Release Notes for the Dungeon Master's Handy Helper Copyright 2009-2012, Dave Fried and Matthew Highcove http://leftoblique.net http://dmingwithcharisma.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAQ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ==> How do Healing Surges work in 4E D&D? There are two ways to use healing surges (4E only): The first (and simplest) is to record the creature's healing surge value when you edit the creature. In this mode, the number of surges the creature has is not tracked. However, the creature can still spend surges on the damage screen. The second mode is to specify both the healing surge value and surges per day. In this mode, the creature can spend surges until it is out, then it regains 1 HP per surge spent. Color coding on the main and damage screens will alert you when the creature is out of surges. If you do not specify at least a surge value when editing a creature, the creature will not be able to spend healing surges. How to spend healing surges: In the "surge" column on the damage screen, specify the number of surges spent. Then in the "healing" column, specify the additional healing (if any). So if a Healing Word allows a character to regain a healing surge plus 15 HP, put "1" in the surge column and "15" in the healing column. The following only apply if you are tracking healing surges: If a creature may regain hit points as if it had spent a healing surge, prefix the number of surges with "~". So for example, Cure Critical Wounds would mean you would put just a "~3" in the surge column. Finally, if an effect causes a creature to gain or lose healing surges without regaining hit points, prepend the amount with "+" or "-". For example, to drain one healing surge from a character, put "-1" in the surge column. Draining healing surges a character has no effect, as per the default rules. There are some effects (suffocation, etc.) which do additional damage in this case; you will have to apply that damage manually. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version History --------------------------------------------------------------------------- === Version 1.6.0 === Feature: Drag-drop creatures to reorder on main screen. Bug-Fix: Even more aggressive memory management. === Version 1.5.9 === Bug-Fix: FIX CRITICAL MEMORY ISSUE. This bug affected 1.5.7 and 1.5.8. The way images were being cached internally was causing them to sometimes fail to be garbage collected, causing a serious memory leak which could crash the program or cause it to behave unpredictably. This patch should solve the problem as well as improve general performance. === Version 1.5.8 === >>> DO NOT USE THIS VERSION - see release notes for 1.5.9 <<< Feature: Load multiple images at a time. Feature: Improved diagnostics screen. === Version 1.5.7 === >>> DO NOT USE THIS VERSION - see release notes for 1.5.9 <<< Feature: Diagnostics dialog to monitor file cache, images, and memory. Bug-Fix: Status icons and initiative now reset properly on the player screen when the "Reset Creatures" menu item is selected as well as undo and redo. Bug-Fix: Replace missing keyboard shortcuts/accelerators. Bug-Fix: Some image formats took immensely long to resize due to incompatible pixel format; all images are now immediately translated to the proper format on load to improve resizing in pathological cases. === Version 1.5.6 === Feature: Remember most window size, location, and state on restart. Feature: Never restore a window off-screen. Feature: Remember column widths in main screen and on damage forms (for games that use one). === Version 1.5.5 === Feature: Status icon sizes are now configurable in the status icons dialog. === Version 1.5.4 === Feature: Status icon default size updated to 48x48 for better visibility; this makes the existing icons look ugly but far more readable (they're placeholders anyway; good icons are coming eventually) Bug-Fix: Status icons now correctly update when creature visibility changes, also when status icons are changed using the dialog. === Version 1.5.3 === Feature: Basic support for some FATE games (currently, only experimental ICONS support) Intrnal: New game systems can choose whether the name of a character is on the top or bottom of the portrait Bug-Fix: Creature type change is now treated as a portrait change so that the portrait layout changes appropriately === Version 1.5.2 === Feature: Context menu on portrait window preview has menu for overlays Feature: Status icons now appear multiple times if multiple effects apply === Version 1.5.1 === Bug-Fix: Moving save files from Windows to Unix/Linux should work better Bug-Fix: Include status icon files with full campaign saves Bug-Fix: Non-full saves will now correctly load with default status icons === Version 1.5.0 === Feature: Status icons (temporary set; D&D4E only) Feature: HTML-based help (damage screen, status icons) Feature: Scale portraits from context menu on preview pane Bug-Fix: Fix some cases where images could fail to render after a load Bug-Fix: New World of Darkness damage fix - there is no (-3) before a character's damage track is full (-3 = incapacitated) === Version 1.4.3 === Feature: Initiative tracking system with next/prev buttons Bug-Fix: Hiding a creature now actually hides it on the player screen in the initiative list Bug-Fix: Numerous fixes to NWoD logic, including creatures losing information when edited and saved/loaded === Version 1.4.2 === Feature: Right-click menu on player screen preview to change background image Bug-Fix: Overlay for healing surges (4E) now shows "1 surge" (rather than the previous "1 surges") === Version 1.4.1 === Feature: Zip-based "complete" save games embed all required media files Feature: Simplified main form to remove splitter panel Feature: Click player screen preview to show player screen Bug-Fix: Updates to New World of Darkness to track supernatural power === Version 1.4.0 === Feature: Basic support for New World of Darkness === Version 1.3.2 === Feature: Preview window on main