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Games Discussion Ars Magica
62

Now working on The Lion of the North. Quite a lot of formatting to do there still.

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63

Yeah, the older supplements were very bad due to age of PDF. All the text and headings in it should be right - but stat blocks + some tables in the end yet to be done. I wouldn't bother reformatting the rest.

There was a lot that had to be done manually, including all the inserts and even re-OCR entire sections due to PDF quality.

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64

LoTN and GotF done.

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65

Cleaning up and restructuring the Markdown file for RoP: The Infernal: done. :slight_smile:

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66

Fantastic, thanks so much guys! We're starting to get a corpus in really good shape. I wouldn't have the energy to do all these myself.

I have fixed what I see for now, but a note to everyone helping to be mindful of how we've formatted the beginning of the doc with title, new credits, document status and what might be left, errata status, open license and generally the back cover text as an intro. You can see how I've done it in the reviewed files. It will help me accepting if files I get in are similarly clear - especially on the errata and your view on status.

Latest update here for ROP: Infernal (I added intro and sorted the limited errata):

You can work from Atlas official errata lists here: Atlas Games | Ars Magica Fifth Edition Errata

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67

Oooops !! I didn’t get the errata in the cleaning of the RoP. I’ll add them next days.

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@frederic No worries, I added the errata already - resync to the new moved file in reviewed folder

On another note, I progressed a bit more on Definitive Edition. Chapters I - VI are done and fully reviewed (lot's of little issues and some missed texts). It's a bit slow-going for me unfortunately.

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69

Thanks a lot for your enthusiasm, OriginalMadMan, and best of luck with Definitive Edition — it truly looks like a mountain, and honestly not one I dare tackle just yet. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m currently busy with The Mysteries, but once I’m done with that, I’d be glad to help by proofreading a few chapters if that would be useful.

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70

I've now updated Definitive Edition, which I've progressed 350 pages of the 582. I've done everything up to and including all Herbam Spells (next will be Ignem).
I had to make some tricky decisions how to format Spells and Spell Guidelines. I went for the easiest, cleanest look I could think of (and reasonably compact). I did have to reformat tables + use br's in the spell descriptions (as well as heading 5 for the spells, but will make them a bit more TOC friendly). Let me know what you think, or you have better suggestions.

I also managed to find some issues in the source PDF:
"Casting Tablets" section is weird and seems to have wrong table; Extraordinary results section looks a bit jumbled in source (cuts from investigating an enchanted item by experimentation straight into overall results w/o heading); The spell "VILE WATER OF STERILITY" looks like a PeAq spell, but it's under MuAq; Creo Auram Guidelines unclear notes under Level 25 (fixed)

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71

I try to keep things to 4 heading levels, but that is problematic at times. Keeping spells names as headings does help with indexing.

72

I think heading 5 for spell names is actually a pretty sensible solution.

It gives a clearer structure, and I agree it makes the text easier to navigate. So on that point, I’m rather in favor of it.

My only hesitation is consistency across the project. So far, most of the markdown files seem to stop at heading level 4. That’s why, in the files I worked on, I used bold for spell names and for Virtues and Flaws entries instead: not because I thought it was ideal, but because it felt safer to stay aligned with the existing files.

So for me the real question is not whether ##### is good in itself — I think it is — but whether we want to adopt it as a general convention.

If yes, then I think it would be worth doing gradually across the repository, because it would make the structure more logical overall.

If not, then keeping those entries in bold is probably the most consistent compromise for now.

73

I wasn't happy with it at first and would have preferred heading 4, but heading hierarchy is a bit all over the place in the source doc and it's quite hard to squeeze. And supplements are not necessarily consistent. Heck, DE is not that consistent internally even (although it's beautiful).

I think it matter that much if we end up with heading 4 or 5 as convention, it might even be different per book (and as long as consistent within the book it should be fairly fine). Sometimes 5 is hard to differentiate from bold. 4 is more clear - but I honestly don't see how we can clearly squeeze it in the heirarchy. Also, 5 as I've edited it for spells does have a neat look and the compacting with the br's may help readability when going through spell lists (should I do the same for Virtues & Flaws? It might help there too). Virtues & Flaws are currently heading 4, but I think that's fine separately.
The greatest benefit from heading seems to be you get the spells in TOC + if you're scrolling in the OUTLINE. Since a spell name is actually not really a section heading, perhaps 5 is the one to use for that purpose. I don't think we should ever use heading 6 though.
The drawback in markdown is the auto-line between that and below text. So slightly less compact (as basic markdown is without the br's anyway).

The capitalized fonts in DE do give me a bit of headache in regular font and markdown. I've decapitalized all headings (as it looks horrible as mix and match honestly. However, should we also decapitalize the Spell names? What do you think?

