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Journal Info on Click

I'm brand new to Roll20, and have been trying to figure out if there's a way to provide players with a bit of information about a creature/NPC/character they don't control by interacting with that character's token in some way. Ideally, I'd like them to be able to click, doubleclick, shift click, or something on a token and get the window that they see when I share a journal entry with them. However, even if I share the journal entry, the tokens aren't clickable for the players unless I give them control. I really don't mind that idea, then they'd shift+double-click; but giving them control gives them access to everything, including the sheets (and maybe GM notes?) which I don't want them to have access to. I am aware I can manually click it myself and click the "show to players" button. I'm also aware that if I share the journal entries they can find the creature that matches the token on the board manually in their journals. Neither of these solutions is very organic during play though. I would much prefer a way for them to see the more detailed artwork and whatever I feel like typing into the bio by interacting with the token in some way. It would be much more organic and intuitive than looking through their journal, which gets full and cluttered fast in a long campaign if I share the basic journal info of every NPC and creature they face along the way. So; is this something I'm just overlooking? Or is there some other method I'm not seeing to accomplish the same thing? 
1589512197
Oosh
Sheet Author
API Scripter
OK, so I'm unsure what you can do on the API front, but you can achieve a decent amount of what you want to do with @{target} macros. Check this out, if it's kind of what you want then I can give you the macros: That's 3 separate macros, one for actions, base stats and traits. This is for Arena combats where I want players to be tactical and not rely on preexisting knowledge of creatures - I don't think you want to bog down a standard session with this much info available to your players. The players just click the "check mob stats" macro button, then click on the mob token (which they don't have permissions for). These are 3 universal macros. You can put a big button with a link to a journal/compendium entry but it's a bit more setup. Basically, at the end of one of these macros you'd put [Compendium Entry](@{target|bar3|max}) and then you will have to set up, for each token, a link to their entry and paste it into their token's bar 3 maximum field (or another one that you don't use... AC is often in the second slot, so bar2|max is also free). Let me know if this is something like what you're looking for.
It looks like that might be able to do what I want. I would be interested in the macros for sure. 
1589524728

Edited 1589525850
Oosh
Sheet Author
API Scripter
Everything below is for 5e - if you are using another character sheet, the template and ability names will probably not work, but the method should be fine. Cool, so this would be the first part of the Traits lookup. The first two steps are only for macros you're sharing with your players. If it's your own GM macro, just use the final macro and chuck "/w gm " at the beginning. Remember to give permissions to all players on the macro before you save it in your Collection. First macro would be called "CheckMobTrait" or similar, and the one they players put on their bars. #WhisperSelf #TargetMobTrait All that's doing is calling 2 other macros, the first one is simple: WhisperSelf: /w <player name> Each player needs to open this macro in their collection, put their name in there without the <>, and save it. This means all the chat menu macros you create for your players can just call on #WhisperSelf, and will work universally provided the player has set up this one macro with their name spelled correctly. This method keeps the chat clean, as every time a player looks up information they whisper themselves instead of everyone - obviously having 4+ players spamming chat with chat menus is not ideal. The final part is the template with all the info, which you can customise to your heart's desire: #TargetMobTrait: &{noerror}@{target|t1|wtype}&{template:npcaction} {{name=@{target|t1|npc_name}}} {{rname=Traits}} {{description=**@{target|t1|repeating_npctrait_$0_name}**: @{target|t1|repeating_npctrait_$0_description} **@{target|t1|repeating_npctrait_$1_name}**: @{target|t1|repeating_npctrait_$1_description} **DEFENCES** **Immune:** @{target|t1|npc_immunities} **Resistant:** @{target|t1|npc_resistances} **Condition Immunity:** @{target|t1|npc_condition_immunities}}} The use of the target label @{target| t1 } means your players click one target token (don't need control of it) when prompted, and every t1 call afterwards will lookup the same character sheet. Note that this will not to much useful if the target token is not linked to a character sheet! Let me know if you want more, or you're happy to mess around with the above! The others I have are for Attacks & Actions, and base Stats. I've also got GM versions with clickable buttons for attacks and rolling HP if you'd like those. If, for any reason, you'd like to know when your players are looking stuff up, just add a first line to the first macro with something like /me is peering intently at @{target|t1|token_name}! That will give a small general chat emote that the player is probably busy reading some info. Also worth mentioning that you can cut this down to 2 macros if you'd prefer, and just have #WhisperSelf at the start of the main macro. I prefer not to do this, just so I can still call on the main macro to post it to general chat, for example if a boss enters the arena and I want everyone to look at the stats.
1589596817

Edited 1589596840
Thank you! I got something I'm happy with figured out. I couldn't find a way to call the bio information or avatar image in a macro.  As a workaround I added a trait to the character sheet with the short bio I want to give to my PCs and added an imgurl attribute to the sheet with a link This is what my code ended up looking like: &{noerror}@{target|t1|wtype}&{template:npcaction} {{name=[Image](@{target|t1|imgurl})}} {{rname=@{target|t1|npc_name} }} {{description=@{target|t1|repeating_npctrait_$0_description}}} And this is what my output ended up looking like: I'm happy with the results and your assistance was invaluable. 
1589603241

Edited 1589603432
Oosh
Sheet Author
API Scripter
No problem! You can link straight to the proper compendium entries if you wish: [Click](<a href="https://app.roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Items:Boots%20of%20Striding%20and%20Springing" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Items:Boots%20of%20Striding%20and%20Springing</a>) This should open up the entry for the Boots, for example, if you just paste it into chat. And there's your image! If you open up the compendium and pop it out into its own window you should be able to get the links to the entries and images themselves. If you're doing a bunch of monsters at once for example, just open up the list of monsters by name , CTRL-F your way to the one you need and right click the link to copy the location. The links should work fine in macros with the above formatting, in journal entries just use the link button or CTRL-K, same as here on the forums. I think I like your image more than the official one though... those rats look hungry.....