The Virtual Combat Cards Firefox plug-in allows users to capture information from the D&D Insider Compendium and send it to VCC. This reduces the amount of input a user has to do to get their game ready.

Important disclaimer: This plug-in should be used only to collect information for your games and while you have a valid D&D Insider subscription. You should NEVER send any of the data collected to any other user, or keep them once your subscription has expired. Failing to maintain this code of conduct may be seen as a violation of Wizards of the Coast copyright legislation. If you download and use this feature, we assume you understand these limitations. The Virtual Combat Cards Team and this site take no responsibility of misuse of this feature, and will not accept any copyrighted material on the forum or issue tracking areas.

Installation is simple, follow these steps:

1. Read and understand the disclaimer above, this is very important for VCC's future, by downloading the plugin you accept the disclaimer and abide to follow it.
2. Using the Firefox Browser go to the project plugin page and download the latest verion of the extension.
3. You must authorize Firefox to install it.
4. Once completed you will have a new side bar and a D20 Icon on the Navigation Bar.
   Starting on version 1.5, the plugin will attempt add an Icon to the Navigation Bar. This will be done only once. If don't see it, right click on Firefox's menu bar, and select Customize.... There should be a D20 icon with the D&DI Capture caption. You can place this like any other toolbar button (drag and drop where you want it).

The sidebar is accessible using D&DI Capture button, the Ctrl+Shift+V key combination, or using the Firefox menu: View > Sidebar > D&D Insider Capture. The sidebar is shown below.

D&D Insider Capture sidebar

To capture monsters do the following:

1. Start VCC (version 1.0 or superior); normally the capture server is running as soon as VCC is ready. You can check this by selecting Compendium > D&D Insider Capture .... You should see the message: Capture Server is running, otherwise start the server using the Server menu. (Note that only one server can be running at a single time, so if you have two instances of VCC running only one will have the capture server running.)
2. Browse the D&D Insider compendium website using Firefox until you are looking at the monster you wish to capture.
3. Click on the Capture button on the sidebar, if the captured was successful you will see the creatures name, type, and an Ok on the sidebar.
4. If the monster is new to your captured monsters, it will be automatically added to the VCC compendium.
5. If you wish to re-import the creature go to the VCC menu: Compendium > D&D Insider Capture ..., select the monster you wish to import (Ctrl-A will select all of them) and click the Import button.

With version 1.4.0 of the plugin, we have added a new experimental feature that allows further automation of the process. At the bottom of the sidebar is a button Start Auto Capture. To activate it, you must have VCC 1.4.0 or superior up and running. Click on the button and it will check your current version. Once the feature is active, any entry in the D&D Insider companion that is opened will automatically be captured. As soon as the page completes loading you'll see a message on the side bar indicating that the capture happened (and what was the result).

Auto capture is turned of in several events:

• If you click on the Stop Auto Capture button;
• If a capture fail;
• If you hide the sidebar;
• The login page appears (which is a failed capture);

As said this is an experimental feature, and has been tested in a limited fashion. It has proven to works with the following restrictions:

• Only one tab is opened at the D&D Insider Compendium;
• You are only doing capture (no browsing other stuff);
• You open the entry page (the one that has the next and previous buttons);

A good usage of it is the following: activate it; then use the search features to narrow down the information you need; click on the monster you need, once the monster appears on the screen, you should already have it imported.

The D&D Insider Compendium website allows anonymous (non-subscription) users to look at monsters from level one to three of the Monster Manual. If you wish to test this feature, before subscribing, use these monsters.

Captured monsters will be stored in the temporary directory. You can reload them by using the VCC menu: Cache > Load cached entries in the D&D Insider Capture Monitor window.