New program to help set up VASL scenarios

Pacman Ghost

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As y'all probably know, VASL 6.5.1 was released recently, and it appears to work with the latest versions of vasl-templates (1.1 and 1.2 betas). The only issue is with the British IP Carrier AOV, which may not be handled properly.

So, while it's not particularly recommended, you can configure VASL 6.5.1 into your vasl-templates and while you will get a warning about it not having been tested, things should work.
 

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Just got VASL Templates up and running, alongside VASSAL 3.2.17 and VASL 6.5. Really liking what I'm able to put together on the screen now! Haven't quite got the Chapter H stuff going, but will do that next. BIG thanks to Pacman Ghost for all the heavy lifting!
May have spoken too soon. The Templates program seems to work as advertised but I am unable to use the Update VASL Scenario function. Each time I try to update, my AV software prevents the VASL Templates.exe from updated the saved file. Worked Ok a couple of weeks ago...now this

Also, I am ashamed to admit that I cant figure out how to copy and past snippets into existing Label blocks on a VASL map screen. Pretty basic stuff, but the answer is currently eluding me. Is there something I am missing?
 

Jplott94

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Open the Help (from the menu) and in the User Guide, the "Adding the scenario details" section at the top explains how to do this.
Many thanks for the quick reply. I have followed that process several times, and gotten the same result. I receive the annotation from VASL Templates that the snippet is successfully copied to the clipboard, but when I try to copy and paste the html into the Label, I never see and option to paste. It's probably operator error, but I cant seem to figure it out...
 

Pacman Ghost

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I receive the annotation from VASL Templates that the snippet is successfully copied to the clipboard, but when I try to copy and paste the html into the Label, I never see and option to paste.
Can you copy the snippet into Notepad, or some other text editor? vasl-templates will copy the snippet to the clipboard, and report as having done that, but it's possible your AV (or something else) is stopping that from actually happening. Then, if you have nothing in your clipboard, that could explain why you're not seeing a "paste" option.

Try creating a label in VASL and pasting in the following content:
Code:
<html> hello, world
 

Jplott94

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Can you copy the snippet into Notepad, or some other text editor? vasl-templates will copy the snippet to the clipboard, and report as having done that, but it's possible your AV (or something else) is stopping that from actually happening. Then, if you have nothing in your clipboard, that could explain why you're not seeing a "paste" option.

Try creating a label in VASL and pasting in the following content:
Code:
<html> hello, world
Again, many thanks for the awesome, quick reply!

Tried the process you described above was unsuccessful. VASL Templates generated the html snippet exactly as advertised, and it posted to Notepad just fine. Where I got tripped up was the Copy/Paste from Notepad to the Label I had created in VASL...still no paste option. Tried a number of Shift-Left Click, Ctrl-Left Click combinations, and still no option to post.

Does a plan B exist? Or am I just too much of a Luddite to be trying this on a computer? Any advice would be welcome. Thanks again for taking the time to help in the troubleshooting!

This is where I am attempting to paste the html code. This is the dialog bot that opens up when I wish to edit a label.
14266
 
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Pacman Ghost

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This is the dialog bot that opens up when I wish to edit a label.
View attachment 14266
That's the right dialog.

It looks like VASSAL doesn't let you paste content in using the mouse. For Windows, the standard keyboard shortcut to paste content is Control-V, or Shift-Insert. This will work in any program.
 
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Jplott94

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It looks like VASSAL doesn't let you paste content in using the mouse. For Windows, the standard keyboard shortcut to paste content is Control-V, or Shift-Insert. This will work in any program.
It WORKED!!! Can't thank you enough! I WAS a Luddite! But that's OK!! I learned something!!
1426714267
 

Robin Reeve

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My only problem with this program was that its default settings are that images must come from your local computer, which busts any sharing of the file with someone else.
Could the default be the opposite?
 

Pacman Ghost

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My only problem with this program was that its default settings are that images must come from your local computer, which busts any sharing of the file with someone else.
Could the default be the opposite?
It is :)

Getting images from the internet is a relatively new feature, so people who first installed the program prior to that will have the old setting.
 

Jplott94

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Any tips on whitelisting VASL Templates within Norton 360? My attempts to do so have met with failure. This prevents me from utilizing the "Update VASL Scenario" from the pull-down menu screen. I am still able to generate html snippets to cut and paste, but for more complex scenarios, it would be nice to update a scenario in one fell swoop.

Currently running VASSAL 3.2.17 and VASL 6.5.0 on Windows 10.

TIA!
 

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Any tips on whitelisting VASL Templates within Norton 360? My attempts to do so have met with failure. This prevents me from utilizing the "Update VASL Scenario" from the pull-down menu screen. I am still able to generate html snippets to cut and paste, but for more complex scenarios, it would be nice to update a scenario in one fell swoop.

Currently running VASSAL 3.2.17 and VASL 6.5.0 on Windows 10.

TIA!
Can't you just turn off Norton while you are creating the file?
 

Pacman Ghost

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Any tips on whitelisting VASL Templates within Norton 360?
Can't help you with this, I'm afraid. vasl-templates.exe runs another program to do the update (VASSAL, via a program I wrote called vassal-shim.jar, which is run via java.exe), so that's what Norton might not be liking. This is in a different folder each time, so whitelisting it might be tricky. You said it used to work, so clearly something's changed on your computer recently.
 

Pacman Ghost

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Version v1.2 of vasl-templates has been released here.

