Thanks for the feedback! I think I will start working on improving the UI a bit more for the next version, and I'll also work on allowing you to import data from the output area, so you can paste a character file in there, load it, make some modifications using the UI, and then generate a new output to put back in the file. I may also implement direct import/export from the character files, depending on how long this all takes.
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Thanks for the feedback! I think I will start working on improving the UI a bit more for the next version, and I'll also work on allowing you to import data from the output area, so you can paste a character file in there, load it, make some modifications using the UI, and then generate a new output to put back in the file. I may also implement direct import/export from the character files, depending on how long this all takes.
That sounds great. This thing just keeps getting better and better.
1.5 is up!
Changes:
-UI now displays gender for each character.
-Dynasty number is displayed after each character's name.
-Characters are color-coded by their dynasty.
-Timelines can be adjusted by dragging just the start and end dates, as well as moving the whole character.
-Characters can now be dragged up and down the list as well.
-Lines show family connections: Blue for marriage and red for children.
-Reference to Military changed to Martial (again).
Importing characters will likely be in the next update (though no promises).
Changes:
-UI now displays gender for each character.
-Dynasty number is displayed after each character's name.
-Characters are color-coded by their dynasty.
-Timelines can be adjusted by dragging just the start and end dates, as well as moving the whole character.
-Characters can now be dragged up and down the list as well.
-Lines show family connections: Blue for marriage and red for children.
-Reference to Military changed to Martial (again).
Importing characters will likely be in the next update (though no promises).
Well it looks like I'm the only one commenting, but this update was really awesome! Hopefully there will be even more great features coming to this soon. I'd list off more suggestions, but I don't want to come of as demanding or anything. Great work as always!
Actually, I would really appreciate suggestions. The last thing I want to do is spend a week implementing some new feature, only to learn that nobody is actually using it.
In fact, if everyone who uses this could make just one post saying that they did, and what they used it for, that would be a big help both in motivating me to keep doing it, and informing me on which features would be the most useful. I'm not just making this for my own amusement, after all!
Ok, well you asked for it.
Well my first thing is more of a question regarding the relationship lines. Will the system be able to handle it as they are implemented when imported character files are introduced? I'm wondering because while the generator won't make bastards or second spouses, that could very well be present in existing files. Just a potential problem I could see.
Another thing I'd love to see implemented is a way to easily extend family trees backwards or forwards. Maybe something where you right-click on a character in the timeline and it comes up with an option to "generate spouse" and "generate child." The other possibility would be to have another button near "generate" and "one more" that says something like extend family, and have it make an extended family with the selected character as the base.
Ok, well you asked for it.
I did! And thank you for providing.
The relationship lines will work just fine, because all they care about is males, and who is listed as their "spouse" and "children". Bastards work just fine in the current system, because dynasty is just a number attributed to each character. It can easily be different from their parent's.
Multiple spouses doesn't actually work with the current system, but that's a problem with the core system, which is only set up to handle one spouse. However, adding more spouses should be fairly straightforwards when the time comes.
I had actually thought of doing something like this, but wasn't sure it would see much use. It's a good idea though, and I'm working on adding it right now. My three options are "Add Spouse", "Add Child", and "Add Parents", which I think should cover all of our bases for now.
1.6 is up!
Changes
-Added ability to generate contiguous Dynasties of characters between a Start and End date.
-Characters are now generated at random between the specified Start and End dates.
-"One More" button changed to ignore family size, so it always makes just one additional character.
-Nuclear and Extended families will now always have at least one child. Grand-children are likely, but not guaranteed.
-DNA can now be edited along with other character traits.
-Spouses, Children, and Parents can be added to existing characters.
-Timeline can now be navigated by clicking and dragging.
-Some behind the scenes changes to make things easier in the future. Might have created a few bugs I didn't catch.
Importing characters is next on my list of things to do, and will likely be the only thing in the next project as it'll take a while. (I was hoping to copy code from elsewhere, but that didn't pan out)
Changes
-Added ability to generate contiguous Dynasties of characters between a Start and End date.
-Characters are now generated at random between the specified Start and End dates.
-"One More" button changed to ignore family size, so it always makes just one additional character.
-Nuclear and Extended families will now always have at least one child. Grand-children are likely, but not guaranteed.
-DNA can now be edited along with other character traits.
-Spouses, Children, and Parents can be added to existing characters.
-Timeline can now be navigated by clicking and dragging.
-Some behind the scenes changes to make things easier in the future. Might have created a few bugs I didn't catch.
Importing characters is next on my list of things to do, and will likely be the only thing in the next project as it'll take a while. (I was hoping to copy code from elsewhere, but that didn't pan out)
I love this tool, but I was wondering whether it was possible to somehow make it so that it uses every char name of the culture you choose like norse would have all the names it has in the cultures file?
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If you go to the Names tab, you can put in whatever names you want, including names copy-pasted from the culture file. You don't even need to format it any different, just copy the whole name block and paste it in, and it should work.
I intend to make it so that the program will automatically import names from the relevant culture files, but I haven't implemented that yet.
You could print out the data for the title-history files. A simple primogenitural list of title holders is rather easy to do; in fact I even added that to my version of your tool ^^
I do plan to add titles to the things you can mod, though I'd rather have it be more fully implemented rather than just making a list. As in, the ability to control exactly which titles each character holds, and when. I could also probably add a UI that shows the lines that the holdings take as well, and make it so that you can set a character to get a holding on another character's death (such as their father).
That's going to need to wait until I've figured out how to input/output directly from files, though, since otherwise I'd need a separate output box for each title, and that just isn't tenable from a UI standpoint.
