Huh.... I just realized that with this system I can rig it so when a person is approved to play a character that hasn't been written I can create a link that can take a GM straight to the character creation page to start working on it and so it links to the player automatically, with a flag that says if the sheet has been approved or not.

There's one thing I think we need to add somewhere that would be beyond helpful

A very easy way for me to see who the creators of a certain series of sheets.

Example:

I know nothing about One Piece.
I go into DB and type in One Piece.
I want list of people who made these sheets - that way, I can get an expert's opinion on how to handle something One Piece related.

"Who made the Naruto sheets?"

Look in system.

"Looks like X did- you can ask them about the sheet."
"Looks like X, Y, and Z all worked on the Naruto sheets. Should be able to ask one of them."

jantra: that's trivial in the general sense. To see who wrote a sheet.

The problem is once we transfer to the new system, setting up which sheets are whose is going to prove a bit weird to set as we're copying from the old sheets where that data doesn't exist.

That said, we can find a way to assign sheets/series to folks so they're considered primary sources, but I'll want to discuss more broadly how we set that up.

At least some sheets we should be able to figure out the OG writer by manual entry

and we can list 'unknown' specifically if we don't know it

anything unknown = purely a pre-NexusDB sheet we cannot find out the og writer

Sure, we can add a "Primary reference" field to sheets for that purpose. Do we also want a "Primary reference" for full series or no?

It would be nice to have "Primary References" which is an visible array of everyone who has made a sheet for that series

so if I look up One Piece, it says X, Y, and Z are references

if I look up Luffy, X is primary reference (though why aren't we calling that one "sheet writer"?)

Because "sheet writer" is very specific in the system. It's the last person to write or save edits on that sheet. This is needed for versioning purposes later on.

Then we're using terms differently here. I think the primary reference for a sheet is the person that wrote it.

So... sheet writer

Okay, then what name do we want to call the person who is the one you want to talk to when you want to talk about the sheet or series?

I assure you, we want to keep this info separate from the sheet writer.

I feel like making people volunteer to be primary references is completely a different notion than who wrote the sheet and more complicated...

Yes, but it will avoid the inevitable:

"Hey says here you made the new Sesshomaru sheet?"

"Oh hell no, I just thought that the picture on it looked bad so I replaced it."

I would be kind of annoyed if I replaced a really shitty picture and someone bothered me thinking I was the sheet writer.

because 'last person who made an edit' and 'sheet writer' aren't different

Exactly

....that's going against your stuff. What you declared.

You said if I wrote the sheet, and someone came along and fixed a typo, their name overrides mine

so now there's no record of the og sheet writer

There is a record, it's in the versioning data, and to be fair, should also not be used for the purposes of who to contact over sheet usage.

Yeah. So "Sheet Writer" should be a kept thing, visible.

You know how much time I spent tracking down the original writer of a sheet that is broken just in the last month? I probably spent 1-2 hours tracking that shit down so I could get answers.

if a sheet is completely being rewritten, then update sheet writer in a special way - a checkbox somewhere that someone with decent authority has.

Legit complaint absolutely, but that's also the approval process is supposed to try and weed out, broken sheets.

But my point stands. If I have to find the original sheet writer for questions - maybe I just don't understand something - I don't need to go on a 2 hour hunt.

"This power says 'See a GM' but there's no GM notes - could you give me the quick info on what I need to do as a GM for this power?"

"Oh jfc this player wants to make a fake dragonball I know the dragonball item but I have no idea if there's something specific about dragonballs that maybe a higher excellence test could unlock- hey OG sheet writer, any ideas?"

Seeing the original sheet writer on the sheet information is absolutely doable.

But again, with the way that we're going to be importing sheets, that info will be useless 99 times out of 100 in the new system for what you want.

Hence my suggestion of "unknown" - aka: players we know aren't LARPing or available to get anymore for example

but tons and tons of times the original sheet writer still exists

and as we replace old sheets, the unknown will appear less and less

Okay, BUT, and this is just me spitballing here, what if a GM wants to be made primary contact for a sheet/series?

No, replacing old sheets won't change the original sheet writer once it's in the system

I never disagreed having a primary reference is bad. XD I think if someone wants to be added to something separate, that's fine. Probably the OG sheet writer would always be in that list but someone extra could be added

For versioning purposes we need an unbroken chain, even if the sheet gets fully rewritten

....and versioning purposes would have the OLD writer still

If the sheet has been completely re-written and I'm a GM trying to get info, I want to contact the person who did the re-write.

Okay, perfect, sorry, I think we were talking past each other there

I want the "sheet writer" that's visible on the front end to be the writer of the current sheet.

And yes you'll be able to see who did a rewrite in the versioning info.

VISIBLE

Having to dig into versioning goes against the point of quick.

I am being straight up user ui/ux expert on this one

You can see who did the current sheet and who did the original sheet, absolutely.

But if there was a rewrite and several iterations after, you'll need to look at versioning to see who started the rewrite.

A re-write means new sheet, basically. If I care who did the OG, I can dig into versioning.

If I'm a GM looking to get info, I want the new sheet writer without having to dig.

