Review feedback

The Compendium's been available in the full webOS App Catalog for nearly two weeks now, and has just passed the 2,000 download mark.

However, with this added exposure comes the risk of more complaints - a couple of which I wanted to address here.

All Pages require an activation.
By Mark C

The app says "some pages may require an active D&D Insider Account to view." So far ALL pages have required an account to view! And thus I have found this app compleetly non-helpful. If it atleast tld me what book-source and page to find the information I would give it more than one star!
By Edward F

Firstly, the fact that all of the Compendium entries require a D&D Insider login is completely outside my control. Wizards of the Coast have, it seems, decided to remove unpaid access to content from early books; when the Compendium app was first written and released as beta, it was possible to read entries from the first Player's Handbook without needing to log in, so the wording of the disclaimer reflects that position.

I'd not gotten around to updating that notice on the app though, partly because it's just a boilerplate and partly because I don't know how Wizards might change access in the future. The next time I put a change into the app, I will have to change the wording on it though, just so people don't misunderstand.

The second point I wanted to address is the minimal information available within the app itself about Compendium entries. Again, this is outside of my control; the Compendium API provided by Wizards of the Coast is pretty bare-bones, and I can only use the information they've decided to include in the API when displaying results in the application.

As an example, here's the data available for a Power:

<Power>
    <ID>463</ID>
    <Name>Magic Missile</Name>
    <Level>1</Level>
    <ActionType>Standard</ActionType>
    <SourceBook>Player's Handbook<SourceBook>
    <SourceBook>Wizard</ClassName>
    <Teaser>463</Teaser>
</Power>

That's the information that the DnD 4e Compendium app has available to it when listing a Power, but there aren't many differences for other search types.

In most cases, the DnD 4e Compendium app will provide the Source Book information for the results it displays, although it will display Level information instead if that's available. I made that decision because if you're looking for a Power, Item or other level-sensitive entry and there are several similarly-named results, you don't want to have to open several web pages to find the most suitable one.

I am monitoring the changes and additions that Wizards are making to the Compendium API, and will continue to add or change things in the app when anything crops up that might be useful.

I do appreciate all the feedback I receive from users of the DnD 4e Compendium app, and if you have any ideas or suggestions for how I can improve the app, please let me know either via email, leaving a comment on this blog, or by leaving a review in the App Catalog.

Compendium 1.0.0 Now Available

The update seems to have gone through, and should now be appearing in the Updates section of the app catalog for anybody who's already got any of the beta versions installed.

Compendium 1.0.0 - Backgrounds, Companions and a New Look

I've just put the finishing touches on the latest build of the DnD 4e Compendium for webOS, and have submitted it to the App Catalog.

Normally I'd say that it'll be good to download shortly, but this time I'm not releasing it as a beta app - this is version 1.0.0, and will be going into the full App Catalog, once it's made its way through the Palm validation process.

New in this version are added filters for searching Backgrounds and Companions, and I've given the interface a lick of paint, instead of just using the default Palm styling. The colours and icons used are influenced by the new online Character Builder just released by Wizards of the Coast.

Hopefully the app will make it through the submission process fairly quickly and I'll have another post up here as soon as I know it's live.

New Features

• Filters have been added for searching Backgrounds and Companions
• New look - UI elements have been reskinned.

Known Issues

• On webOS 2.0, the filter fields for XP and Cost will not accept input. This is a problem with the current version of the operating system, and should be fixed by an update in the future.
• Searches can cause hangs if there are a large number of results. Be as specific as possible when searching to avoid this - search titles only, or use the filters to narrow down the results. Don't try to get a list of every power, item or monster.

Open Source

I've finally gotten around to uploading the source code for the Compendium to the Sourceforge project I created for it months ago.

As always, comments/suggestions are welcome - but be nice. I know my code needs a lot of improvement. :)

Login problems?

A couple of days ago, the DnD 4e Compendium got a review in the App Catalog from Shawn M, who marked it zero because he was unable to log in - and I'd like to address his complaint here, since the App Catalog doesn't provide me with any way to respond to comments internally.

