08-08-2019, 08:56 PM | #161 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
iCloud: leaves out Android. I can't give it the time to do all the cloud variants.
CSV: that's easy enough. But how many people would use it? If you were going to take it to a spreadsheet it would be easy enough to write a spreadsheet that can import the current, admittedly stone-age, export format. CSV would be a snap, but we'd need to agree what purpose it would serve. |
08-09-2019, 06:31 AM | #162 |
Join Date: Jul 2018
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
1. DropBox for Android (the main reason for iCloud is sharing between devices seamlessly.
2. CSV is universal exchange. If the this app imported and exported CSVs, that would be an easy way to share data between devices. It would allow exchanging characters between iOS and Android as well. It would be the format for data files and would be transparent to most users but would make the data available to others who might want to build that character sheet printing app. #2 is far more useful than #1, IMHO. If CSV import/export is implemented, #1 might not be necessary at all. |
08-09-2019, 11:53 AM | #163 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
DropBox synchronization looks like hours of work, and testing across Android devices would be nearly prohibitive. Actually, without spending cash money on testing we couldn't be sure of covering all of Android. It would be really neat for a few people, but I'm going to spend the time one other things.
CSV would take minutes, but I'm not sure how many people would use it. Are there five people who would use it? A clever Google Sheet could interpret the current export string and produce a passable character sheet. I'll see if I can find the time to take a crack at that, but anyone could do it... I definitely want to clarify how to use Import/Export. That should do most of what people need. |
08-09-2019, 04:41 PM | #164 |
Join Date: Jul 2018
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
What? No, no, no. Not syncing! Simple text file import and export. Export a CSV to a file and copy to Drop Box, iCloud, email it. Text it, whatever. It’s a simple text file in CSV format.
Nothing could be simpler. No complicated programming. It’s a simple way to let the user do whatever they want with a data file. I export wulf.dat to my iOS file system, attach the file to an email, and I send it to you. You save the wild.dat attachment to your file system and import it into your Android app and...presto...you now have my character. And this works because wolf.dat is a simple CSV text file. |
08-09-2019, 07:00 PM | #165 | |
Ogre Line Editor
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Plainfield, IL
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
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GranitePenguin Ogre Line Editor |
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08-09-2019, 11:46 PM | #166 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
Putting CSV onto the clipboard is dead easy. Writing CSV to Dropbox is hard. Handing something to the built in sharing system is easy, and that will send the character to an email, text message, iOS Notes, clipboard, etc. But not to Dropbox, near as I can tell. That means Dropbox would mean installing another library to access that file system. That's a lot of time that needs to go somewhere else. Again, I'm not sure how many people want this.
I do need to clarify Import. From the main menu, select Create Character. You'll see the Import button at the bottom. Once you start editing the character the Import button goes away. So you can import over a fresh character, but you cannot import a character over an existing character. That's not obvious. Maybe the main menu should say "Create/Import"? |
08-10-2019, 08:15 AM | #167 | |
Ogre Line Editor
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Plainfield, IL
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
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The main menu item can be Create/Import as long as either:
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GranitePenguin Ogre Line Editor |
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08-10-2019, 11:39 AM | #168 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
Look at that, the Import button is broken. It worked the last time I used it. Well, that's going to push up the date for 1.1.
Sorry for the inconvenience. That explains why you couldn't figure out how to work it. |
08-11-2019, 06:07 PM | #169 |
Join Date: Jul 2019
Location: Cali
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
85% of the world uses Android.
I hope you are ironing out the kinks for Android first. |
08-14-2019, 05:13 AM | #170 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: TFT Helper - beta test of app
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Adobe should build an import feature into PDF for “mail merge” to allow a PDF form to import standard-formatted data. There are third-party plugins that do this, but they are expensive. That would solve a whole hell of a lot of “move data to printable formats” problems across all platforms — and solving multi-platform problems is what PDF is supposed to do.
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Guy McLimore
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