Lots of VASL goodness in this one, and it's only been 3 months since the last release. Feels like a lot longer; damn virus :(

The main changes are:
  • Added support for Korea: Forgotten War.
  • Added support for VASL 6.5.1.
  • The labels for vehicle/ordnance OB now contain additional comments from Chapter H.
  • Added new templates to generate labels for National Capabilities, and a quick-reference chart for OBA red/black chits.
These have been described in more detail in earlier posts, and there are a lot of smaller changes and bug fixes listed in the release notes.

Get yourself set up with this one, the next beta will be coming out soon, and it's seriously cool... ?
 

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Forgive me, but without wading through 15 pages of comments, is there an instruction manual or something for this? I looked at this during it's infancy and it has come A LONG WAY. I'm ready to try to use it!
 

Pacman Ghost

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The first beta of the next release cycle for vasl-templates is now available.

The main new feature doesn't have anything to do with setting up VASL scenarios, but is so insanely cool, I couldn't not do it after I thought of it. My opponent had finished his regular moan about the dicebot pointed out a few somewhat idiosyncratic rolls, so I decided to add something to take a closer look at what was going on. You can now feed VASL log files into the program, and after much churning and grinding of gears, get something like this:

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Across the top are distribution graphs of dr's and DR's, along with the expected results (in green) for easy comparison. The pie charts show the split of rolls between the players e.g. I rolled 59% of the DR's (283 of 483), while my opponent had the other 41%.

At the bottom is a plot of die rolls as the game progressed. You can change the window size for the moving average to smooth things out, or get the raw rolls e.g.
14418

You can also filter by the type of roll e.g. IFT, MC, TH, etc., so if you're a lazy bugger like me and always press F1 or F2 to get a generic dr/DR, this might encourage you to generate the "proper" rolls.

If you analyzed multiple log files, they will be combined and reported on as a single group, but you can also drill down and look at each session individually:
14419

The final graph is an experimental feature, and tries to answer the question: "how hot were my dice?" Below is the analysis for the second session:
14420

As you can see from the averages (my 7.5 to the Other Guy's 6.4) and the time-plot, my dice sucked pretty hard. Hotness takes a closer look at the distribution. This metric doesn't work so well with small datasets, so if there are less than 100 rolls, the bars are shown in grey, but my 89 rolls is close, and for the purpose of this explanation, it doesn't really matter.

While I rolled slightly more 2's than expected (4 instead of the expected 2.5), I was a bit light on the 4's and 5's, and didn't roll any 3's at all. This makes my hotness score go down. I also rolled more 8's and 11's than expected, which also makes my score down, ending up at -1.8.

OTOH, the Other Guy rolled more 3's than expected, and a whole lot more 4's and 5's. He was also very light on the 9's and 10's, and didn't roll any 11's at all. This would normally score very well (about +2.8), but the fact that he rolled no 2's and a lot of 12's (4, instead of the expected 1.6) cancelled all that out, for a final score of +0.1. 2's and 12's are weighted quite heavily, because of the special rules that kick in when you roll these.

Again, this is an experimental feature, and will need some tuning, but that's the idea.

Finally, if all this wasn't enough, you can also download the raw data, bung it in a spreadsheet and perform whatever arcane incantations you want on it:
14421

There is also a new field in the Settings dialog where you can enter your VASL user name. It's not essential, but if you do this, you will always be shown first in the analysis (which also means you will always be assigned the same color).

Please PM me if you'd like to take this version for a spin (Windows only), but even if you don't want to run it, if you have any log files that I can use for testing and tuning, that would be very much appreciated. Turns out, there aren't that many online.
 
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Neal

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I've been playing around with the new version and I love the new dr/DR analysis addition. I'm still trying to figure out the "how hot were my dice?" feature.
 

Pacman Ghost

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I'm still trying to figure out the "how hot were my dice?" feature.
Average is one metric for assessing how good your dice were, hotness is just another. For average, the difference between rolling a 6 instead of a 7 is the same as that of a 2 instead of a 3, but for hotness, the latter is considered much better. If you roll exactly the expected number of each DR value (2 thru 12), the hotness score will be 0. Positive scores mean your dice were hot, negative means not so hot. The purpose of this feature is to give me some sort of pseudo-scientific basis for blaming the dice when I lose :rolleyes:

A few more examples, from the log files you sent me.

14423
In this one, Alice rolled more 2's than expected (7, expected 3.9), which bumps the hotness score up. 3's and 4's and 5's were almost exactly as expected, and so don't affect the score, but there were more 6's than expected (25, expected 19.5), which will increase the score (but not by as much as the 2's, since 6's are considered less important than 2's). There were also less 8's, 10's and 12's than expected, which also increases the score. More 9's were rolled than expected, so this reduces the score by a bit. Final score +0.7, so somewhat hot.

Likewise, Bob rolled fewer 2's, 4's and 5's than expected, so his score goes down by quite a bit. He rolled fewer 8's, but more 9's, so they just about cancel each other out. His 10 thru 12's were almost exactly as expected, so have no effect on the score. Final score -0.3, so his dice weren't particularly good, but not tragically so.

This one is even more dramatic:
14424

Bob rolled a crazy amount of 3's (14, expected 4.5) and his 2's were pretty good as well (5, expected 2.2). These increased his score by a lot, and while his 4's and 5's were low, they don't reduce his score by as much because 2's and 3's are considered to be more important than 4's and 5's. On the other side, he rolled fewer 8's, 11's and 12's than expected, which increased his score by even more. He rolled more 10's than expected, which will decrease his score, but overall, he scored +6.2, which is pretty damn hot.
 
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