Posted by Kim on June 19, 2010, 11:49pm
Because sometimes DEX, CON and STR just don't cut it. For all of you who have been waiting and hoping for a widget that allows you to make character sheets containing alternative (or downright obscure) stats, this one's for you.The flexible stats widget will allow you to add any number of stats, skills and pieces of trivia as you require, whether they be text or numbers, divide them up into as many separate tables as you please, and give you control of how the information is formatted -- including an option to replace numeric values with a more visual representation, which I hope will serve all of you with White Wolf Style characters, since my understanding is that stats are generally done as filled bubbles in their systems.
You can see a demonstration of it in action on the character Lyrette Coffey. Be sure to clear your caches before you go hurrying off to look and test; if your computer is still holding on to the code and styles from last week, you won't get much joy. All templates will be updated to include prettier styles for this new widget over the next week, too, although about half of them have already gotten the necessary makeovers.
And along with flexible stats, the makeover to vital stats to allow you to easily reorder your lists by simply dragging and dropping has been completed. The same is true of flexible stats, you may drag and drop to your heart's content.
But that's not all that's changed.
The beautiful and fabulous Petrichor has assisted me by creating a template style that she calls "Minimalist," a super simple but clean layout for pages that keeps things looking nice and gives you a number of color options without nailing you down to a particular sort of genre, since it can take some time between the creation of new templates for different character styles. She hoped that this would bridge the gap in between, and personally, I think it's an attractive template in its own right.
Speaking of pages, it is now possible to create untitled widgets. For example, in the Arcana family of templates, widget titles are decorated with a magical swirl. That was great, until you wanted to add a text widget and not give it a separate title -- Suddenly you'd have this seemingly random swirl on your page, sitting there where a title should have been but wasn't, and it would look pretty silly. Now, that problem is no more. When you remove a widget's title, your pages will no longer attempt to display one anyway.
This simple change allows you to make several widgets flow together seamlessly, putting more control over the look and feel of your character pages in your hands. If you're wondering why being able to bump widgets together is so exciting, take a look again at Lyrette's character sheet. What appears to be a single flexible stats widget is actually several untitled widgets placed one after another, allowing me to specify regular numerical display of her "characteristics," but a visual representation of her skills, without a big gear-decorated header breaking up the page in between them.
Comments
Astetics aside, I think white wolf bubble system could be for a future update. They can live with simple numbers for now. And the first character I see in my dreams with 10 in anything dies the GM banhammer doom death dropper.
Oh, I see! Thanks for clearing this up. ^^
You're not alone. I didn't know anything at all about White Wolf before the Repository, but as soon as the doors opened, "Widgets for White Wolf" consistently became one of the most popular requests every single week.
I'm sure someone with more experience with their games can tell you more, but White Wolf is the publisher of the "World of Darkness" games, the most well known of which being (I think) Vampire: The Masquerade. If you look at the sample character sheet on their website, you'll see that it doesn't ask for numbers, but instead has bubbles that you fill in as your stats go up. Some people seem to get quite attached to this aesthetic and wish to shun numbers (I can't really blame them), and the hope is that this widget will offer something similar.
I'm sure someone with more experience with their games can tell you more, but White Wolf is the publisher of the "World of Darkness" games, the most well known of which being (I think) Vampire: The Masquerade. If you look at the sample character sheet on their website, you'll see that it doesn't ask for numbers, but instead has bubbles that you fill in as your stats go up. Some people seem to get quite attached to this aesthetic and wish to shun numbers (I can't really blame them), and the hope is that this widget will offer something similar.
Cool stuff. I'm not sure I get all of it, but it's likely that it'll come in rather handy in the future. 
By the way, I've been hearing this term a lot since I joined here but I'm still not sure what it means; what is a White Wolf style character?
By the way, I've been hearing this term a lot since I joined here but I'm still not sure what it means; what is a White Wolf style character?
It'll come up Helvetica if that font is installed (or in other words if you're running a Mac unless you've gone out of your way to get it) and Arial if you don't (or in other words if you're on Windows). 
Alright, added the Flexible Stat Widget to a character sheet now: http://www.rprepository.com/site.php?char=210&page=302
On Basic Information (homepage), scroll down. I discerned between the actual in-game stats and the derived stats that my group uses for dice rolls in roleplays. 8D
On Basic Information (homepage), scroll down. I discerned between the actual in-game stats and the derived stats that my group uses for dice rolls in roleplays. 8D
@Kim: A really good eye would have spotted the Helvetica too. 
Also @Ethelle: A mix of Helvetica and Arial. Good eye!
We aim to please!
If you guys make an awesome character sheet with the flexi stats widget, please do share a link with everyone here so we can tell you how great you are. And maybe also so people who are uncertain can start to get a sense of the many things it could be used for.
If you guys make an awesome character sheet with the flexi stats widget, please do share a link with everyone here so we can tell you how great you are. And maybe also so people who are uncertain can start to get a sense of the many things it could be used for.
Hooray! This new stats widget opens up a lot of opportunities! For one, it means that the Elder Scrolls people will be able to display Elder Scrolls stats in a nice way! That's awesome!
And I love those Minimalist templates. This has the elegant simplicity of the Default template, and a refreshing cleanness of the Arial font (or some font much like that, anyway, in case I'm wrong). The Minimalist Harvest variety is just perfect for my Ranger character, and I'm sure it is perfect for many characters with ties to nature. Gotta love those colours.
Oooh, and untitled widgets! Perfect for long bodies of text, as in background stories and the like. Wonderful!
This update is a real treat. Is it Christmas?
That's awesome!And I love those Minimalist templates. This has the elegant simplicity of the Default template, and a refreshing cleanness of the Arial font (or some font much like that, anyway, in case I'm wrong
). The Minimalist Harvest variety is just perfect for my Ranger character, and I'm sure it is perfect for many characters with ties to nature. Gotta love those colours.Oooh, and untitled widgets! Perfect for long bodies of text, as in background stories and the like. Wonderful!
This update is a real treat. Is it Christmas?
Whoo!
Custom stats? Oh man, I can think of 3284723923 witty things to put in that.
Custom stats? Oh man, I can think of 3284723923 witty things to put in that.
Yesss White Wolf stats
Kim
June 28, 2010
12:50am