jontukontar

For those who haven't heard of Pipes, it allows you to manipulate RSS data feeds into something that is more useful to you. I have know about Pipes for a while but hadn't come up with a good use for it. That changed last night when I decided to cut down some of the feeds that I read to a reasonable size.

I subscribe to the "Recent Posts" feed from RPG.net to keep up with some of the interesting things that are going on there. Unfortunately, the signal to noise ratio for those fora is significant and makes seeing anything useful nearly impossible. This is where Pipes comes in, I can set it up to filter the RSS feed from RPG.net and thus eliminate much of the noise and get the parts that I'm interested in reading.

I've also augmented it a forum feed from the new White Wolf fora that looks for Anathema and sends the results to me. This addition is particularly useful because I don't tend to frequent the WW fora and this will bring the results directly to my attention.

malfeas.livejournal.com

The plug-in is 99% complete at this point and usable for most purposes. The remaining 1% are things that would require a bit of coding beyond the scope of the XML that I have done.

In specific:

• White Veil Style and Dream Pearl Courtesan Style, are missing one of their requirements. These charms require 2 dots in any of three specific abilities.
• Five Directions Formation Protocol, part of Crimson Pentacle Blade Style, is not able to be displayed as written because all of it's entries (except Keywords and Prerequisite Charms) are one word: Varies. Fortunately, it is at the end of a tree and nothing builds upon it.
• Fivefold Shadow Hand Style's XML is not capable of limiting/directing the charm progression that the authors of the style intended (hence, why it's disabled).
• Most of the Sidereal styles have at least one charm that is missing a requirement. Many of the "Form" charms require the practitioner having mastered a Celestial style. The notable exceptions being the Scarlet Patterned Battlefied Style and the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation Form. The former could be an error on the authors part but the latter makes some sense (the previously required Form charms take care of this prerequisite).

As last time, you can find the direct link to the download on my other posts or you can peruse my download site on the "Link Farm" at the right hand side of this page (look for "My Plug-ins"). As always, be on the lookout for errors and report them to me, please. (I found one today dealing with the Righteous Devil Style and have fixed it in the new plug-in.)

Well, the first of the Sidereal styles has been coded into "well formed" XML.  The problem is interesting:

• If I attempt to load "Kaleidoscopic Border of Logic Style" first, niether it nor any of the other trees will render.  There is no error.
• If I load "Snake Style" first, all styles except "Kaleidoscopic Border of Logic Style" will load.

It appears that I have finished coding all of the Celestial level "Martial Arts" styles.  You can find a link to the download on my other posts or you can visit the My Plug-ins link that appears on the right side of this page.

As always, keep on the lookout for any errors that I might have made and if found, notify me.

Well, the "Pan-Elemental" styles are interesting...  Each style has something that makes it difficult if not impossible to use them in a character generator.

Crimson Pentacle Blade Style, has the "Five Directions Formation Protocol" which has few usable statistics:  Keywords and prerequisite charms.  The remaining statistics (cost, mins, type, duration) all consist of one word:  Varies.

Even Blade Style consists of multiple crosslinked charms which makes it difficult to see where each charm points.


Fivefold Shadow Hand Style is by far the most difficult.  It has a new value for the "event" attribute on the <duration /> element:  Until Broken.  The problem is that most of the tree has "coded" prerequisite charms.

Example:  "(Element) Adept Gesture" where (Element) = Breeze, Forgotten, Mountain, Mist, or Smoke.  "Nothing but the Wind" requires a character having taken "Breeze Adept Gesture".  On the other hand, "White Breath in the Cold" requires a character to have acquired "Mist Adept Gesture", ad nausem.  The final charm requires a character having taken both of their favored element's charms but they only link to "(Element) Adept Gesture".

The simple answer is to use "Terrestrial.ElementAdeptGesture" as the prerequisite charm for all of them but that would create a flat charm tree and provide no way to fulfill the final charm's requirement (of having taken both favored element charms).

If you hadn't guessed...  This means that "Even Blade Style" is completely done, "Crimson Pentacle Blade" is 99% done, and I haven't really started "Fivefold Shadow Hand".  It also means that I will post a new file tomorrow, when I've gotten a chance to proof it.  Watch this post for updates.

Update:  The update is now available.  It adds the final Terrestrial styles for this book. 

