Feature Suggestion: Assign Group/Category to Characters, Display by Group/Category

[William Walls]

For those of us who employ large casts of characters or use various, potentially far-flung settings in our novels, it would be extremely helpful if we could group/categorize our characters by the type (or setting) they're attached to or associated with.

As an example, in my current project, I have plots and subplots unfolding in three different cities, and it would be highly beneficial for me to be able to look for my Budapest characters among one group, my Bucharest characters in another group, and my Vienna characters within their group. I know that we can arrange the character list order by dragging and dropping them into the order we want, but once the list of characters gets long, moving each character individually can become tedious to do and difficult to maintain. If I could associate each character with a user-nameable field (as with a tag or a label) that yWriter could use to sort characters in the character list by that group, that would make maintaining my character lists (and adding them to scenes) a whole lot faster and easier.

Thanks!

[William Walls]

It also just occurred to me that this feature would be just as applicable to Locations and Items (I don't use Items very much, but others might).

[Henry Boleszny]

Doesn’t the report “print characters per tag” achieve this already?  Yes, it’s external to the character sorting when you go into the scene, but Simon has already taken out automatically putting major characters at the top of the sort to suit some writers.  Tags are also available for items and locations, with a similar report providing the functionality you desire... without any extra coding on Simon’s part.

 

Just my thrupenny bit.

 

Henry

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "yWriter" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ywriter+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ywriter/8fa3360a-bd4a-48f3-819a-6d5fa9b6cdbdn%40googlegroups.com.

 

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Print Characters Per Tag only shows the first name.

[Henry Boleszny]

You are right.  I didn’t notice this before. 

 

However, I have titles assigned to my characters (druid, warlock, sorcerer, ranger, etc) in the short name field.  This helps me with my sorting and figuring out who does what in the story.  These come up with the first name. 

 

I suspect that during Simon’s last rework of the character lists and database, he limited reports to the Short Name field in the database.

 

So, maybe you might need to consider putting more information into the short name?  I can understand why you want something more precise, but it’s probably the case that most of us who’ve used this program for years have our own work-arounds that are project-specific. 

 

Just my tuppence (allowing for inflation).

 

H

 

 

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ywriter/448e7520-03d8-48c6-90bd-cda9949e5ea1n%40googlegroups.com.

 

[William Walls]

Thanks very much for everyone's feedback so far on this.

Unfortunately, a printed report isn't really the thrust of what I'm looking for. The Character, Location, and Item lists are essentially databases, right? What I'm looking for, then, is a new attribute that can be attached to a character, location, or item record (still continuing with the database paradigm) that the list would sort by if an attribute is present (something entered into that field). The possible attributes would be left to the user's imagination, but the program would first look to that field for display grouping, and if nothing is present in that field for any of the records, then the entire list would be displayed in the user's dragged & dropped arrangement; otherwise, it would group the displayed entries by that attribute, then display within each group according to the user's pre-defined order.

The reason for this is that I'm looking for an easier way to sort my list entries at the List Window and select them at the Scene Window because by the time I get to about the midpoint of a novel, I have a LONG list of characters, and adding new characters from that point becomes tedious as I have to scroll up from the bottom of the list six to eight times to get to the area where I want that character on the list. As an example, since I group my character list according to the settings they appear in, if I could enter the name of the setting as an attribute field, the program could group the list by that attribute and I may not have to scroll at all. What I'm looking for is similar functionality to the major and minor character designations, but rather than a single "either/or" option, I'm requesting a "short text field" option in addition to that one, one that the program can use to present the list in user-definable groups for the ease of arranging and using long lists.

I hope this explanation is better, and thanks again for all the help.  

William Walls

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ywriter/SY4P282MB22656D91BFDF3DBA370D1ECB9E939%40SY4P282MB2265.AUSP282.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Henry Boleszny]

While I respect your determination to see the change implemented, may I point out that adding a modifier to the Short Name field will sort the characters, locations or items by alphabetic order according to whatever you put in there?

