Where we are and where we are going!

Where we are

Sojour has been out for around a month and so far very few bugs have been reported. That’s a good thing and it shows that the testing effort was pretty effective.

The current version of Sojour is 1.0.8.0. All customers should have received emails from DriveThruRPG informing them of any upgrades. If not, check your junk mail. Either way, you can always log into your DriveThruRPG Library and download the latest version from there.

(For those that still don’t have Sojour but are interested in buying, it can be purchased here for a one off payment of $10 USD.)

Outstanding known bugs in version 1.0.8.0:

1. Suspect range scale – this does not affect the measurement tools. I think this issue is now mostly fixed – see the release notes.
2. Installer fails when .net 3.5 is not already installed – I have had only one report on this one. It will be addressed when I get a chance to wipe my laptop as this will be the only real way to test the installer (yes I should invest in some VMs….)
3. A chap reported seeing a crash when right clicking in the assets tree-view. I have been unable to replicate this and the chap hasn’t got back to me. If you are that chap, please check your junk mail and get back to me 🙂

These are the bugs that I’m aware of. If you know of any others, then please get in touch using the email address at the beginning of the manual or in the release notes.

Where we are going

The first port of call are custom folders. This is the catch-all name for a functional feature that I’m adding that will allow customers to create their own folder structures in the assets tree-view.

This feature will also include custom coloured tabs that are keyed to a campaign, plus a means to link assets in the assets tree-view together. eg Adding a map link directly into a journal will be possible, as well as linking many other asset types.

To deliver this functionality, the first technical hurdle to overcome was the coupling between the assets tree-view and the customer data:

Right now, what one sees in the assets tree-view on the right is always a direct representation of the data within Sojour. With this architecture the assets tree-view can only represent the data in one way – the way it is structured internally.

My first job was to sever this link to allow for the possibility of customisation. This was done last Saturday (21st Jan 2023).

As a result we now have:

This new architecture decouples the data from what you actually see in the assets tree-view.

It allows customers to alter their view of their data without actually altering the data itself! The view is also entirely independent of Sojour’s internal data structures, further enhancing customisation.

It’s a very powerful system and one that will ultimately allow customers to create their own custom tree-views called views that will be selectable from a drop down list.

However, the custom view functionality described above will be delivered in the second iteration of custom folders feature and not the first. This is to allow me to mitigate risk and to get timely feedback that things are working properly.

Speaking of working properly, the intent is to initially release this functionality as a beta installer. That way customers can choose whether or not they wish to be at the bleeding edge of the engineering effort.

I digress however….

The first iteration of this system will have much of its internal functionality disabled. It will only support one view – the default Sojour view and will only allow customers to add custom folders under the existing Sojour structures. In addition, I will be limiting the content of each custom folder to the asset type of its parent, or another folder. eg If you add a folder under the maps node, only maps and other folders can be stored there.

The restrictions above are a temporary measure to aid the testing effort. If I enable everything at once, you folks will have to wait a lot longer for the Sojour release as it will need a lot more up front testing.

As a lone developer I need and value iterative feedback in order to be effective and to ensure that what I’m doing is what the customers want (quite a few have asked for this feature).

Once the initial testing is complete, I will enable the full views functionality that will allow customers to create any folder structure that they wish, mix asset types within a folder and to also filter folders to create any number of custom views.

Please bear in mind that this isn’t my day job – I’m a web developer – and that I’m the sole person on Sojour. I can only put time towards this project as and when it becomes available. As a result things may well be a little slower when compared to the big software houses. Patience is the key 🙂

Once again, a big thank you to all the customers that took a plunge and bought Sojour from an unknown developer. I hope that I can fully repay the faith that you have placed in the product.

RobP