Phoenix 1.18 Status (no, not a release)

[tmedwards]

I thought I'd give a head's up on what's going on with the next release of Phoenix (1.18). In case anyone had any comments, questions, or requests before I started buttoning this release up. Here's a snippet from the change log.

[IN PROGRESS]

• Support for super-effort strength in the main statistcs block
• A new Super-Effort Encumbrance block
• A revamp of footnotes/bonuses/conditionals

[COMPLETED]

• Added the ability to optionally print the usernotes() tag in the Melee and Ranged Attacks blocks. Note: To apply user notes to individual attack/weapon modes, for attacks/weapons with multiple modes, you must separate the notes with the vertical-bar/pipe character ("|") as you would for any mode data (e.g. "This mode goes ZAPP!|This mode makes an earth shattering KABOOM!").
• Added the ability to optionally print the usernotes() tag in the Spell Grimoire block. Note: This ability is independent of the Spells block.
• Added the ability to optionally print a number of blank lines at the tail of most of the list-type blocks (i.e. Social, Ads, Disads, Skills, Spells, Attack Tables, etc).
• Added a new color option for most descriptive text (i.e. notes, description, usernotes, and user defined descriptive tags; only page numbers are excluded).
• Adjusted the column widths of the Ranged Attack block to better accommodate items from GURPS Ultra-Tech.
• Changed the way that the hide() tag is handled, to be consistent with GCA's usage, per a future program update. This is essentially a reversion to the way the hide() tag was handled in Phoenix releases prior to 1.16. For a trait to be considered hidden, the hide() tag has to exist and have a non-empty value.
• Changed the way that attack modes are identified, per a future program update.

[tmedwards]

Here are two examples of the, optional, footnotes in action on the primary statistics block:

1. Example with several bonuses
2. Example with bonuses, a conditional, and including Super-Effort ST -- And yes, the ST score is smaller than the rest in this example. If a score becomes too large for its box, it will be bumped down to the next lower standard font size used by Phoenix so that it will fit.

Any problems with how they display?

[Bruno]

Looks very good. My only comment is the order that you use the various footnote marks in:
You appear to be going "asterix" "dagger" "double-dagger" "squiggly thing which I used to know the name of" "two asterixes" "two daggers" (and presumably thence to "two double-daggers" etc.)

That's so incredibly logical that it hurts me to point out that I think conventional usage is "asterix", "two asterixes", and thence into the exotic symbols.

I personally find your ordering method so wonderfully logical (and appealing to my coding brain) that I vote for yours. But I figured I'd mention it.

[tmedwards]

While I probably would have done exactly the same thing, I can't take credit for the symbols used, I'm just using the footnote code that's built into GCA to generate the symbols.

As far as I know, that code based upon what was the official SJG guidelines for GURPS 4e at the time in which it was written (found on the page Steve Jackson Games: Authors' Guidelines under the link Formatting Guides for GURPS Fourth Edition). The specific quote is:

Originally Posted by Formatting Guides for GURPS Fourth Edition, Draft version 0.8 – 09/27/04

Footnotes. Unlike Third Edition, in Fourth Edition we will place all footnotes at the bottom of the stat block. This may mean that you get to three or four footnotes in many of them! The canonical order, until changed by orders from Higher Up The Chain, is asterisk (*), dagger (†), diesis [double dagger] (‡), and section marker (§). If you need five or more footnotes, double up the above characters (**, ††, etc.). Do not put a single and double marker on the same item! Avoid putting the dagger and diesis on the same item, although that’s less critical.

I have no idea if the guidelines have been updated since those were published or not, but they're still the only version of that document publicly available. I also don't know what their relation is to the more general SJG editorial style web-document (found on the same page Steve Jackson Games: Authors' Guidelines under the link Steve Jackson Games Authors' Guidelines: Editorial Style). That document defines a usage guideline for footnotes similar to what you describe. The specific quote is:

Originally Posted by Authors' Guidelines: Editorial Style, Last Updated: October 3, 2006

footnotes. To indicate a numbered reference - usually in a table - that matches a footnote at the bottom of the page, use an "*." The second reference on a page is marked "**." Further references use other characters, such as the dagger and double dagger; ask your editor how to get these characters in the WYSIWYG template. In tables, multiple references may be marked with numbers. Indicate these numbers for typesetting by placing them in a set of brackets like this - [4].