 

For example:            (Region) (First Name)

            This will sort all your characters by REGION according to alphabetic order, then by First Name according to alphabetic order

            I use this to sort out my Rangers from Druids and Scofflaws in the Character field.  Works like a charm. 

            It actually worked better when main characters were automatically sorted to the top of the Character list, which now they are not. 

But there you go; we gained other functionality to move characters between versions so that was a plus. 

 

No need for a report.  No need for special reprogramming to suite a niche requirement. 

 

I had a cast of thousands for one of my novels, too.  It took me about five minutes to put a title in over a hundred characters... only to discover about thirty weren’t needed.  But by sorting them that way, I found my duplicates in function and mis-spelling.  My list of items is even bigger (200+, mostly magic spells, artifacts, weapons, ingredients, etc.) so I had to be creative in my sorting options way back when Version 4 was the go-to. 

 

Despite the tone of my emails, I do understand what you are trying to achieve.  I’m just trying to point out that this is a basic program intended to get the story down.  There are other ways to achieve what you’re looking for without demanding a redesign of the database. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ywriter/CA%2B-3Pwx8SiYiSSRti386W2uf%2BFpPET1cUmFBv-%3DBgrpG-sg3SQ%40mail.gmail.com.

 

[William Walls]

I'd just like to take a moment to clarify something. My determination wasn't focused on "see[ing] the change implemented," it was to ensure that the change I was requesting was fully understood. The reason I doubted this was because some of the responses referred to printed reports, which had nothing to do with the change I was requesting. While not a programmer by trade, I've spent half my working career (nearly twenty years) in IT and am not entirely ignorant of many of the processes and scope of work related to programming. Besides, I've seen far more complex feature requests honored (or at least entertained).

And to further clarify, I wasn't "demanding" anything. I thought I was quite clear that I was submitting a "request" for consideration. If anyone can point out where my tone or language became "demanding" in any way, please let me know so that I can be more aware of blind spots in my communication. That being said, from my perspective, you (ozherm) seemed to adopt a highly condescending tone with me which I do not appreciate. You are not Simon. This is not your program, so I would appreciate it if you would refrain from giving the impression that you speak on his behalf. I've been using this program since the early days of v5. I'm well aware of the scope and vision Simon has for yWriter and have not onbly been a fan of Simon's dedication and work, but have also advocated for wider adoption of yWriter in the writing community, so I'm not some johnny-come-lately trying to make yWriter into something it isn't.

I would like if, in the future, people who are posting the proper requests in the proper forums not be treated as though they're begging for the moon when they''ve followed the proper protocols.

[Peter T.]

yWriter already has a simple tool for grouping characters, locations and items: the tags. It would be a great help if the view/edit windows for characters, locations and items had a "tag" column, as was made available for the scene list last summer.  Simon, please consider this a feature request. 

The display order in the view/edit lists of characters/locations/items corresponds exactly to the order in the yWriter7 XML project file, which opens an easy way to sort these entities by external scripts. 

Apart from that: For extensive cast and world-building, I prefer more powerful external applications, for example a wiki like Zim, which allows a tree structure and hyperlinks. If there are to be even more linking possibilities, e.g. between characters and locations, a relational database is perhaps even better. In principle, it is also possible to synchronise external databases or spreadsheets with yWriter projects using scripts.

Cheers, 

Peter

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

How would one link up databases like that? Thanks.

[Peter T.]

On Monday, June 7, 2021 at 2:47:45 PM UTC+2 kingdomhe...@gmail.com wrote:

How would one link up databases like that? Thanks.

yWriter 7 projects are stored in a standardized data format called XML. With the necessary programming skills, you can create a program or script that reads and writes this format and passes the contents to a database, for example. The whole thing may be a delightful exercise for a programmer. However, if your world-building becomes so complex that a database is worthwhile, you might want to try it out independently of yWriter first.

I wrote a library in the Python programming language that creates Open Document spreadsheets from yWriter project content, for example, and also writes changed data back to the yWriter project.

One application based on this library is the yw-cnv extension for LibreOffice. It can be used to export characters, locations, and items into spreadsheets. This also includes the ability to rearrange them.

