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.