V2 feedback needed: custom character sheets

You've hit one of my main pros to the templating system: I build the "official" sheets via the templating system, and someone can always copy/paste it into their own template, or create something from scratch (be that a build-a-form or JSON).

That also hits the con though, where visual fidelity would drop. For example, the 7 Seas character sheet uses one of their graphics and CSS positioned buttons, which would be much harder under either new mechanic.

It's a trade of ease vs uniqueness. I could always do the official ones custom made. They'd be prettier, more functionality, etc, and have another mechanism available for custom sheets, which would definitely be a step above what we have now, but would be less visually distinct. However, I do point out that it being code driven (be it bbcode or JSON) limits how many people build sheets. A drag-and-drop system would allow more people to work with it, and if the drag-and-drop builds a JSON (which is the sensible result, I think), and people could then edit that JSON, that kinda covers both sides?

And for clarity, I am NOT proposing using TipTap for character sheet generation. It would be an entirely separate system.

I think an advanced/editor mode might be that good middle ground you mentioned. The drag-and-drop builder could cover the common cases and make sheet creation accessible to everyone, while an advanced mode could expose the underlying JSON (or whatever representation you end up using) for people who want more control. Maybe they enable a special flag in their profiles, to access that JSON... We could use it for special graphics, positioned buttons, margins, etc. I still think we should be able to create the 7 Seas character sheet, even if only in this advanced format.

That way you're not forcing everyone to deal with code, but you're also not putting an artificial ceiling on what a custom sheet can do. Even if only a small percentage of users ever touch the advanced mode, I think having that escape hatch would be valuable.

Is ease of editing that important for character sheets? Users who make them are usually the ones who don't mind a bit of coding and formatting elbow grease. I doubt the number of people who actually want to make templates but don't because they don't know BBCode is very high. But I suppose we don't really have statistics for that...

Still, is it important enough for everyone to be able to make a sheet template? Even if someone can't build a template for a unique sheet they want, people here are helpful; someone usually offers to help. Accessibility to general public is good, but I dunno about sacrificing advanced customisation for it.

The building a JSON idea does seem like a decent compromise. Time to brush up on JavaScript, I guess!
Is the purple colour in quotes customizable? Colours this bright might be a bit much to look at a lot while reading text.

Just to clarify, I meant reading while editing; I imagine the actual quote doesn't look like that. XD

There's still A LOT of design work to be done. It won't be that bright purple.

That's good to know, thanks. (I'd vote for the same colour as current GP buttons. Maybe a bit darker.)

I'm not so concerned about visual fidelity as I am about functionality. I'm in the camp where I have existed with bbcode long enough that I'm not hopeless with it, but I can't make it sing and I build very visually simple custom sheets that work fine for me. I have used WYSIWYG editors, but not to build forms that need to be able to grow and change with time (some games get more complex as you level up, and it would be nice if character sheets could grow with them.) If there's a way to import bbcode sheets (and the library of custom sheets we have) functionally, if not visually, into the new system it would be good.

I'm concerned about anything that breaks reverse compatibility on the user side, so anything that breaks BBCode is worrisome.

I'm concerned about not being able to copy/paste a post as plain text for saving off-line. WYSIWIG tends to be corrupted when copying between different locales because the formatting standards are not implemented consistently between different software and site.

I'm concerned about sheet editing because I often want to do fine adjustments like changing the positioning/alignment of the character portrait depending on how the text flows around the page or what picture dimensions I have. I also had a case where I edited older sheets because I came up with a QoL feature that I wanted to add to it.

Apologies if these impressions of potential changes are too superficial.

