Virtual Combat Cards has been evolving steadily. While it is not yet an open-source project, there are several ways you can contribute with the project:

• First and foremost send feedback and ideas: I have been crafting the tool based mostly on my impressions, but a lot of nice ideas have been posted in the forum and I'm working on getting them in VCC;
• Spread the word: if you like the tool and have a blog, home page or group of friends let them know;
• Help with design improvements and visual things: stuff like icons, formatting tips, and a nice splash window would be great;
• Ideas to improve this site and help foster the community;
• Coding: people that want to help with coding are welcome. The system is created in Scala, a very nice mix of Object Oriented and Functional programming elements. And I hope to make it open-source soon.

To contribute feel free to join the site and post on the forum. You can post comments on existing threads and pages anonymously.

Some of the general guidelines used so far in the project are:

Keep it simple

Particularly for the User Interface(UI) I have tried to make things simple. I have seen many trackers that have tons of windows and forms. This makes me feel like I’m filling in an income tax report, too complex and confusing. Keeping things simple, makes it easier to use and more flexible.

Use the DM’s brain

While at first look Wizards has done a good job of creating a simple and uniform system, when you start thinking on how to implement some feature all kinds of exceptions start popping up. Getting all the cases correct, while handling possible house ruling, make implementing features sometimes challenging. The DM’s powerful brain is a much safer beat, then trying to create an all encompassing tracker.

Avoid infringing copyrights

Having all the D&D material readily available on VCC would be great. A lot of data has been typed by other people, such as a full list of monster with critical stats. However, copying and shipping this data with VCC could lead to copyright violations. Wizards has very good lawyers, so better not challenge them.

Simple data input

Future releases will control more data of both PC and monster. There seems to be ways of capturing data from D&D Insider (DDI). Since not all users have access to DDI, VCC will not require this, or require you to input scores of fields to have the tracker functional. Only critical data should be mandatory.