Any plans to replace this program?

[TorgSmith]

Another totally cool feature requests would be to give us a button that would open the PDF of the reference book referenced by page number.

You could give us three configuration options. One would be the directory that we store the PDFs in. The other would give us the ability to map the names of the files to the books. This way if we do not use the default name we could still map it. The last being the ability to turn this off if the user does not want to use it.

In the case of multiple choices, you could prompt, use the order of the file mapping list in the configuration file as a priority list, or have the user create a priority list.

I just did a test and you can open a PDF to a particular page with the following command line.

"Acrobat.exe" /A "page=20" "C:\test.pdf"

This kicks backside. The document I read about this in was Acrobat 7.0 so this is supported back to at least that version.

Edit: Removed the path to Acrobat.exe as it is not needed.

[Armin]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I would like to be able to filter based on things more than the Category tags, and I would like to be able to assert "Must match ALL of these conditions" AND "None of THOSE conditions". First two non-Category things I'm acutely interested in when building a character: "Do I have all the prerequisites for this?" (spells, I'm looking at you - but also taboo traits and ads/disads) and "Do I have all the points available for this?" - compare point cost vs points left.

I'm willing to bet 90%+ of the users don't use any of the filtering we have right now, beyond simple category changing using the drop-downs. (I have no way to know for sure, but nobody that I can recall has ever asked about it, requested changes, etc., since I added that functionality years ago.)

As for the spell pre-reqs, that's built-in right now, if you want to try it, but the performance hit you take is . . . a lot. Go into Options > Program Options, and in the Display Options section, turn on "Show Available Spells items dimmed if pre-reqs aren't already met".

The other kinds of stuff we can get into later. But additional filtering means potentially significant performance hits. Because of the way GURPS is, lots of things could trigger a sudden pre-req issue, or a taboo issue, or whatever, which means checking against the filter if you do pretty much anything.

Armin

[Armin]

Originally Posted by TorgSmith

Another totally cool feature requests would be to give us a button that would open the PDF of the reference book referenced by page number.

This has actually been on my personal To Do wish list for ages. I just have never made it a priority to do, so it's never been done. But I definitely agree that it would be very nice to have.

Armin

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by TorgSmith

Another totally cool feature requests would be to give us a button that would open the PDF of the reference book referenced by page number.

I had this exact idea a while ago, and would love to see it implemented at some point. The one annoyance thus far is that for many books the page number does not exactly match the PDF page number, requiring a page offset be set so that links to a page actually take you to that specific page, and file names and page offsets could change with PDF updates (with further annoyances being when users haven't updated to the latest PDF but have the latest Data Files). A further problem is that the Basic Set is divided into two files, requiring special handling of references to that book. Nothing insurmountable, though, just annoyances.

[TorgSmith]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

I had this exact idea a while ago, and would love to see it implemented at some point. The one annoyance thus far is that for many books the page number does not exactly match the PDF page number, requiring a page offset be set so that links to a page actually take you to that specific page, and file names and page offsets could change with PDF updates (with further annoyances being when users haven't updated to the latest PDF but have the latest Data Files). A further problem is that the Basic Set is divided into two files, requiring special handling of references to that book. Nothing insurmountable, though, just annoyances.

Yes, this is a problem. The book map config could specify an offset. Updates could be an issue as well. I suppose the books that do not go to print are a little more flexible on edits making changes to page numbers.

Another issue I was just messing with in C# was telling weather or not Acrobat was installed. You can craft a command line to have it open a PDF, but if acrobat is not installed it will not work. You could swallow the error with a simple message that unable to open PDF but it would not be very helpful.

[TorgSmith]

I just read that you should just call the PDF directly so that any PDF viewer would work. I just tried the following command line and it worked with Acrobat. Does somebody use a different viewer?

C:\test.pdf /page 20

Edit:
Big old never mind. It saved the fact that the last time I had opened it to page 20. When I changed the command line to page 10, it still opened to page 20. Oops…

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Armin

But GCA can never be lightning fast unless it works much differently, losing either much of it's user-friendliness, or it adds an entire additional level of internal complexity. Much of what GCA operates on internally is basically string parsing and interpreting, which just isn't fast compared to straight math against known fixed values.

I was working on my most complex character today, and took a look at the memory footprint, which was only 29MB. That was a lot in the days of 64MB Win95 machines, but nowadays, using ten times more memory would be fine if it improved performance.

That caused me to wonder how much of the time goes in searching lists of strings. Those can done quickly using a b-tree dictionary, or even hashes, at the expense of memory. Of course, you may be doing this already.

[cosmicfish]

As another request, it would be awesome if the character files remembered the data sets used to build them and automatically opened them with the character - this becomes a big deal when switching between campaigns.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by TorgSmith

Another issue I was just messing with in C# was telling weather or not Acrobat was installed. You can craft a command line to have it open a PDF, but if acrobat is not installed it will not work. You could swallow the error with a simple message that unable to open PDF but it would not be very helpful.

Big problem with your assumption is that the user uses Acrobat Reader. If Acrobat Reader touches my PC, I'm reformatting it. :P

Worst. PDF. Reader. Ever.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Big problem with your assumption is that the user uses Acrobat Reader. If Acrobat Reader touches my PC, I'm reformatting it. :P

Worst. PDF. Reader. Ever.

I'd live with FoxIt, but I'm still annoyed about it's manner of switching Continuous View to Single Page every time I close and reopen it. Apparently the preferences do not allow me to force Continuous view no matter what.