v5.19.0

This is the Weapons release, which was the topic with the most votes by sponsors of GCS in a poll taken in the middle of December 2023. The focus was around — you guessed it — improving the weapons support in GCS.

New Features

• The various weapon fields have now been decomposed into their sub-fields. This allows most of them to be modified with new weapon modifiers. It also ensures the data is more consistent than previously. (Includes, but was not limited to, the following Github issues: #772, #774, #778, #779, #780, #781, #782, #783, #784, #785)
• Added new expression functions: (#768)
  • add_dice(dice_spec1, dice_spec2)
  • dice_count(dice_spec)
  • dice_modifier(dice_spec)
  • dice_multiplier(dice_spec)
  • dice_sides(dice_spec)
  • subtract_dice(dice_spec1, dice_spec2)
  • weapon_damage(description, usage)
• Added an option for skill features based on weapon usage. (#763)
• Added an option for "per level" weapon bonuses. (#775)
• Modifiers now look at their own level for leveled features.
• Added a resolved_notes or a resolved_text field to the output calc data in GCS files. This is the same as the notes or text field, but with any embedded expressions resolved.

v5.18.0

New Features

• The name generators now support more fine-grained control over the way the resulting name is formatted. More detail can be found in the documentation.
• The weapon damage modifier field will now accept a leading + with dice for a die specification, such as "+1d". While adding dice has always been supported, the leading + with a die specification was not, leading to the impression that it was not supported.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed display of feature choices when swapping between some cases. Previously, non-applicable lines could remain visible.

v5.17.0

New Features

• Equipment rows with a quantity of 0 will now use a dimmed color (#756). Children of such rows will also dim.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed restoring sub-tables in body types such that DR properly cascades from parent entries.
• Fixed a crash on macOS when trying to open multiple GCS documents from the Finder at the same time.

v5.16.2

NOTE: macOS v10.15 or newer is required to run GCS v5.16 and newer.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed crash when trying to export a PNG, WEBP, or JPEG version of the character sheet.
• Fixed incorrect behavior on initial click of a scroll bar.
• Added an option to have the initial click on a text field select all text.

v5.16.1

NOTE: macOS v10.15 or newer is required to run GCS v5.16 and newer.

Bug Fixes

• Deep search should now work again on Windows platforms. Oddities in the way Windows path names are handled was causing the files to be ignored rather than loaded.
• The "Rated ST" note for equipment that uses it is now combined with the other notes, which means it now obeys the settings that determine where notes show up. (#746)
• The special "all" hit location now only applies to top-level locations so that sub-locations don't double-dip on DR.
• When an external PDF viewer returns a non-zero exit code, it is no longer reported in the user interface, although they are still logged. This change was made since many Windows PDF viewers incorrectly do this even on success.
• The toolbar search fields should no longer be slightly too short for their text.

v5.16.0

NOTE: macOS v10.15 or newer is required to run GCS v5.16 and newer.

New Features

• Expressions can now be inserted into the notes field, as well as in the top-level notes object. To use them, you must surround the expression with double vertical bars, like this: Twice my strength is ||2 * $st||. (#719)
• Added a special "All" hit location for DR Bonuses, which grants the specified bonus across all hit locations, regardless of body type, without having to know in advance all the possibilities. Note that to do something like "All except eyes", you'll need to add both the "All" location and then the "eyes" location with the negated value to cancel out the bonus for that area. (#734)
• Improved third-party data support (#738)
• Added support for using the Page Up/Down keys to scroll the current view. Holding down the shift key allows scrolling horizontally as well. Note that this support requires that the current keyboard focus be within the scroll area in question AND that the component that currently has keyboard focus does not do anything with those keys. Text fields that support multiple lines, for example, do respond to Page Up/Down, so when a text field is the focus, using these keys will not scroll the outer area. (#741)
• User-modified column widths in the various library lists will now be remembered, where possible. The information for this is stored in preferences based on the file path, so moving the file around will lose the sizing. This also means that sizing is per-user and per-computer -- i.e. it does not move with the file itself, since it isn't stored in the file. (#742)
• Markdown content now supports strikethrough.