I myself have not yet dealt with the database module of OpenOffice, but I guess it is possible to make it work together with the spreadsheet module. 

By the way, the LibreOffice extension also exports a cross reference document that might come in handy if you group your characters, locations etc. with tags. 

 

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Holy sh**. This plugin is nice. I have Open Office 4.1.4 and it works perfectly.

[Peter T.]

On Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 2:16:26 AM UTC+2 kingdomhe...@gmail.com wrote:

Holy sh**. This plugin is nice. I have Open Office 4.1.4 and it works perfectly.

Very good. Then you must have the OpenOffice variant and Python. Don't forget to let the extension manager check for updates from time to time. I'm currently preparing a new release that I'll be testing for myself for a few more weeks. 

Perhaps you manage to use the character lists etc. as a source for an OpenOffice Base database, Then it would be terrific if you could provide a special How-To for yWriter users on the web.

As an OpenOffice user, you may want to get other extensions I created specifically for working with the export from my yWriter projects, for example the curly quotes and the style switcher. Here is the link: https://extensions.openoffice.org/en/search?query=peter88213

Cheers, 

Peter

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Trying to download the damn JRE I need, but the website now requires login. Signed up for that yesterday and still didn't get my code for it.

[Todd Carnes]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 16:10:01 -0700 (PDT)
"kingdomhe...@gmail.com" <kingdomhe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Trying to download the damn JRE I need, but the website now requires login.
> Signed up for that yesterday and still didn't get my code for it.

There's always http://openjdk.java.net .

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Which folder of this do I point Open Office to? Tried all and it says there is no JRE in the specified folder. And I can only find a 32 bit JRE in the Oracle website, which won't send my damn login code.

[Peter T.]

If you don't see a JRE in the property settings, your installed JRE might be the wrong variant. As far as I know, OpenOffice is still 32-Bit, thus requiring a 32-Bit JRE. OpenOffice 4.1.4 might also still need the Oracle variant. 

So make sure you install a 32-bit JRE in parallel with your presumably installed 64-bit JRE. I have both on my PC, and there's no conflict.

Anyway, I suggest you to update OpenOffice. The most recent version is said to support non-Oracle JREs like the free AdoptOpen JDK as well.

By the way, I use OpenOffice v3.4.1 with the Oracle JRE 8 update 231 (x32), and, in parallel, LibreOffice 7 with the AdoptOpen JDK J9 11.0 (x64).

Good luck, 

Peter

[Peter T.]

I just found this information on the OpenOffice web site: 

https://www.openoffice.org/download/common/java.html

I think, this may help.

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Requires login, I registered but they didn't send my link yet. OpenJDK doesn't work with 32bit OpenOffice.

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Ah, forget it. Seriously, Oracle is such a trash. Registered and my password, which was annoying as heck to make, doesn't work now.

[Todd Carnes]

According to this Open Office web page, it will work just fine with OpenJDK. More specifically versions 6, 7 or 8 which are the same versions of Java you would need if you downloaded Oracle's Java. OpenJDK 8 is available here.

Todd

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "yWriter" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ywriter+u...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ywriter/1095704b-fc07-4d4b-8ce1-e39ff5558438n%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
Sent with Vivaldi Mail. Download Vivaldi for free at vivaldi.com

[Peter T.]

On Friday, June 11, 2021 at 2:50:26 AM UTC+2 kingdomhe...@gmail.com wrote:

Ah, forget it. Seriously, Oracle is such a trash. Registered and my password, which was annoying as heck to make, doesn't work now.

I really don't know what's going wrong with you. At the bottom of the oracle java download site there is a small link to "all Java downloads" and there you can download 32 bit Java, without registration and all. 

This is the download link that works fine for me:

https://javadl.oracle.com/webapps/download/AutoDL?BundleId=244582_d7fc238d0cbf4b0dac67be84580cfb4b

[kingdomhe...@gmail.com]

Thanks. I was using this one: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-jre8-downloads.html

Which gave me all that trouble. There is no mention of this All Java Downloads in there.