Very DISAPPOINTED!!! I have an account but it still won't let me login nor see any information. POOR APP!!!
By Shawn M

The Compendium app itself doesn't actually handle any login information at all. Once you've chosen to view an item, the app launches the phone's browser, and user authentication is handled by the Wizards.com website, over which I have no control.

If you have any trouble logging into the Wizards of the Coast website, you should contact their technical support, because unfortunately I'm not able to do anything about it.

DnD 4e Compendium 0.4.9

The latest version of the DnD 4e Compendium for webOS has been submitted for release, and should be available for download in the next couple of hours.

Download

New features

• Filtered searches now allow Cost and XP limits to be provided for Items, Rituals and Monsters.
• A few under-the-hood improvements.

Known issues

• Searches can cause hangs if there are a large number of results. Be as specific as possible when searching to avoid this - search titles only, or use the filters to narrow down the results. Don't try to get a list of every power, item or monster.

Upcoming features
At the moment, the focus is on improving the core functionality of the app so that I can get it to a point where I'm happy submitting it to the full App Catalog, so there won't be any major new features. That said, feel free to leave a comment or send an email if there's something you'd like to see improved or added.

Download

webOS 1.4 [FIXED]

Update: This problem has been resolved in version 0.4.9, which has just been submitted to the Beta Catalog, and should be available within a few hours.

The release of webOS 1.4 today seems to have caused some problems with the DnD 4e Compendium - it seems to be hanging while retrieving the filters from the Wizards.com website.

I'm doing what I can to fix the issue, but until it's resolved the app is sadly likely to be unusable.

Almost ready?

Over the last couple of days, I've made some good progress on the next release of the Compendium.

In addition to fixing a couple of bugs with the previous iteration, I've tidied up the validation on the new XP and Cost filters to avoid a problem with the Wizards.com API.

I'll be putting the current version - 0.4.8 - through its paces over the next couple of days, and hopefully should have a date in mind for the next release by the end of the weekend, pending any further issues.

XP and Cost filter progress

After taking some time away from the development of the app, mostly just to start seeing it more like an end user might, I've started back on the code to get cost and experience fields added to the filter searches for items, monsters and rituals.

I spent a significant amount of time tonight working on the layout - unlike the level filters, the cost and XP fields have a huge number of potentially infinite values, and the kind of granularity that might be required when searching is much higher. With that in mind, I couldn't just use the same integer picker widgets as before. I had to arrange two text fields in a way that made sense and didn't take up too much space - which is more awkward than it first sounds when you're working mostly with pre-defined widgets.

I've come up with a solution that will hopefully work, although it still needs some tweaking - making it obvious where to tap to highlight the field is the first order of business now that the fields exist at all.

I'm not going to make any promises about when the next iteration will be available, but hopefully it'll be soon.

DnD 4e Compendium 0.4.6

The latest version of the DnD 4e Compendium for webOS has been released!

Download

New features

• Types without search results are no longer displayed in the basic search results.
• Filtered searches. When the app starts, it will spend a couple of seconds loading the filters, then move to the main search scene. If you select a Type, the filters for that type will then appear below. Filtered searches do not require any query text.
• Results which have a level value (including monsters, traps and items) now display their level instead of the sourcebook they're in. Everything else still displays the sourcebook.

I've also updated the icon to use a new colour scheme.

Known issues

• Some filters don't currently have all options - cost and XP values are missing (see below).
• The filter options don't always load properly. If your filter selectors only contain an "All" option, close the app and open it again, and they should load.
• The filter loading sometimes causes lag on the search entry scene. It shouldn't impact the searches themselves, but the interface might be unresponsive for a couple of seconds after it loads.
• Searches can cause hangs if there are a large number of results. Be as specific as possible when searching to avoid this - search titles only, or use the filters to narrow down the results. Don't try to get a list of every power, item or monster.

Upcoming features
The priority for the next release will be the XP and Cost filters for the types that require them. Most of the code is there to support it, but I've got to do some work to figure out the best way to get them into the UI.

If there are any other features you'd like to see, let me know and I'll do what I can to include them.

Download

Field Test Results

Last night's D&D game was the first opportunity I've had to test my app in a real-world situation: at the table, with people asking questions about rules, powers and items.