I did! And thank you for providing.
Awesome, and now other people are contributing too! Going to check out 1.6 now.
EDIT: Ok I've played around with it some now and I have some feedback on the new functions. I love the ability to add additional relations to existing characters, and to generate a dynasty between the start and end dates. However, when you do so the time line view gets pretty cluttered. I know you can organize it your self, but it would be nice if something could be done to make this a bit better.
Maybe something along the lines of a collapse button on male characters, since that's where relations are tracked from? So if you clicked on it any spouses or children would be hidden? Click it again again and it opens? I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well, but that was the first thought that came to mind.
The only other feedback I have is that when you hit the add parents button on a character, neither parent is of the same dynasty as the child. I know you could edit this manually, but it would be nice if it did it automatically.
I think I may have found a potential bug as well, I don't think timeline re-sizes when new characters are added. So if you have a nuclear family and expand it from there, the scroll bars won't adjust to take into account the additional characters.
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There's a bug with how the characters are arranged, such that siblings of dynasty heirs are being kicked down below everyone else. I'll be fixing that in the next version. If you just meant general character clutter, well there's not much I can do about that short of a UI overhaul. (Which I may well end up doing in the future)
This might work, but my main worry is that this might not work well with children who also have spouses and children. Should it hide them as well, or should it only hide unmarried children?
Overall I think I'll leave the UI as-is for now, aside from a few tweaks and bug fixing. There are other features that I want to implement, and I think the UI is good enough at least for now.
These are both easy fixes, and will be in the next version. Good catch!
Unfortunately you might need to wait a bit for the next version since I'm partway through implementing character imports, and I don't want to release 1.7 until I finish that.
I'd have it hide the married ones as well. Have it work like a file structure on a computer. I could see a potenmtial problem with that though if you have interrelated dynasties in the same timeline view.
Oh yeah I was just giving some "pie in the sky" requests.
Awesome. I'm looking forward to 1.7 a lot.
Just a quick report: Character importation is coming along well, currently being held up by a strange bug that is causing characters to not remember who their mother/father is for some reason. Once I get that figured out though, it should all be working.
I expect that the release will be sometime tomorrow, and depending on how complex it is (and it doesn't seem like it should be), importation directly from character files might be included in 1.7 as well. If not, it'll be in 1.8, and 1.8 will also allow you to automatically pull names from the culture files.
After that, I'll likely start working on implementing titles and inheritance.
Anyways, has anyone used this tool for an actual project yet? I'd be very interested to get feedback from someone who has used it, or even just to know it has been used for it's intended purpose. While I'm mostly doing this to get practice with coding, it's hard to stay motivated when I haven't seen it actually be used.
Edit: Turns out the "no parents" bug was easier to fix than expected. A simple work-around for now is to make sure you refresh the text box before using the output.
I expect that the release will be sometime tomorrow, and depending on how complex it is (and it doesn't seem like it should be), importation directly from character files might be included in 1.7 as well. If not, it'll be in 1.8, and 1.8 will also allow you to automatically pull names from the culture files.
After that, I'll likely start working on implementing titles and inheritance.
Anyways, has anyone used this tool for an actual project yet? I'd be very interested to get feedback from someone who has used it, or even just to know it has been used for it's intended purpose. While I'm mostly doing this to get practice with coding, it's hard to stay motivated when I haven't seen it actually be used.
Edit: Turns out the "no parents" bug was easier to fix than expected. A simple work-around for now is to make sure you refresh the text box before using the output.
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1.7 is up!
Changes:
-Added ability to import/export characters directly from character files.
-You can also import characters from the Output field if you wish.
-Fixed some bugs with how characters are arranged after being generated.
-When you generate parents for a character, the father is now the same dynasty as his son.
-The characters display screen should now always be large enough to show all of the characters in it.
-Characters now remember better who their parents and children are.
-If one of a character's base stats is set to -1, it won't be outputted, allowing them to have a random stat generated on game start.
Since I had to create my own custom file reader to parse the character files, it is almost certain that there will be some character files that import correctly to the game, but don't import correctly to this program. If you find such a bug, please post the character file here and I'll try to make the program recognize it.
Changes:
-Added ability to import/export characters directly from character files.
-You can also import characters from the Output field if you wish.
-Fixed some bugs with how characters are arranged after being generated.
-When you generate parents for a character, the father is now the same dynasty as his son.
-The characters display screen should now always be large enough to show all of the characters in it.
-Characters now remember better who their parents and children are.
-If one of a character's base stats is set to -1, it won't be outputted, allowing them to have a random stat generated on game start.
Since I had to create my own custom file reader to parse the character files, it is almost certain that there will be some character files that import correctly to the game, but don't import correctly to this program. If you find such a bug, please post the character file here and I'll try to make the program recognize it.
This is pretty good I like it. Does it generate dynasties as well? I tried it and didn't see the option or where it'd put them, so I'm guessing no. But I could be blind
Additionally is there any easy way to copy the names for now (I know you are working on auto-loading the culture names)? Just copying the names into the thing from my culture file doesn't work (makes many people with uh... very long names)
Additionally is there any easy way to copy the names for now (I know you are working on auto-loading the culture names)? Just copying the names into the thing from my culture file doesn't work (makes many people with uh... very long names
)
I just discovered this. I do believe you've just made my life a thousand times easier, and moved my current project much, much closer to completion. Magnificent.
Just one small question, though. Whenever I try to add a child to a character, it simply drops me to the very bottom of the screen, and doesn't seem to actually add anything.
Just one small question, though. Whenever I try to add a child to a character, it simply drops me to the very bottom of the screen, and doesn't seem to actually add anything.