form to show layout of player screen. Bug-Fix: Fixed a bug that could cause portrait changes on the creature edit screen to be applied to the creature even if the edit is canceled. Bug-Fix: Fixed a rendering bug in the portraits table in the creature edit dialog. === Version 1.3.1 === Feature: Multiple portraits and portrait configurations per creature. Feature: Select current portrait for creature from right-click menu. === Version 1.3.0 === Feature: Support for tall and wide portraits using new player screen layout engine. Portrait options can be set on the edit creature screen. Bug-Fix: Monsters are placed on the player screen starting from the bottom left of the monster area rather than the top left. Order is still consistent within this new placement regime, but we can go back to the old alignment if players find this confusing. Bug-Fix: Fixed a resizing bug where old resize requests wouldn't be cleared after being canceled, so re-resizing an image could have strange results. === Version 1.2.6 === Bug-Fix: Cursor now returns to default arrow after the currently-selected image on the campaign options form is displayed; previously, the cursor remained the "busy" cursor, even after the image appeared. Bug-Fix: If an image file changes, selecting the image again causes the system to attempt to re-load it instead of using the cached version. Feature: Display a warning icon for missing images when editing campaigns, creatures. Feature: [Development] Add fixed aspect ratio switch to image resize logic, allowing exact resizes (by setting to false) === Version 1.2.5 === Feature: Image cache means that only one copy of an image is ever loaded, and only one resized copy of the image exists in memory for any given size; this should both decrease memory footprint and increase speed of portrait resizing, especially with many duplicate portraits. Feature: "Reset Initiative" context menu item Bug-Fix: Fix toggle of overlays so that they display correctly when a campaign file is first loaded. === Version 1.2.4 === Feature: Display healing surge value (4E only) in damage screen Feature: Display healing surges remaining (4E only) on portrait screens with toggle control on damage screen Bug-Fix: Fixed number of background threads for image resizing === Version 1.2.3 === Feature: Now have configurable option to allow or disallow duplicate creature names; this affects default behavior when you try to edit or add a creature with the same name as an existing name. Loading a file with duplicate names will not cause an error if the option is off. Bug-Fix: Repaired save creature dialog. === Version 1.2.2 === Bug-Fix: Reset resets dead creatures Bug-Fix: Hide All Dead menu item now clears initiative Bug-Fix: Table editing stops when the window loses focus. This fixes the bug where you could be editing a creature, switch to the damage screen, apply changes, and the new information from the edit would be lost. Bug-Fix: Switching creature types correctly updates HP if the new dead hitpoints are greater than the creature's current HP. Big-Fix: Right-click in main table follows same selection rules as in Windows Explorer: - if click is in existing selection, just show contet menu - if click is in unselected item, select that item and show menu - if click is not on any item, unselect and show menu - if CTRL, COMMAND, or SHIFT is depressed, just show menu === Version 1.2.1 === Feature: "Clear all initiative" menu item Feature: "Load" added to right-click context menu Bug-Fix: (4E) spending a healing surage with none remaining now only heals 1 HP if the creaure is currently at zero or below (as per the rules). === Version 1.2.0 === Feature: Hide All Dead menu item - finds visible dead creatures (other than PCs) and marks them as hidden; moves them to the end of the list Feature: Blanks are now default in damage screen rather than zero; you can now enter blanks for zero as well Feature: All D&D creatures now have a status line Feature: Track healing surges for 4E creatures Feature: Apply healing via healing surges for 4E creatures Feature: Presence of temporary hit points displayed in limited visibility Feature: Numbers now displayed in monospace font in tables Feature: Collapse Cur/Max into single column for HP, surges Feature: Duplicate creatures Feature: Right-click context menu on main table Feature: List portrait scale values in View | Scale menu Bug-Fix: Duplicate creatures start numbered at 2 instead of 1 Bug-Fix: Default game system chosen at startup if none is set Bug-Fix: Unify language in creature menu, reorder commands, reset applies only to selected Bug-Fix: Initiative list auto-setting of initiative now works correctly Bug-Fix: Numerous table cell color fixes and enhancements Bug-Fix: Reorder of creatures doesn't clear selection === Version 1.1.1 === Feature: Removed keyboard shortcuts for reset all status and clear dead creatures; these were too easy to accidentally trigger. Bug-Fix: Now you must select a cell before clicking on it will trigger editing. Before you could accidentally edit cell contents in some cases when trying to select a creature. Bug-Fix: Batch-setting visibility no longer clears the current selection in the main table. === Version 1.1.0 === Feature: recent files lists for campaigns, creature files Feature: added support for D&D 3.x Feature: added support for Pathfinder Feature: "about" dialog now displays software version number Bug-Fix: reduced number of additional windows per game system to four, and started their keyboard accelerators at F7 instead of F6; evidently, Java was using F6 for something else Bug-Fix: width of initiative list in player window matches width of portraits (in characters) Bug-Fix: player screen background image resizes on a delay when the window is resized, preventing multiple rapid resize operations when the window is resized on an OS with "smooth-resizing" of windows enabled Bug-Fix: fixed an issue with main table updates not marking the current campaign as dirty === Version 1.0 === Feature: support for D&D 4E