It went very well, and in addition to helping us work out exactly what a Woundpatch does, I managed to find a couple of bugs - both in the DnD 4e Compendium and the Wizards.com API.

One of the recent changes I've made is to allow filtered searches to find unlevelled results - items and powers that don't have a required level for using them; like race or class abilities or the Adventurer's Kit. I'd made a slight error when coding that bit though, which resulted in the inability to view any Power results.

Another issue I discovered is that the Wizards API, when running a simple keyword search or a filter search (with no filters provided) has an indication of whether the item is available publicly as a teaser, or if you'll need a D&D Insider account to view the full compendium entry. I was hoping to use that to provide an indication in the app, but if you do pass filters for a search it's marking everything as requiring an Insider account. So, that particular feature is going to be boxed indefinitely, since I can't get it to work consistently without some changes on Wizards' end.

I've also made some changes to the way results are displayed: a simple search now only lists the types that have results, and any filtered or type results with a level value now display that next to their entry instead of the source name.

There's some more testing to do over the coming days, but I'm still hopeful that the next version will be available for download this weekend.

Update and feedback request

I'm putting together the last few touches for the next release of the DnD 4e Compendium for webOS; I'm hoping to test it during a game tomorrow night, make any tweaks/fixes necessary on Tursday and Friday, and have it available for download over the weekend.

The big change is the addition of filters for searches; most of the options available on the Compendium website will be in the app, with a couple of exceptions - XP rewards for monsters, and cost for weapons/rituals being the main ones. This isn't a technical challenge so much as a UI one; it'll take some work to get the fields in properly.

I've also made some minor changes to the way results are displayed: if no type is specified then that results list won't include any types with no results, and some types (items, monsters and powers) will have the level next to the name.

I've also played around with using text colours to denote Insider-only information, but I've not found anything I'm happy with yet.

Anyway, I'd like some feedback, if anybody's used the app so far. What would you like to see, either in terms of new features or fixes?

More progress

After a few hiccups and design decisions, I'm on the way to getting the next version of the Compendium to a releasable state. However, it's presented me with an opportunity to rework some of the previous iteration's functionality, so there's still a while to go yet.

Depending on how much time I get in the next few days, I'm hoping to have the next version stable enough for field testing during our D&D game on Wednesday night, and available for download by this time next week.

DnD 4e Compendium - 0.3.1

A webOS app for the Palm Pre and Pixi to search the official Wizards.com D&D 4th Edition Compendium.

Download

Even the most enthusiastic D&D player can't carry all their sourcebooks with them at all times, but you never know which books you'll need for any given game. The DnD 4e Compendium uses the official Wizards.com API to provide you with access to all the information you'll need to settle rule disagreements, check the stats on your new weapon, or just satisfy your curiosity about any race or class you meet.

Note: Some pages will require an active D&D Insider subscription to view.

Features

• Provides links to the offical Compendium pages for full details on every class, race, monster, item and more from every official sourcebook.
• Uses the official Compendium API to search the database
• Restrict searches to a specific type
• Search titles only
• Initial release version 0.3.1

Planned additions

• Search with filters
• Type-specific data
• Indicator for entries requiring DDI subscription
• Saved searches (if requested)

Known Issues

• The first search request after opening the app sometimes doesn't complete properly, or times out. To get around this, go back to the Search page and re-submit the search - it will complete correctly the second time, and all subsequent searches will work fine.
• Searches with a large number of results (e.g., searching for "Damage") will cause the app, and eventually the entire device, to freeze. These should be avoided - be as specific as possible when searching.

Download

If you have any suggestions or feeback regarding the app, please leave a comment here. DnD 4e Compendium is currently in Beta Release, and any user comments will be greatly appreciated.

Welcome

This blog is about my development efforts for the Palm Pre - the first time I've ever tried writing anything for public consumption beyond a few Wordpress skins.

Nothing to see here yet; I'm currently putting the finishing touches to my first application for submission - at the moment I'm waiting for the opportunity to test it in anger, and looking into some potential legal hurdles (nothing serious, I just want to be sure) - and will update with more here as and when it seems appropriate. :)