Phoenix profiles: global font sizes

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by TorgSmith

Export your configuration like Bruno mentioned in her second post.

I deduce you mean "profile" where you wrote "configuration"?

[tmedwards]

1. Backup your sheetoptions.ini, just in case. You should find it in one of these locations (if you've been upgrading your GCA4 installation):
   Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{USER}\Application Data\Steve Jackson Games\GURPS Character Assistant 4\
   Vista / Win7: C:\Users\{USER}\AppData\Roaming\Steve Jackson Games\GURPS Character Assistant 4\
2. Download the copy of 1.45 (nee: r45) that I've made available on the Repo.
3. Copy the version you just downloaded to your sheets folder, overwriting your old version. (repeat for each old copy of Phoenix)
4. Preview a character with the sheet, it should request permission to upgrade the options, say yes. (again, repeat as needed)
5. Download the latest Phoenix (r57) release from my website. It comes as a ZIP file containing the sheet itself and a profile export containing several pre-built profiles (sheet option configurations).
6. (repeat steps 3 & 4 for the latest release)
7. Open the Character Sheet Options window, select the sheet profile that you wish to save/export (since you likely haven't made new profiles yet, it will simply be the sheet filename), and click the Export to File button (it's the last one on the right) to open the Export Profile Settings window (choose a good filename for the exported INI, since this is for a backup).

[TorgSmith]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I deduce you mean "profile" where you wrote "configuration"?

Yes, I use the term configuration as a generic term to mean anything with settings in it.

Do go with what tmedwards posted. He’s the Phoenix Guru.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tmedwards

1. Preview a character with the sheet, it should request permission to upgrade the options, say yes. (again, repeat as needed)

This is repeat-per-installation, rather than per-character?

Originally Posted by tmedwards

1. Open the Character Sheet Options window, select the sheet profile that you wish to save/export (since you likely haven't made new profiles yet, it will simply be the sheet filename), and click the Export to File button (it's the last one on the right) to open the Export Profile Settings window (choose a good filename for the exported INI, since this is for a backup).

I'm not clear what I am exporting here, or why I'm doing it. I'm also not clear if I've lost my current font/colour settings by this time. I gave up trying to deduce things about GCA some time ago, since I was almost always wrong.

Thanks for all this.

[TorgSmith]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This is repeat-per-installation, rather than per-character?

It is per installation. You only need to do this for one character. Once you are done with that character, you could export that profile and apply it to the rest if there was an issue.

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm not clear what I am exporting here, or why I'm doing it. I'm also not clear if I've lost my current font/colour settings by this time. I gave up trying to deduce things about GCA some time ago, since I was almost always wrong.

Thanks for all this.

You are exporting the settings for your sheet. The settings are the fonts, colors, what blocks show, what things show up in the blocks, etc. The reason you are doing it is twofold.

One you are making a backup so in the future if you mess up your settings you have a way back by importing them.

Two you did the incremental update to make sure that an upgrade did not miss anything in the conversion process. You only need to do it to one character because once that character is fully upgraded and the settings are correct you can export the settings and apply them to the rest of the characters.

[RogerBW]

Is it possible to associate a profile with a specific character (.gca4) file?

The situation: I have several campaigns and several characters in each. For campaign A, I want to use option set A1 for all characters; for campaign B, I want to use option set B1. What I'm doing at the moment (a technique predating Phoenix profiles) is hard-linking phoenix.gcs into individual campaign-specific gcs files (e.g. phoenix_campaignA.gcs), then using that file as the default character sheet for each character in the campaign. That way, I can load and print without having to remember any intervening steps.

(Mostly I want this so that I can have a campaign-specific logo file, but I also like to tweak sheets for specific games - combat-heavy games have hit locations, for example.)

[tmedwards]

TorgSmith pretty much nailed it.

Originally Posted by johndallman

This is repeat-per-installation, rather than per-character?

Per-sheet-installation. If you only have one copy of the sheet, then you only need to do this once. If you had multiple copies of the sheet, say because back before we had sheet profiles that was the only way to have multiple sheet option configurations, then you'll do this for every copy of Phoenix.

Also, if you did have multiple copies of Phoenix installed, so that you could have multiple sheet option configs, with sheet profiles you no longer need to do this. Once all of the sheet option configs have been upgraded and exported, you can create profiles for each of those configs rather than having multiple copies of Phoenix installed.

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm not clear what I am exporting here, or why I'm doing it.

If everything went according to plan, you're exporting your Phoenix sheet option config(s), with all your custom font/color settings, which have been upgraded to work with the current release of Phoenix (r57).

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm also not clear if I've lost my current font/colour settings by this time.

If you backed up your sheetoptions.ini file as I instructed, then you haven't lost any sheet option configurations because you backed up the file they're stored in before doing anything else, so your old Phoenix 1.35 option config is safe in that file. Additionally, if you upgraded as I instructed and everything went as planned, then you should be seeing your custom settings in the current release of Phoenix (r57) – either by just looking at them in the sheet options window or by previewing a character with Phoenix.


If, for whatever reason, this isn't working for you and your custom settings seem to be getting lost, you could always send me your old sheetoptions.ini file (the one you backed up, not the current one) and I could do this for you, if you like.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tmedwards

If, for whatever reason, this isn't working for you

I have not started yet: I've been making sure I understand what's going on before I do this. If you think of GCA as a car, I'm someone who can drive on smooth roads in good weather, but has been baffled by the wheels' habit of falling off when I think I'm just trying to top up the oil.

[tmedwards]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Is it possible to associate a profile with a specific character (.gca4) file?

Yes – you're actually already doing so, just with the base/unnamed profile for each sheet (or hard-link in your case). GCA treats named sheet profiles exactly like base/unnamed profiles, so you can use them in all of the same places that you use base/unnamed profiles – as a character's default sheet, as an alternate sheet, or as the quick view sheet (if the sheet in question supports quick view anyway).

Basically, by using named profiles, you could switch from your current situation of using the base/unnamed profile of multiple instances of Phoenix (via hard-links) to using multiple named profiles of a single instance of Phoenix, which would function, essentially, exactly the same way as what you're doing now.

As a data point, I'm currently using named profiles for:

1. General non-default sheet configs (e.g. phoenix.gcs:Combat Template A - Black & White)
2. Campaign-specific sheet configs (e.g phoenix.gcs:Campaign - The New Coventry Horror)
3. Character-specific sheet configs (e.g. phoenix.gcs:Victoria Tan)

[alimantando]

so ehm
is there some field to change the font size or is textediting the only way?

EDIT:
found it
I must have been blind ...