VDice - Dice Rolling for Proboards v5

[Virgil Sovereign]

arek: Since it's bound to be useful for highly custom dice jobs, I've implemented rendering functions in VDA 1.1.3. The full specification as well as an example are viewable under "Rendering Functions" in the plugin docs (i.e. here).

Since I may eventually stop visiting this board daily, perhaps you, Chris, and other JavaScript-savvy posters could poke in occasionally and write any functions that need writing for users with highly specific needs. The VDA docs are starting to read like a computer science course, and I'm guessing that relatively few users will brave them. You've been helpful with addressing people's specific questions thus far in this thread.

The great thing about Proboards plugins is that you can install the plugins somewhere, set all the defaults to whatever you want in the 'Build' mode, and re-export them as working out-of-the-box custom solutions for users. Add your name to anything you modify, keep the plugins exportable for other users, but feel free to modify, export, and publish to your heart's content. I'd welcome it and would appreciate it.

And regardless, I hope the rendering functions fit the bill for what you're looking to do. If you're having problems at any point, let me know and I can also assist with tricky rendering functions.

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 28, 2013 10:13:44 GMT -8 arek said:

On the tweaks tab, there's a textbox. In that textbox, enter "width=50", save the changes, and see what that looks like.

Thanks arek. Alas that doesn't work because if I set the width to anything that resembles the font size (say, 12 or 14), then the text of the result is too big to fit in the box, and gets truncated.

Jul 28, 2013 16:20:24 GMT -8 Virgil Sovereign said:

And define a roll template custom1:

<font style="font-size: %TOK1px; color:%TOK2;">%TOK3 = %TOT</font>

Thanks Virgil Sovereign, that looks like the answer. Instead of defining the CSS class elsewhere, I can just override it with an inline sytle. This will do the job for sure, thanks.

[arek]

Virgil Sovereign, I'll actually probably make any rendering plugins I make available as extension plugins rather than built into VDA. This is easy enough to do, and allows the possibility of future updates to VDice/VDA without necessarily having to rebuild those functions (much like updates to VDice don't necessarily require VDice Advanced or VDice Compatibility to be updated).

--Arek

[Virgil Sovereign]

arek: That would be ideal but be aware of one complication, which is that any plugin defining rendering functions would have to appear after VDice Advanced in the plugin list. If you published your plugin for use by other admins, you'd have to mention this detail to them as well.

I've been thinking if there's a 'way around' this problem, but the only solutions I can think of involve adding an unreasonable amount of overhead code to rendering function declarations, or defining them as functions with very specific names (e.g. function vdice_renderer_arek1() { ... }) in the global (window) namespace, which is sloppy.

Having to keep the plugins in a certain order isn't the end of the world; it's just something to be aware of.

[arek]

It's fine without needing to make it order-independent. I'll make sure to note that such plugins do need to be loaded after VDice Advanced.

--Arek

P.S. I plan on always keeping my plugins editable, but if you want this as a distribution requirement for modified versions of VDice, you might want to mention it in the plugin source.

[Virgil Sovereign]

It isn't a distribution requirement. It's just my preference on how people handle the code.

I don't understand why anybody locks a plugin in the first place. All components are completely exposed to any client machine. They're never used for commercial purposes; there's absolutely no payment involved or money changing hands. Everything is 100% public domain. There are no restrictions on who can use the plugins. The components can include headers to reserve whatever IP rights the developer wants to reserve.

The only thing locking plugins accomplishes is to annoy admins by preventing them from adding the three lines of code or the two penguin images they need to make the thing work the way they want it to and forcing them to post RFEs on these support boards.

I just don't see the sense in it.

Having said that, if people do start publishing modified versions, I'm not going to go around checking edit permissions on them.

[antyep]

I'm sorry, but where do I find the ubbc tag for previewed rolls?

[arek]

Aug 9, 2013 21:56:38 GMT -8 antyep said:

I'm sorry, but where do I find the ubbc tag for previewed rolls?

You can set that on the "previewable rolls" tab in VDice configuration.

--Arek

[antyep]

Yeah, but it says I need a ubbc tag for that.

[arek]

antyep, the box that says that is asking you what you want the ubbc tag to be so that VDice can create it - it can be anything you want as long as it's not in use. Eg. if you enter "proll" in that box, the ubbc tag will be [proll] in posts.

Maybe that needs clarified a bit, Virgil Sovereign?

--Arek

[antyep]

I did that, and all it did was take away the dice button.

[arek]

Did you put an image in for the editor button? If not, you may need to.

Also:  Make sure you read that entire page thoroughly.  You must specify an editor graphic somewhere or previewable rolls will not work.

--Arek

[antyep]

Oh wow!! There we go!! Thanks!

[Former Member]

It seems to me that each time I roll a certain dice, I get the same number as a result. Is there a reason for this? I'm using the standard die edition and this is really a problem for my dungeons and dragons group, since one of them fails at everything they do now.

[Virgil Sovereign]

@littlemissraven: It might be a problem with the range syntax you're using for the roll. Also, be sure you're using VDice SDE 1.1.0 or later. The random number generation from earlier versions had some issues on particular threads.

If you can provide me with a link to where the problem is occurring, I should be able to diagnose.