I'm on big bug hunts for the day, getting this ready for uploading tomorrow (Thursday).

Sorry to hear you had to sell your iBook. I just sold my old Lombard Powerbook a couple weeks ago myself.... but not before replacing it with a new 17" powerbook

I don't hate windows... I have a PC tower myself, mainly for use with one architectural program.

Other than that, and a couple old PC games, I don't use it much.

That's probably the main reason I have no trouble with it, and never had any viruses.... I don't use it for surfing, email, or anything else that connects it to the internet.

Back to Bug Squashing!!

I'm using RealBasic. It's been a very steep learning curve. The two previous programs I made are nothing compared to this, complication wise.

Getting it to open files the way it should (i.e. several game files at once, or opening a second file when the first one is still open is going to take a long time. I have to hunt for, and change something in that's buried in several hundred pages worth of code. So, I'm concentrating on making sure everything else works right now.

After a it's been released, I'm going to try to streamline a few things, to make the program both smaller, and simpler. At the moment, the program weighs in at 2.3 MB Not exactly huge.... but larger than I'd like.


Hey Adam! The 17" screen is huge.... but I do a ton of photoshop work, and the extra two inches width, and inch or so depth is worth it for me. Trying to keep all the Photoshop palettes open, a large working window, and smaller reference docs open as well gets a little crowded on a 15" screen (much less the 14" screen of my old PB.)

Besides - it doubles as a nice big GM screen so players can't see the army of mercenaries waiting for them! <evil GM grin>

As for the 22 or 23 page manual - I'm so used to this program, I figured a comprehensive manual is still a good idea, so the three mac users on this board know how to use it's features. I've still left out a couple things, but it has the gist of it all.

For me, my favorite feature is automating initiative - no more prerolling, and its Phase Calculator - it automatically sorts from highest to lowest rolls, accounting for damage mods.

It doesn't take into account ties (i.e. check quickness, then intelligence, then reaction or whichever). Something I'll change later.

Once a few people have this, I can add a repository of "stock" characters to my website people can download and import into the game. Those who use the program can send exported characters to me, and I'll add them to the website. That way we can all eventually have a large roster of ready-made characters to import. Character files are tiny - if you open on up in a text editor, one character takes about three lines of text.

I've tried to make it as flexible as possible, without bogging a GM down in minutae - which is why there's very limited Cyber options, no weapon lists to choose from, etc.

Yeah, that's why I have a 19" monitor for my G5.

[And I wish I had dual monitors, but I don't have the space on this desk ... I want my old office desk back, damnit!]

I used to run dual monitors - one old 14" and my 19 CRT.... but I replaced them with a single Benq 23" LCD.

Soooo much better. I'm not sure I'd ever want the 30" apple cinema display.... you'd get a sore neck looking from side to side so much

ties resolved by:
augmented reaction then natural reaction then you just roll a D6 and the highest wins

are you currently sorting by initiative score? if so, you can have a hidden field that is just for counting....it'd go like this:

1) roll initative, then sort higest to lowest
2) use a 'for' loop to assign a number to each character in the hidden 'count' field...the character with the higest init. gets a 1, the next character down a 2, and so on.
3) use another 'for' loop (actually one 'for' nested in another) to compare the initative of each character with every other character
4) when you come across 2 characters whose initative = each other, then use 2 'if' statements:

if augmentedReactionOfCharacter1 = augmentedReactionOfCharacter2 then
__if naturalReactionOfCharacter1 = naturalReactionOfCharacter2
____roll a D6 for each character and highest wins
__else
____swap the countNumber for each character and then sort by the countNumbers
__end if
else
__swap the countNumber for each character and then sort by the countNumbers
end if

(sorry about the lines...the board cut out my blank spaces)

once you sort by the countNumber, it will swap the 2 characters while keeping their initative score intact (i.e. you don't have to mess with the initative score of the character just to get the 2 to swap)

follow? i'm sure that doesn't help...i could email you some actual code but it'd be in VB.NET and that probably wouldn't help either

anyway, congrats on what sounds like a great program....

When you do initiative, it automatically rolls initiative for NPCs, and then you enter the actual initiative rolls by PCs. Hit the Calculate Phases, and it sorts intitiative, taking into accound Stun and Physical wound modifiers for both NPCs and PCs.

So an NPC with an initiative roll of 16, with a Serious wound, would then have 13 for initiative.

Ditto for a PC who rolls a 26, with a light stun.... enter the 26, and then they have 25 for intitative when sorting the order.

I'll have to look up the rules for initiative order when there's a tie, and add a subroutine to the sorting bubbles so they'll stack in the appropriate order.

sorry, i meant during the combat phase, not at the initative roll...does your list lower their initative as soon as they take damage (as per core rules)? or do you have a sort button so that you can type in the characters new initative when they take damage and then click sort if they need to go down on the list?

it would help if i could see the manual...is it possible to get stuffIt for windows? if not, can you make a .ziped version for download?

sweet

When characters take damage during initiative, just hit the Calculate Phases button again, and it will resort initiative, taking the new damage into account.

I was going to set to the be automatic, but decided to let the GM handle with the button - otherwise if the order suddenly changes it might throw them off.

I've got a slightly revised manual online -
GM Pocket Secretary for Mac OS X

Not to disappoint PC users, but you do realize this only works on Apple computers, with OS X?

sweet - thanks....at least now i can check out the manual and see what i'm missing