Bug Fixes

• UTF BOM markers which are incorrectly added by many Windows text editors are now stripped automatically from files, since they are completely unneeded and actually prevented loading of some data files in GCS.

v5.15.0

New Features

• Added two new, more powerful, ways of exporting textual versions of character sheets, while retaining the old (and now deprecated) method used in previous releases. Details can be found in the "Markdown/Help/Export Templates.md" file found in v4.15 of the Master Library.
• A new field, Page Highlight, is now available everywhere the Page Reference field exists, allowing you to set the text that is highlighted when opening that page in a PDF. If the field is left blank, the previous behavior where it used the name of the item will continue to be used. (#730)
• After you have used the search field in the Library Explorer, opening files that match the search will automatically have their filter or search field populated with the same string, eliminating the need to enter it again to find the specific thing you were searching for. (#732)
• Showing library release notes now shows all of them instead of just the releases since you last updated.
• When prompted to save a new file, the file name is now filled in with something that should be appropriate for the context you're saving from.
• The sheet portrait is now sized to be square (a 1:1 ratio, rather than the former 3:4 ratio). This was done to make the image more easily usable for the token in virtual tabletop software.

Bug Fixes

• Markdown files that are not editable (the library release notes, for example) no longer have the marker for being in an "edited" state when they are opened.

v5.14.1

Bug Fixes

• Fix deep search in the Library Explorer to look inside containers within files for matches (previously, it was only looking at the top-level containers)

v5.14.0

New Features

• The Reaction, Condition, Melee Weapon, and Ranged Weapon blocks on the character sheet no longer show up if they have no content.
• Added settings for the default PDF, Markdown, and Image scaling percentage to use (#723).
• Added a setting to auto-fit PDF content to the available space (#692).
• Talent / Magery learning time reductions can now be accounted for in the study tracker (#655).
• Enabled deep-searching of files in the Library Explorer (#599). Note that which types of files are actually opened and searched are controlled in the Settings menu. If you have a slow hard drive, you may want to only enable a few types.
• Added menu items for moving equipment between the Carried and Other equipment lists (#717).
• Added the ability to copy point record entries to other sheets (#725).
• The various types of trait containers (i.e. the ones that aren't just a standard grouping) now have a visible marker that shows up in the list. As part of this, I also renamed the "Race" container to "Ancestry" to be consistent with the Ancestry capability.

Bug Fixes

• Markdown files that have Windows line endings in them can now be opened (#720).
• Techniques that have unsatisfied prerequisites will now have a unsatisfied_reason field in the save files (#721).
• When updating the display, GCS now always resets the OpenGL state. This change was made to (hopefully!) fix the problem where some software would change the OpenGL state that GCS was using and not restore it to what it was previously. In particular, doing screen sharing using Discord to show a GCS window would often result in an unusable text display on the Windows platform. I've not been able to reproduce the problem myself, so I'm unclear if this actually fixed anything. If you have experienced the problem in the past, I'd be interested in hearing whether this worked or not.

v5.13.0

New Features

• Revised the displayed equipment library columns to make them usable as "loot" sheets
  • Replaced max uses with uses remaining (like on character sheets)
  • The uses remaining column contents now have a tooltip that shows the max uses value
  • Added quantity, extended cost, and extended weight columns
• Added an unsatisfied_reason key to the json calc map that gets output for equipment, skills, spells, and traits, but only if one or more prereqs aren't satisfied

Bug Fixes

• Attribute adjustments would not take effect if they had been edited to use a special limitation (such as striking ST) and then changed to some other attribute that didn't have such limitations (#714)
• Fixed markdown relative link resolution
• Fixed equipment modifier DR bonus not applying properly with split DR