Currently, I've disabled the "Fivefold Shadow Hand" style but it can be re-enabled simply by removing the appropriate comment markers from plugin-fragment.xml which is contained in book_scrollofthemonk.jar.  As noted above, there is a problem with one charm in the "Crimson Pentacle Blade" style. 

You will also notice problems with the new keywords (<charmAttribute />):  Share-(Element), and Element .  There is also a new <duration />: One flurry.  As noted below (by urskr), these problems are fixable if you desire to do so.  I've actually "fixed" this and it will be in the next version of the plug-in.  Though I think that the "Charm.Unit.flurry.Singular" should be incorporated into the main application because we will probably see this again.

There is a small error in the previously posted versions of my book_scrollofthemonk.jar plug-in.  I had thought that "Complementary Abilities" didn't start until the Celestial level but I was wrong.  So, the previous versions didn't take into account that you need 2 dots in Dodge for "Falling Blossom" style a similiar thing goes for 3 2 other styles.  I've put in a "fix" on the first charm(s) in each effected style (with the quasi-exception of "White Veil") which should correct the oversight handily.

"White Veil" style is different in that it requires 2 dots in Socialize and 2 dots in a combination of Larceny, Presence or Stealth.  Socialize is easy, and already done, but the combination isn't. Since this is new to the Second Edition of Exalted, I'm not sure how or if Anathema will work with this at the moment.  So, it may be "broken" for a bit.

Update:  This is urskr's bailiwick but I have a thought on how to deal with this obstacle.  One might add id1, id2, id3, and id4 as optional attributes to the <trait /> element (id4 is as insurance against a style with greater requirements).  Inside Anathema, I would make a summation of those id's (if present) and compare them against the attribute value.  If greater, allow the selection of that charm.

Example: 

<trait id1="Stealth" id2="Larceny" id3="Presence" value="2" />

Stealth + Larceny + Presence ≥ value = 1 + 0 + 3 ≥ 2 = 4 ≥ 2 = true

The new book_scrollofthemonk.jar plug-in contains most of the MA styles from "Falling Blossom" through "White Veil". (The notable exception being the "Terrestrial Hero" add-on charms.) As before, move or unzip the file into Anathema's plugin directory. It is "ok" to overwrite the existing file. Oh, and don't forget to notify me if you see any errors.

For the curious, the "Terrestrial Hero" add-ons don't work because the release version of Anathema doesn't like other plug-ins adding charms to an existing tree. So if you want/need the "Terrestrial Hero" add-on charms, I would recommend getting urskr's Data Pack and installing it as well. As I tested this morning, it won't hurt at all if you have both installed.

Example Charm List:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<charmlist>
  <!-- Generic Charm List -->
  <charm id="GenericCharm1" exalt="Dragon-Blooded" group="GenericCharmList">
    <prerequisite>
      <trait id="MartialArts" value="2"/>
      <essence value="1"/>
    </prerequisite>
    <cost>
      <temporary>
        <essence cost="1"/>
      </temporary>
    </cost>
    <duration duration="Instant"/>
    <charmtype type="Reflexive">
        <special primaryStep="2"/>
    </charmtype>
    <charmAttribute attribute="Terrestrial"/>
    <charmAttribute attribute="Combo-OK" visualize="true"/>
    <source source="ScrollMonk"/>
  </charm>
  <charm id="GenericCharm2" exalt="Dragon-Blooded" group="GenericCharmList">
    <prerequisite>
      <trait id="MartialArts" value="3"/>
      <essence value="1"/>
      <charmReference id="GenericCharm1"/>
    </prerequisite>
    <cost>
      <temporary>
        <essence cost="4"/>
      </temporary>
    </cost>
    <duration amount="1" unit="action"/>
    <charmtype type="Reflexive"/>
    <charmAttribute attribute="Terrestrial"/>
    <charmAttribute attribute="Combo-OK" visualize="true"/>
    <source source="ScrollMonk"/>
  </charm>
</charmlist>

When making plug-ins for Anathema there are a couple of things that I've run across that might be useful.

General

• Java 5 (at least on a Mac) is worthless for determining what is wrong with a given plug-in.  Java 6 is much better but still not a lot of help.
  
• The Java Plug-in Framework, as used in Anathema, is case sensitive (i.e. Anathema ≠ anathema ≠ anaThema).
• Resource Bundles are also case sensitive.

