MapPnakotic milestone

[gandreas]

Besides getting a new beta (finally) out to the next round of testers (and even some comments back), I've reached a major milestone for MaPnakotic:

It now has the ability to open stand alone campaign files, no need to connect to an existing server. Just drag the .cmpgn files to the app in iTunes (obviously this is going to require an iPad or device running iOS 4.x) and besides being able to select a server, the local files show up.

Perfect way to turn your iPad into a "battle map" - add your character tokens (using any of the available MapTool "art packs" you've downloaded on the device), and you're ready to go.

[P14gus]

Thanks very much for your continued efforts in this regards Gandreas, I cant wait to bring this to my gaming table.

Whilst I was included in the recent beta you sent out, iTunes wont let me sync the app to my phone due to verification issues which I have sent you an email about.

However, I am interested in hearing from anyone here who actually got it to work and how they found it to go. Hopefully I am the only one who cant get it working and if I need to jailbreak my phone to get it working then I will give it a go.

On a side note, is each beta dependant on the device UDID? Could I hypothetically try loading it on another device that has a different UDID?

Thanks once again for all your efforts

[gandreas]

Yes, each beta is dependent on the device UDID (and what's worse, I've got only a limited number of UDID's I can use each year, so once I build with support for that device, that's one fewer new device I can work with later on any other product).

I have, however, reached another milestone - I've got an architecture for macros working. This is actually the third one that I got working - the first supported the "need to ask user for values sometimes" (or other delayed or cancelled values), but had problems with the weird control structures wedged into the macro syntax. So I fixed that problem, but found cases where the first part broke down (especially when combined with loops). Finally got something that should work, and there's a distinct possibility that this approach may be brought back to The Dicenomicon for version 3.0. It requires a bizarre combination of proxy objects for "not yet resolved" values, curried method invocations, and some other tricks, but it definitely holds promise

I don't have all the various built in functions and all the control structures working yet, but hopefully that's just a matter of grinding it out...

[gandreas]

Just integrated macros with the virtual dice in MapPnakotic!

So entering this MapTool macro:
[x = 3d6+2d4] [if(x > toHit): "hit for "+2d8]

will cause five dice to roll, and if (and only if) their result is more than toHit, another 2 dice will be rolled.

In some respects this is a major break through, because it is smart enough to "phase" the rolls, only rolling those things which needs at any given time (so if the result is less than toHit, the 2d8 is never rolled).

Whats more, since toHit is probably not going to be defined (but might be a property of the current token), the user will be prompted for its value. And this will (currently) be done while the first five dice are still rolling!

[gandreas]

Getting closer to the next beta release here - just finished implementing the initiative tracking tools, and have a very large chunk of the macro functions done. The only major functionality that needs to be addressed is the "macro library token" support, at which point, while there will still be minor areas and specific features not yet implemented (such as, say, regular expressions or hexagonal grids), I think it will be "major feature complete". For what it's worth, I'm saving the ability to act as a server for post 1.0 - I had originally planned to only have "client only" mode in 1.0, but being able to use it as a virtual battle map (without requiring an external server or even a network connection) is pretty awesome.

It is definitely interesting to see the approach that MapTools uses to accomplish some of the various tasks that are handled by character sheets in The Dicenomicon.

So the plan is to finish up the macro library tokens and get the next release to beta testers. Hopefully I'll be able to finish off the rough edges (there are like 300+ functions for the macro scripts, and it takes a while to go through them all!), fix bugs and deal with critical missing minor features. Hopefully there will even be time to polish up the UI some more...

The initial release will be free, with two separate "in app purchases". The first will give you the Dicenomicon style virtual dice, and the second will give you the ability to load campaign files that you've made (uploaded via iTunes "file sharing"). So if you just want a "client only" or a virtual battle map, it'll be gratis - how's that for a deal!