The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game Character Manager v2.0.3 is now available for download at the following link:
Version 2.0.3(The file is hosted on Mediafire. I have found other mirrors of my program floating around the internet, which is fine, but I have no idea who put them there or if they have been modified in any way. Please be careful running any executable files you find on the internet.)
My thanks to the following people who helped me with testing: (in no particular order) Soulless Mystic5523, lordoracle, devonapple,
Malraza, Zindaar, Jerry Luca, Steven Phelps, Geoff Williams, AJ Long, Christopher Smith (if I missed someone, I apologize.)
Without them the program would probably be paralyzed with bugs. Any errors remaining in the program (and I know there are some and I'm sure there are others I'm ignorant of) are the result of the programmer, not lack of input from the testers.
System Requirements:
-Windows XP or later (Vista or later is required for IE 9)
-Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 or later (available from Microsoft)
-Internet Explorer 9 or later (even if you don't use it regularly. The Character Sheet uses HTML5/CSS3 and the embedded browser is always the current IE install regardless of other browsers available. If you really object to having IE installed, you can "Export Character Sheet" instead and open it in your browser of choice. The sheet will still open without IE 9, but it will look terrible.)
-Sorry Mac people. I have nothing against you, i just don't have the kind of time it would take to learn a cross-platform programming language or to write in two different ones.
Installation:
There is no install file. Simply place the files in a directory (you must extract them, not run them from inside the zip file) where a user will have write access and run them (also included is a customization program, more on that later.)
Customization:
Included in this release is a customization program. It will create custom templates, powers, stunts, effects, magical traditions, etc. By default each item is placed in a separate dfcm file in the "resources" directory. The program will read all dfcm files in the directory at runtime and those items will be added to the program. If you add another custom file to the directory, you will need to restart DFRPG-CM for it to appear. These files are XML files (as are the character save files). If you know your way around XML, you may combine multiple custom files into a single DFCM file and all entries in it will be added at runtime, but you will not be able to edit the file with DFRPG-Custom.exe.
Old Characters:
Old character files will work, though there may be some hiccups in loading them.
Please back up your old characters before converting them, just in case. I would hate for you to lose a lot of time and effort you put into a character because of a single typo in in over 15000 lines of code.
Bugs:
If/When you encounter bugs, you may post them here or message me, though if you post them here, you may help other people who are having the same problem you are or may get feedback from another user. When you post a bug, please let me know what you were doing and what happened (this is often more important that then huge list of text that accompanies some crashes.) For example: "I was selecting a template and the program crashed" or "I named my character Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (bonus points to anyone who gets the reference without using the internet) and he reached through my monitor and slapped me.")
That is it for now. Good luck. I hope this is helpful to other Dresdenites.
EDIT (4/11/2012): Updated link to latest version. Release notes available in the program.
EDIT (4/28/2012): Updated link to latest version (2.0.2). Release notes available in the program.
EDIT (4/29/2012): Updated link to latest version (2.0.3). Release notes available in the program.