My guess is that the guidelines specifically for GURPS 4e take precedence over the general guidelines when working with GURPS 4e material, since the former, or an undated version, seems to still be in use in current GURPS 4e material rather than the latter.

[tmedwards]

Keeping in mind the above post about the footnote guidelines that Phoenix is using, I should point out that Phoenix does not follow those exactly.

Specifically the guidelines:

Do not put a single and double marker on the same item! Avoid putting the dagger and diesis on the same item, although that’s less critical.

To adhere to those parts of the guidelines, Phoenix does not create footnotes per bonus/conditional as expected, but per trait, by combining all bonuses and conditionals for the trait into one footnote. What this means is that every trait will have one, and only one, symbol and footnote, with all bonuses and conditionals for that trait being listed in its footnote.

Additionally, a symbol will be reused if the footnote matches a previously registered footnote, so two different traits receiving the same bonuses/conditionals would get the same symbol. However, it's possible that a given bonus/conditional could be duplicated across multiple footnotes, and thus multiple symbols, if the combined footnotes don't match (e.g. "+4 from 'TraitA'" does not match "+4 from 'TraitA', +2 from 'TraitB'" even though they both contain "+4 from 'TraitA'", the entire footnote has to match for the symbol to be reused).

Doing it the 100% correct way would require either GCA or sheets to create all symbols/footnotes by processing the entire trait list, so they could insure that the above guidelines were met. GCA's simple footnote code doesn't currently do this and every sheet that I've seen, even Phoenix, processes the trait list on-the-fly as it's being printed. Armin has recently made it easier for sheet authors to preprocess all bonuses/conditionals if they were inclined to do so, but that's still a lot of work for very little gain -- unless the sheet preprocessed everything, rather than doing it on-the-fly, but no sheet does that yet.

[tmedwards]

Here's an example of the Blank Line Options. Does the text not parse well for anyone?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by tmedwards

Here's an example of the Blank Line Options. Does the text not parse well for anyone?

I like it. And I'm quite pleased to see it's coming soon ;)

[tmedwards]

As part of the overhaul of the trait bonuses/conditionals code I'm reworking the trait bonuses options. To that end, the options have been moved from each of the trait-type option sections to their own Trait Bonuses Options section and I'm updating the list of blocks that will be part of the system.

The old list of blocks was this:

• Reaction Modifiers block
• Template/Ad/Disad blocks
• Skills & Techniques blocks
• Ritual Magic Paths block
• Spells block

The new list is currently this:

• Primary Statistics block
• Additional Statistics block
• Reaction Modifiers block
• Languages block
• Skills block
• Techniques block
• Ritual Magic Paths block
• Spells block

As you can see, other than adding the statistics blocks, I added the Languages block, removed the Template/Ad/Disad blocks, and split the Skills and Techniques blocks into their own separate entries in the list. Anyone see a problem with this?

Beyond that, the other major trait bonuses option will be the print style, which will have two choices: (actual names, as of this posting)

• Footnotes
• Inline (where possible)

You should know what the footnotes selection does, if not check out the second post in this thread, and the inline selection is essentially how Phoenix currently prints bonuses/conditionals, the "where possible" qualifier denotes that some blocks, only the stat blocks actually, cannot use the inline style and will always use the footnote style.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by tmedwards

Here are two examples of the, optional, footnotes in action on the primary statistics block:

1. Example with several bonuses
2. Example with bonuses, a conditional, and including Super-Effort ST -- And yes, the ST score is smaller than the rest in this example. If a score becomes too large for its box, it will be bumped down to the next lower standard font size used by Phoenix so that it will fit.

Any problems with how they display?

Only one minor thing, any chance of shifting the closing bracket one space to the left in order to put in a space between the cost bracket and the lines?

In other words, have it look like:
IQ 12 [ 40 ] |
Instead of the current:
IQ 12 [ 40 ]|

(The bracket and the line tend to merge together and don't display as neatly).

[tmedwards]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Only one minor thing, any chance of shifting the closing bracket one space to the left in order to put in a space between the cost bracket and the lines?

I should be able to give it a little bit of a bump. It won't be a lot, but it should be noticeable.