History window required

Submitted by walder on Wed, 2010-08-25 10:32
Project:Virtual Combat Cards
Version:1.3.1
Component:User interface
Category:feature request
Priority:normal
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:active
Description

It will be very handy if VCC will have history window, which will track:

- start of round
- start of pc/npc/monster turn (with state, conditions and hp)
- HP change
- conditions change
- savings, death savings
- powers/abilities usage (including triggers on other's actions)
- marks (and co)
- sustains
- initiative order changes (delay/ready)

Use-case, some-times it is required to find out what happens in few turns/rounds ago.

History to be savable.

#1

Submitted by walder on Wed, 2010-08-25 10:32.

One more important item to be save - DM's notes

#2

Submitted by Nebulorum on Wed, 2010-08-25 11:25.

VCC does register most of this information into a log (vcc.log, should where you leave the VCC data). This log is for several purposes, but there are USER entries that register all the transactions.

If the information there suites you needs, I believe it could be straight forward to have them surface in a windows.

#3

Submitted by walder on Thu, 2010-08-26 06:07.

Looks not bad, bud too technical. I mean we need some window which will show log in readable form.
Such way that DM able to quickly check what and who did several rounds ago.

#4

Submitted by Nebulorum on Thu, 2010-08-26 17:48.
Component:Code» User interface

I think we could try this is a piece meal approach. I believe getting the USER data from to log to a screen is easy. Ideally we should have a little report of what change between actions. This is a starting point.

For a more sophisticated approach we need to consider the following:

  1. Round boundaries have no meaning in VCC today, there is no concept of rounds just actions;
  2. And action can affect several elements of the game, e.g. End Round will expire effects;
  3. All actions can be undone and redone. This means that the display has to be aware of the operations.

On the up side the UI does get informed of all changes that happen to the state in the tracker. So when you apply 100 hp damage to a monster with 20 hp, the net effect is that the monster lost 20 hp and is dead. This is all a result of the Apply 100 HP do damage action. I believe the second information is more useful for the DM. But this requires a logic that is not present and may be some what complex to implement.