; That would be a great step Absolutely yes! Once the features on the Dev server goes live, then this thread will be satisfied! I have alredya implemented 10 or 15 datalists on the dev forum to test features! It is looking great so far! :D

That's great to hear. I also messaged you on Discord to alert you to this, but I'm glad you were already on top of it, Peter, so you can ignore my discord PM. (For AD&amp;D 2nd Edition character sheets!)

Does this mean if I build my sheet on the dev server I can use a datalist and won't have to study up on sheet workers to do the same thing?

This is now live actually. You won't need a sheetworker to hack together a datalist replacement, but sheetworker are essential for a performance sheet in quite a few other situations.

This is live, so time to refund the votes then?