So about a week ago, I developed a tool that lets you roll dice inline, all trackable within the database via the dice results page just like normal.  I have a blurry vision of how awesome such a tool could be, the various ways it could help you with all things pbf related, but I don't have time to put that vision in focus.

With that in mind, I'm just going to upload the sample I have, people can play with it, and if someone wants to try and design the GUI, post here any images, scraps, layouts, new requests, etc and it will help me when I have a bit of spare time. :)

Thanks all.

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

[dice type=DonJon]6d20+5[/dice]

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-Nova

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. --The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Noam Chomsky. The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967.

Yeah, sorry, donjon doesn't allow you to add 5 to the number, I'll work on the system not allowing modifications that are invalid.

Thanks for the compliment though!

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Hm.. It's not just Nova having the popup being laggy in FF, though it's not much.
However, the idea is great. Really.

10
5

4, 8, 3, 3, 7, 8, 8

Works nicely :)

I saw your entry on the main DnDorks page. So, how do you use it? How does it work?

I'm interested in developing something similar on a different message board using PHP (which I'm still learning...)

Hey TS!

Ok, next to the Insert PBF Code dropdown, there should be a small buton that looks like text or whatever random gibberish.  Eventually we'll get a good icon...

Anyways, when you click on that, it should open up another window, which will be just like this window, but has different options. 

You add your dice rolls, either manually or using the tools on the side, then you click Get Dice Rolls.  When you click get dice rolls, it posts your entire message in html to a webservice via clientside AJAX, parses it, generates the random numbers, adds the entries to a database table to track how many and which kinds of dice you've rolled, then brings that code back and replaces the text field with the text from the web service.

Clicking the OK button returns the entire thing back to the forum post, where the user can freely edit or just hit submit.

If a DM distrusts a dice roll, he can use the dice reporting mechanism to see all random dice rolls generated by that user, but for the most part I like to think we can trust everyone. :)

I would freely show any code, but it will probably be meaningless to a php user, we write everything here in .net

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Okay, let's see if it shows up.

Hmm. Let's try again.

Hmm. Maybe I'm thick. I get the popup and it posts in the dice code; I press get dice rolls then ok and the window disappears and nothing appears in this post.

Anyway I think it's pretty cool. On the snotling.org board we want to include more PBP (PBF here) utilities for members. I'll have to check out some of your other stuff and steal your ideas

Let me give it a shot. Let's say my character in the DonJon game is buying a side-sword for Dante because he's not suave enough to buy one for himself, the poor guy. A side-sword (represented by a longsword) has a dice rank of five, and my character is spending one wealth on it, so adding in his Sociality and Charisma makes for One plus Six plus Four d20's to roll against the merchant's five.

Here goes: My rolls: 4, 14, 20, 14, 11, 15, 6, 9, 12, 7, 9
Merchant Rolls: 7, 13, 2, 3, 9

Ah, nifty. Richard has made a nice little program, and Dante is the proud owner of a doubly-hypothetical swashbuckling sword. Not only does it not exist in real life, it doesn't exist in the game either. Sorry, bud.

But holy cow, Reggie gets a lot of dice rolls when buying crap! Dump stat, my ***! Bwahahaha!

Edit: Temporary fix for Thatch: Copy-pasting might work out fine if the "OK" button doesn't instantly copy everything down to the main compose window. This forum is cool like that when it comes to copying fonts, sizes, colors, and links.

Hey TS, what kind of browser are you using?  It seems to work for most of us in IE 7, IE 6, and firefox, but the web service stuff isn't likely to work in safari I would guess...

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Recomendation to Safari users: Get a real computer (i.e. Not a Mac)
Or at least use Parallels to run real software....though I'm not sure why you would want to do that considering how much more Mac hardware costs than PC.

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-Nova

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. --The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Noam Chomsky. The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967.

17
Firefox on Windows XP. I've tried the "Insert Dice" dropdown as well as the box image to the right of the "Insert PBF Code" dropdown.

Let's try again:

I get the window to pop up with my message in the window. I select one of the options (either Add Dice Code or Add Premade) and it puts a dice code in my message...

Wait. It worked that time. Hmm. When I first did it it put a dice code at the top of my message but I couldn't edit it. When I was trying to edit it I put the cursor in the textbox and tried again. It worked.

Let me try again...2

Okay. I have to put the cursor in the text box. If I don't it just prints it at the top of the text box but doesn't allow editing or place it in the message body.

Seems to work. Thanks!

Now now Nova, thats a little uncalled for.  I'd prefer to change it to:

Note to Safari users: Get firefox. 

Macs are fine for casual users, I have nothing against them, Safari on the other hand....grrrr  ;)

 

I want the popup to be a lot more than just the dice roller, I want it to help do all manner of different pbf functions, so I'll be polishing the user interface more after I have some time to and get some more ideas on what I could have in there, as well as layout and all.  These kinds of things really help for when I "do" get back to working on it, so thanks. :)

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

I'm interested in checking out the other PBF stuff you have integrated with your boards, if you don't mind me farming for ideas. Do you have a test forum for trying stuff out?

Or if you do mind idea farming, then don't worry about it.

WRT PHP vs. .NET, well, PHP is what the software I'm working with is written in. I've only looked into it a little bit and installed it along with Apache on my computer. I'm not much of a developer; just a wannabe .

I just created "The Lab", viewable here: http://dndorks.com/cs/forums/3205/ShowForum.aspx

Feel free to test as needed in there.

.net is an easier place to start IMO, and the source for these forums are freely available at www.communityserver.org, but if you're working with an established site or something, I understand. :)

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Thanks, Richard! I'll be sure to check it out.

For snotling.org they have been using phpNuke and phpBB and they are switching to XOOPS so I would say it is an established system. Documentation for XOOPS sucks, though.

On my home system (which is not exposed to the world) I just installed the stuff I knew they were using already.

Hmm. I wish that your system had a preview function.