There's no good choice. BBCode is an old and outdated system that has very little in the way of modern support. I couldn't find any actively managed projects that support BBCode. And I don't have the time or inclination to build and support a project like that myself. Truth is, we need to move forward, or keep the site as it is now, which works, but cannot grow.
This is a good point I can look at how it's working. I know currently folks often write posts elsewhere because GP will randomly not save. The nice thing about the new site is it's locally stateful, which means if a post fails to send, I can rig up code to save it local (to the device). So if a post fails, you can try again with no problem, and the server crashing won't crash your local.
So converting told sheets into any new system will be difficult. But I always intended on giving people fine control as much as possible.
Valid concerns, and I'm open to it. I'm just not sure of the solutions yet. I feel like a builder + JSON is the right step for custom sheets. Adam's BBCode additions were a great hack to add versatility to custom sheets, but it's inherently limited without exposing security holes. I understand the concerns over the new editor, but I'm hoping we can address them in a way that makes folks happy.

A quick test, the new editor doesn't copy into raw text, but it does copy into a rich text editor (LibreOffice Writer for the test).

Anything that makes the site more user-friendly for the average, non-specialist user is a positive for me.

I'm somewhat surprised by the claim that BBCode is outdated. It seems to be a de facto standard for what 'a forum' in the normal sense looks like on the Internet. SJGames uses BBCode. The Onyx Path uses BBCode. SufficientVelocity uses BBCode. Myth-Weavers uses BBCode too (despite having a WYSYWIG and HTML option too). It seems like any forum dedicated to RPGs that I remember visiting uses BBCode.

Now, I'm not a webcoder, so maybe I am missing something about how all those places approach to use of it, but it seems fora built on it are very much still active.

I suppose something like Markdown/Markup of some sort is a reasonably lively contender against BBCode, though usually outside the normal forum ecosystem and more in places like Discord and Reddit (and the latter seems to have had issues with WYSYWIGifications lately).

I took a look at all of those to remind myself, but they're all ancient (web speaking). None of them uses any modern technology I can see. SufficientVelocity and Myth-Weavers are in fact written in phpBB, which while still an active project, is very out dated. Like I said, I've had no luck finding a bbcode editor written in any modern technologies.
I'm not denying folks still use it, but that doesn't make it less old/outdated. It was definitely the defacto standard for forums for, I'd estimate, 20 years. All the sites you mentioned are largely the same site now that they were when they were created, and in some cases, even without a fresh coat of paint. I see barely any Javascript on any of them, next to no interactive functionality. GP is well more than a forum. The tools and features take it beyond that. I started GP as basically just a forum, and it was lost in the noise.
Markdown is too limited and not expandable to be used. It's not viable for a forum beyond basic formatting, unless you're willing to break standards, at which point it's not Markdown anyway.

For forum post editor, is it plausible to have something like "Paste as BBcode" option where it would detect BBcode tags from raw text and do the formatting based on it? Maybe not all, just common stuff like [b] or [i]? Sort of treat them as special symbols?

I predict that the new editor will make my mobile posting difficult, since I usually just type out the tags while writing and then copy-paste into the editor. That won't work as well with a visual one. :( It's not that big of a deal, but it would be a nice feature. I dread to imagine having to select dialogue on mobile to bold it. XD

I am putting serious consideration into the mobile concern. But in general, the idea was to not copy over the bbcode parser, because again, I'd have to maintaining multiple separate systems and keeping them in sync.

Maybe some sort of markdown then (not that it's probably much better maintenance-wise)? Although it really isn't that much of a pain, just annoying when you have to select text to format it. But, well, I guess it is a matter of habit. XD

So how's this for a starting point (and boy, do I mean starting point). This JSON:

{
	version: 1,
	elements: [
		{
			type: "section",
			content: [
				{
					type: "text_input",
					name: "name",
					label_pos: "top",
					label: "Name",
				},
				{
					type: "text_input",
					name: "class",
					label_pos: "before",
					label: "Class",
				},
			],
		},
	],
}

results in this form:



Initially, I'll allow a bunch of helper classes and a white list of style keys to allow more fine control.

So to clarify, each of these content types would be a button we could push to add it, and then we could also code it directly if we wanted to?

Still figuring out how the UI part of it will work, but yes, you'll have a UI to use and a code pane. We could always release with just the code part (and docs on all the functionality) wihle we build out the UI.

Looks good to me!
Will sheets still support having editable sections ([abilities] tag)? It's one of my favourite things about custom sheets, being able to just edit one section and not the whole sheet. :D