To make preparing gaming sessions easier, you can prepare lists of images, notes, characters and sounds beforehand and load them with one click. You can even put all files toegether in one .zip file. Both methods need some manual typing. See How to create campaigns for more information.
…first have a look at the Option Tag (if possible). There you'll find a text field in which the error messages will be displayed, perhaps this helps. Otherwise, contact me.
You can store characters, notes and images online and load them directly into the tool. To do so, you have to upload your character (*.per), Notes (*.txt) and images (*.jpg) somehwere. Then you have to create an “index” file - the default name is “index.txt”, but you can change the name in the Options Tab, so if you want to use the file “mydata.abc” as the index file, simply enter the name there.
In this index file, you enter the filenames of the characters, notes and images, one in every line. For example:
Mr Example.per Mr Example Portrait.jpg NextGamingSession.txt Combatmap.jpg Namelist.txt
Upload the file into the same directory as the files and enter the url to the directory into the Options Tab. From now on, you can download the characters, notes and pictures with a click at the “online” button in the apropriate tab. Every ”.txt” filename in the index file can be downloaded in the Notes Tab, every ”.jpg” filename in the Images Tab and every ”.per” filename in the PCs and NPCs Tab.
You can use subdirectories to upload your files there, but then you have to add the subdirectory to the index file, for example:
characters/Mr Example.per characters/Toby ABC.per ..etc
If you are worried about curious players, you can add password protection to your directory. By clicking the button right next to “Database URL” in the Options Tab, you can enter the login and password. Be carefull, both will be stored in the .ini file in plain text.
The PCs Tab is intented to store the Player Characters' stats. To create a character see How to create Characters. As long as you don't use a sheet plugin, all characters will be displayed in a simple tree view.
Please Note: The PCs Tab is not intended to store and manage all characters completely. It is only intended to give the GM an overview about the characters (with the most important attributes, skills, etc.).
If you have put at least one sheet plugin (a .class file) into the /plugins directory of your GMTool installation (create it, if it doesn't exist), you can select the character sheet that will be used for PCs in the Options Tab. Sheet plugins will display the characters more clearly laid out, but will also need a specific character format. See the documentation of the plugin you want to use for more information. Plugins can also include the ability to load/save characters.
If you want to code a sheet plugin (in Java) yourself, see Creating custom Character Sheets.
The NPCs Tab works exactly as the PCs Tab (including character sheet plugins and online stored characters).
… The Combat Tab will be used to manage combat, initiative, etc. - supported by combat sheet plugins.
….
The Notes Tab can be used to manage your textfile-notes. It is intented to have the plot, important texts, name lists, etc. always handy. You can simply add a file by pressing “Add”, etc. Selecting a text in the list will display it in the right part of the tool.
The Images Tab is primarily inteded to keep track of the images you want to show your players on a 2nd screen (for example, a projector), but can also be used to display the maps with GM informations or other pictures for the GM.
You can add images to the list by using the “Add” button, if you select it, a preview will be shown next to it (if bigger than the available space, it will be scaled down).
Every image that was added to the Images Tab (see above) can be displayed on a 2nd screen. You can decide which screen to use in the Options Tab by changing the value of the “display screen” option (the drop-down-box should include all available screens). This possibility is primarily intended to be used with a projector, for example, so that the GM can keep the GMTool on his screen and display an image to his players.
To start showing an image on the Image Display, simply select the desired image in the list and press the big “S” button at the bottom of the screen (you don't have to be in the Images tab to do so - you can also do so while being in the Sound tab, for example). Press “H” to stop the display - or press the “ESC” key while in the Image Display.
The display on the 2nd screen is called the Image Display and contains two other features as well:
Drawing things over the loaded image (which will work as a background) onto the Image Display is simple. By pressing the right mouse button, you can access the options:
To draw, simply click and drag with the left mouse button. Clicking with the middle mouse button (often the mouse wheel) works as an “Undo” and removes the last added piece (clicking again will remove the piece you added before that, etc.).
You can also find out how far two points are apart by selection “Distance” from the forms sub-menu. You can enter a scale by choosing “Distance Scale” from the menu. For example, if you've a got a map where 1 pixel would be 0.1 meters, simply enter 0.1 there. Then, for example, 100 pixels wil be 10m. If you've got a bigger map, for example with 1 pixel being 1 kilometer, simple enter 1, etc. - the tool doesn't need to know, WHAT unit you are using, it will only show the numbers.
If you need to know if something is in a specific radius, simply use the “Distance Circle” tool. Click on the center of the circle and then drag to paint a circle. The tool will show you the radius of the circle. For example, you can find out if a player is affected by an exploding fireball or if he's away far enough.
(Both Distance lines and Distance Circles will vanish as soon as you release the mouse button).
Using Tokens is simple as well: Copy the tokens (simple .gif files) into the /tokens folder of you GMTool installation (create the folder if it isn't already there). All valid .gif files will appear in the list on the right side of the Images Tab. Simply click on any token to add it to the Image Display. The tokens will lie over the image and the drawn items. You can choose to resize a token before adding it by changing the value in the combo box below the token list: If you choose “25” for example, all tokens you add from then on will be 25% of their original size. 200 means, that they will be 200% of their length and width (making them 4 times as big).
The “Fog of War” feature allows you to hide the image you're displaying by putting a black area above it. To do so, activate the “Fog” checkbox in the Images Tab. As long as the checkbox is selected, all images you show on the 2nd screen will be “fogged”.
By clicking on the preview image in the Image Tab (not the displayed image), you can “paint” a shape which will be revealed: Click with the left mouse button to add a point and click the right mouse button to finish the polygon and display it (the last point you marked with the left mouse button will be automatically connected to the first point you defined).
This feature is mainly intended to be used with a map, so that you can load your map as an image and reveal it room for room, for example.
The Sound Tab is used to manage MP3 files. Simply add MP3 files with the “Add” button and press the ”>” Button at the bottom of the tool to start playing the selected Song. Press the button right next to it to stop playing the song. You don't have to be in the Sound Tab to start and stop playing.