Decapitalized drawbacks I see are: 1) With heading 5 it may be harder to distinguish by naked eye in many markdown renderers. 2) The source material is capitalized (but uses a capitalized font which looks much better like that than regular font for that - not available in regular markdown)

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That all sounds pretty reasonable to me.

For spells, I think heading 5 makes sense precisely because spell names are not really full section headings, but they do benefit from being visible in the TOC / outline. So ##### feels like a good functional compromise there.

For Virtues & Flaws, keeping them at heading 4 also seems fine to me, since they read more like real sub-sections than spell entries do.

As for capitalization, I would personally lean toward decapitalizing spell names in markdown. The all-caps look works better in the original book typography than in regular markdown fonts. Something like Pilum of Fire feels easier on the eye than PILUM OF FIRE, especially in long spell lists.

So to me:

  • spells as heading 5 = yes, sensible

  • Virtues & Flaws as heading 4 = also fine

  • decapitalized spell names = probably more readable in markdown

One practical question also comes to mind:

what should we do about the files that are already in reviewed if we settle on a new convention for spell headings?

I don’t mean that as an objection — just as a maintenance question. If ##### for spells becomes the preferred approach, should older reviewed files eventually be updated for consistency, or should we simply leave reviewed files as they are unless someone happens to revisit them for another reason?

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75

You can say that again.

I can go with that.

I'm on the fence about Virtues & Flaws, which I think DO work better with heading 5 in-principle as I, at least, count them as the same level of "subsection" as a spell and certainly NOT the same as other heading-4 text, which can often be quite broad. (Not always; again, the source docs vary wildly.)

On the other hand, heading-5s would complicate conversion to MediaWiki format, for Project Redcap, as unfotunately that format only has 4 heading levels. Still, It's just a matter of replacing all ##### to #### before converting the file with pandoc, I guess.

I suggest it should be on the "to-do" list. If and when anyone wants to convert an already-reviewed file to this convention - go for it ! Otherwise, no pressure.

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76

Working on Mythic Locations; there is quite a lot to do there still.

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77

Great, sounds like the three of us are in agreement, so let's stick to this model (as set in work-in-progress Definitive Edition) for now. This is still an open project and other voices (and help) is always welcome!

@YR7 As for the mediawiki limitation, I'd probably advice doing a search and replace on "#### LEVEL" to "### LEVEL" as well as all the ##### to ####. But you're more familiar with the format you want there than I am. An alternative is also to replace the ##### headings for spells with just bold or something else?

Let me know if you need help with the pandoc conversion or anything (I think gfm mode was best). Since the ones in the github are completely out-of-date I should remove them. I can quickly make a batch of the books in the reviewed folder this week if you like?

For anyone interested I'd like to see someone tackle the Houses of Hermes books - since they're core and it may be a while before I have time myself.

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As we may need to do some decapitalization, the following I have implemented may be of use:

VS Code doesn't assign a default shortcut for this, but there are two easy ways:

Quickest: Command Palette

  1. Select your text
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+P
  3. Type upper and hit Enter to run Transform to Uppercase

Set a Permanent Shortcut

Since you'll likely use this often, binding a key is worth it:

  1. Open File → Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts
  2. Search for Transform to Uppercase
  3. Click the + icon and press your desired combo (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+U) and hit Enter

Do the same for Transform to Lowercase if useful. Note that Ctrl+Shift+U may conflict with other bindings in extensions, so Ctrl+Alt+U should be a safe alternative.

79

Yes, the table has got put in the middle of the text. Dammit. I think it is the right table, though.

The heading got taken into the insert, and not replaced in the main text.

That's because it is MuAq. It doesn't destroy the water or any of its properties, it changes them so that the water corrupts other things.

Yes, the bullets for the notes should have been pulled back to the left.

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80

Thanks all — this seems like a very sensible model to use for now.

I also like the pragmatic approach for older reviewed files: update them if and when they get revisited, but no need for a forced retrofit.

And I’m happy to see The Mysteries now in reviewed too. :slightly_smiling_face:

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81

I'm FINALLY finished with my thorough cleanup/review of Definitive Edition after a full day+evening session. I polished it up quite a bit to get as good markdown as I could manage - that included touching all headings + most tables and lists today (so earlier observations may be void). Should be the seminal document, and a great base for the community.

[Completion state: As good as all text and formatting manually fixed and reviewed. Definitive Edition is now in excellent readable format - and likely content complete. Remaining: Full pass review by others; Minor details such as Stat Blocks and Bestiary and a few more sections have fully corrected text/headings/tables but retains simple formatting that could be improved with br's, italic, bold etc; Character Sheet will likely not be done in markdown (lol); Neither will the regular index - but it could be linked to sections if someone wants to take a crack at that wholesale]

You'll find it in the reviewed folder, enjoy (and do fix any errors you find):

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