Naruto:

Made 1/1/1995 by: Billy Bob (listed as Sheet Writer)
Edit
Edit
Edit
Edit
Re-Write 1/1/2023 by: Johnny Boy (replaced as sheet writer by checking replace sheet writer box before included in system)

When I access on 12/10/2023 the website, I search Naruto, I see:

Sheet Writer: Johnny Boy

if I want more info:

I click into the versioning and scroll back.

and I see everything above

Okay: scenario

Ranma Saotome is imported into the system.
OG sheet writer is unknown.
Revisions are made to Ranma nothing major.
A full rewrite is done by Johnny Boy. This gets accepted.
Time passes.
New Ranma series drops with better animation than the original series.
Billy Bob changes the image, this gets accepted

Current Version: Billy Bob.
Og writer unknown.

How do you know to contact Johnny Boy if there's in play issues?

1) new ranma series would probably be new sheets, period, not a rewrite, as we don't overwrite a new SERIES on old sheets

2) Billy Bob made an edit. He didn't write a new sheet.

so Billy Bob would not replace Johnny Boy as the sheet writer... because he just made an edit.

If you're saying "someone with authority made a mistake and hit the 'replace sheet writer checkbox' when they shouldn't have"... that's a different issue.

Okay so what I'm hearing is that we want to separate the sheet writer and sheet editor into two separate columns and Sheet Writer only changes when an editor specifically calls for it.

Absolutely. Why would you ever replace the Sheet Writer for a single edit?

You know how often I want to fix typos? XD

Because I wasn't aware that we'd ever want to change who the "Original" writer was

I don't care who wrote a sheet from 1995 unless we haven't rewritten it

if we've re-written it, I care about the new sheet writer.

Cool to keep the old info around in versioning, don't get me wrong

but not what a user is in there for

Exactly, that's why I didn't bother to have that info available. Nobody cares who originally wrote a sheet. We only care who last made edits.

No. We care about who wrote the last version of it.

Edits =/= rewrite

if I fix a typo, I didn't rewrite the sheet.

If I re-wrote the sheet, I care about being listed as the sheet writer

See that's where we were having issues. In my mind everything is an edit, no matter how big or how small.

You're looking to add re-write "Checkpoints" initiated by the writer which stamps them as the sheet writer from then on.

and I 100% disagree

I want to know who wrote the most recent version of the sheet.

Not who fixed a typo.

IMHO, you ALWAYS want to know who last edited anything.

From a pure data standpoint, there is no difference between a rewrite and an edit.

but it matters to a user

Exactly, which is why I'll add the writer field to the DB.

Sheet Writer: Johnny Boy (1/1/2023)
Last Edit: Mary Maryson (5/4/2023)
Primary Reference(s): Johnny Boy, Tammy Unique

^ Exactly what I was thinking.

which is what I've been saying. XD

Mind you, Johnny Boy DID NOT WRITE the 1/1/1995 version

He wrote the 1/1/2023 version and the Sheet Writer was updated at that point

All good, question is, if it's a checkmark that updates the sheet writer, what mechanism will enforce hitting that checkmark when needed?

I'm not saying I 100% have every notion of it in mind, but my first thought would be on the screen for people approving it

Both people click the checkbox, it gets changed

So it's up to the approvers to make that determination?

I mean, they're the ones approving ... the whole shebang either way

if we really want to go more, it could be a checkbox on the edit(?) screen that flags the approvers to pay attention to that checkbox

[ ] Suggest "Sheet Writer" name update on this edit

(then on approvers screens):

[ ] Approve "Sheet Writer" name update on this edit

That's fine, I just am curious how you want it done so we can set up who gets yelled at when the checkbox is inevitably ignored.

Then make it a radio button that there is no default radio checked

and make it required

Approvers MUST choose to update the screen writer name or not before they can hit approve

Personally, I would make Approvers also check something off if they say... don't make any edits at all

"I approve this sheet can be submitted into the Database with no further edits."

disabled if they suggest a change

So far "Change suggestions" when a kickback occurs is a feature that's for later, but that makes sense.

If you NEED to make sure something is going to happen from a UI perspective, you can do it.

You stop a user from proceeding until they do the thing

True true. We'll talk more about the UI stuff as you pick apart my front end code.

I can't wait for vacation to go dig into way, way less insane front-end code than my job.

something fun instead of "oh god we make money on this" rofl

Maybe my instinct to start some stuff from scratch just to see if I can modernize and streamline some code isn't misplaced.

........ /slowly looks over at her list of stuff to streamline her work code over break

NOPE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN DUDE. NONE.

I think often you and I say the same thing in two different ways and we just need to figure out how to talk better XD

Yeah, always the issue with front-end vs. back-end reqs.

But yes, jantra: thanks for your time and input. This is kinda what I've been missing, someone who knows what the fuck they're doing so I objectively get told. "No, this is shit." and then I at least KNOW what needs to improve.

Hey I can't do 1/100th of the backend stuff you've done - it's incredible!!

But I know what you mean, even if people might think you're being derogatory towards yourself. I am DESPERATE at my job for someone to be able to go "this is NOT a good angular function, this is shit, here's how to do it better"

Indeed, don't feel any pressure to hold back on asking for other data styling from the back end.

I even just wrote an endpoint to grab full character sheet and starting item info for multiple characters collated in JSON to easily generate full sheets with all the items grouped on one or more pages to save on paper.

Yesssssssssss omg

items and badges. XD

Yes! Badges are totally doable too! I didn't get to them but they should be simple once we work out the styling for sheets and items.

They just need a "upload png of X width and Y height" feature so we can change the backgrounds and they'll be easily enough otherwise

Yup! Hell we can add people's actual (player desired and approved) names to the badges too if we wanted.

I mean again, we can have different backgrounds for character sheets and/or player badges per LARP... or even per LARP run

Nice thing is exporting to PDF is trivial these days