A quick fly-by update to let you good folk know where we are.
Development has been slow, mainly because I’m finding trouble getting the time together. That’s completely my fault, as I have far too many hobbies!
I’m still working on the Mk2 Calendar system but we have progress!
Firstly, we are back where we were – in that the calculation and display systems are now fully operational again:
In addition, multiple rolling entities can now be added. In the above screenshot we are just using one set of rolling entities called ‘Days of the Week’. But what if we also added phases of the moon?
Here is what the calendar looks like with phases of the moon added:
Not entirely realistic. However, rolling entities do support a skip function. Given that these phases tend to happen every 7 days in real life, I have decided to set the ‘Day Skip’ to six. eg there will be six skipped cells before the next rolling entity triggers.
The results?
It is starting to look a little more ‘real’, though I did randomly set the synchronisation point on the previous screen (aka Start Year and Start Rolling Entity), so these moon phases will not be the ones you will see in real life – unless I’m very lucky.
The above functionality will enable people to to add special rolling events in the form of iconography or text to their calendars. This should benefit many RPG calendars. For example the Runequest Gloranthan calendar should show the phases of the Red Moon as that moon directly affects the strength of Lunar magic. This system makes it very easy to add those phases!
Can we go further? Maybe by adding a third rolling entity?
This new set comprises of 5 random pictures in a fixed sequence. Adding the new sequence results in a calendar that looks like this:
In addition, I can also apply an independent ‘Day Skip’ to the new rolling entities. In this case I will specify a skip of 2 cells:
The result?
As you can see in the above screenshot it all works perfectly!
Plus, as you would expect, these rolling entities roll properly across month boundaries.
Here is a screenshot of the previous month:
Note that the sequences of rolling entities, the days, moon phases and the other images carry over across the month boundary!
What about going a month forward?
Going forward a month also results in the three sequences from each rolling entity group carrying on correctly across the month boundary 😎
Plus, remember, that the Gregorian calendar that you see in the above examples is created from first principals using time units and rolling entities – no operating system calendar components are used! Sojour’s calendars also go a lot further forward and a lot further backward in time than the Windows calendar too – see this post for more information.
None of this post probably makes much sense right now, but it will do when I put a video together explaining this new powerful system and how it will help you create any calendar that you can imagine!
A lot of progress with the Mk2 Calendar system, but still a lot more to do.
And for those that don’t know, if you buy Sojour, all updates are free 🙂
That’s it for this update!
Have Fun!
RobP
Sojour 