Java Exception Errors

• Exception errors at launch == Error in your XML.
• If you have an exception error at launch, you can find it by commenting out all the <charm> XML elements and then progressively uncommenting them.  Sooner or later you will hit the bad entry.
• If that doesn't fix the exception, look at the "plugin-fragment.xml" and see if the XML error isn't there.
• See urskr's comment for more places to look for XML errors.

Strange Labels or Charm Entries

These errors manifest in two ways:

• Strange labels.  (i.e.  ##Celestial.PluginMakingMantra##, ##Dragon-Blooded##, etc.)
• Page reference entries that don't have the page listed.

You can troubleshoot and fix Resource Bundle errors by keeping the following things in mind:

• Errors in Resource Bundles cascade through the bundle.
• You can find problematic entries by tracing down the "Charm Cascades" viewer.  Go from the upper right to the lower left, the charm after the last "normal" entry is your problem.  Soon this may be pointless, as urskr has updated Anathema's code to limit the problems from an errant bundle.  However, it still applies to Anathema 1.1.1 and earlier.
  

Well, after having stumbled in the dark for a while, I've managed to accomplish a great deal. Currently, I have "Falling Blossom" through "Jade Mountain" and "White Veil" style from the Scroll of the Monk. I intend to work through the rest of the non-"Pan-Elemental" charms and add them to this plugin.  Depending upon my interest, I may do more.

For those with the base Anathema 1.1.1 (i.e. sans-datapack), unzip or move the contents of this link into Anathema's "plugins" directory.

I've tested this plug-in on a Mac with Java 5, so this should work fine with Java 6. I've also double checked the contents of each charm (i.e. cost, prerequisites, etc.) so they should be correct. Regardless, if you have any problems with this download, notify me (not Urs) because I'm the one making the file.

Update:  The following pictures are from my Java 6 capable Windows PC.

Well, it turn's out that the error with the "White Veil" style for the past couple of days was a simple fix and writer error. Apparently, I forgot to include the <charmtype> entry for the last two charms in the style.

The thing that broke the impasse was the exception entry from my Java 6 PC downstairs:

Caused by: net.sf.anathema.character.generic.magic.charms.CharmException: Bad type in charm. (Element required)

urskr  pointed out that this error only shows up if the <charmtype> entry is malformed or missing (in this case).

So now on to another charm tree...

Update:  I just finished the "First Pulse" style and I learned a valuable lesson  <charmtype> is case sensitive.

Well, my attempts at consolidating all the Scroll of the Monk charms into one plug-in has hit a snag. It appears that regardless of what I do, I run into the same exception error:

Caused by java.util.MissingResourceException: Can't find bundle for base name net.disy.commons.swing.dialog.messages, locale en.

urskr  has found this to be an interesting new "bug" because of my tinkering. Hopefully, it's one that he can squash!

Since, I've had no luck with creating add-ons to an existing tree, I have turned my efforts to adding a new Martial Arts style to Anathema.  My new target is to add "White Veil" style to the system.  I have the XML finished for the charm (or so I think), but I hit the same snag.  I wonder if there is some link between the problems?

For the past couple of days, I have been tinkering around with the Java Plug-in Framework that is used in Anathema. My reasons are three fold:

• I want to understand how it works.
• I want to document how it works.
• I want to give examples of how it can work.

My initial target was to split the recently integrated "Falling Blossoms" style out of the generic "character_martialarts.jar" file and into it's own file "character_scrollofthemonk.jar". I chose this target mostly because it makes more sense, to me, to organize the charms into plug-ins based on which book they are in and gives StoryTeller's an easy way to know which add-on plug-ins they need to acquire.

After many dead ends and exceptions, I have managed to make it work...I think. At the least it works fine for me but I will have to wait and give urskr  a chance to examine it and determine if I broke anything. Normally, this would be excellent progress, if all I wanted to do is add Martial Arts styles to the program. However, I have a tad more ambitious goal in mind.

Update:  Apparently, it's not as done as I thought.  I tested it against a vanilla (read: sans-"Falling Blossom") version of Anathema.  It revealed that my plug-in was referencing the "page" and "name" entries from the "character_martialarts.jar".  Fortunately, it was a simple fix once I figured out what was going on (more custom ID's).

I want, in the end, to be able to add, through plug-ins, charms to any ability charm tree. That goal is currently being worked on with my attempt to move the Scroll of the Monk specific bits of  "Terrestrial Hero" style. However, like with my initial attempts at splitting "Falling Blossoms" style out, I'm have a mix of dead ends and exceptions.