Recent Blogs Posts

Due to posting limits, I have had to split this session into three posts.
This is part 1 of 3.

It takes only a single line of code to change an effect’s default visibility behavior in the Combat Tracker. To discover and implement it requires a little work as outlined below.

Using Notepad++ I searched for the string displayed on the effect visibility button, VSBL, in the 5E ruleset subfolder, of the Fantasy Grounds data folder. No luck, the search failed to ...

Over the next few posts I plan on explaining how I wrote my first FG extension.

Since starting this blog I have tried to expose readers, particularly readers with little to no software development skills, to background information I felt would help them climb the FG extension learning curve more quickly. For a budding programmer there is a lot to learn, far more than can be conveyed in a blog. Supplementary reading is a must. Mostly, I hope to pique the critical thinking process, ...

This session I will implement some Lua script to dump database field names to the console.

Two housekeeping items:
(1) This blog is very long. I was required to divide it into two parts. This is part 2 of 2.
(2) You should consider making your browser full-screen so that the code displays correctly.

After saving the file, reloading the ruleset, and bringing up the character, my console information is as expected. Next step - implementing a terminating ...

Most, if not all programs, when stripped down to their very essence do one thing, manipulate data. That’s all Fantasy Grounds does: whether you are constructing a character sheet or rolling a d20 to determine surprise, FG is using your input, the data you supplied, in some predetermined process. FG uses two “languages” to provide extensibility. What do the two languages, XML and Lua bring to this table? XML is a standardized methodology of providing easy access to data. Lua is a methodology ...

A little bit of Lua and a lot of XML…

Let’s touch on variables. In a program, a variable is a place where data is stored. Variables have names, like x or myData or steve. Variables can have a type, which means they can only hold certain kinds of data, like a number, or a single letter of the alphabet. Some variables are very flexible and can hold anything, they are often referred to as objects. Lua’s variables are untyped, they are very flexible, one can think of them as objects. ...