Evan Bailey
patreon
Improved Initiative 3.0 is here!
🕑 Added 2021-10-06 04:46:02 +0000 UTCHello DMs,
I am thrilled to share the 3.0 update of Improved Initiative with you. This update features the new Library Manager UI. The Library Manager provides a way to apply bulk actions to your saved items in Improved Initiative. It will exist alongside the "classic" experience, which is now called Library Reference.
There are three bulk actions- Move, Delete, and Export. You can export a batch of your library items as a single JSON file. There is also a new editor for saved encounters.
There are so many other small changes and refactorings that are going into this update. Behind the scenes I tore out a bunch of the old Knockout.js code and replaced it with React Hooks. This release was made even better by the contributions of several members of the community on Github. Thanks mphartman, ascendedguard, 5eMagic, DragunasVilius and Dasug!
This is a big, ambitious release. If you have difficulty running the web app, crashes, etc. please let me know- feel free to send along screenshots to the dev email address.
What's next?
It's been a long road to get here. I have been working on Improved Initiative for over five years, and the app has accumulated a great deal of momentum, but also a lot of technical debt. It can be tough to keep working on a codebase of this size, especially considering the minimal free time I've had since we had our first child in 2018! I'm quite happy with what the app is capable of today, so I feel comfortable saying that Improved Initiative is now complete. I don't have plans for large updates in the future, but I will continue to release bug fixes and minor features when needed and I will accept well-done PRs on the GitHub project.
Going forward, I'll be focusing on projects like Paragon Campaign Dashboard- I have so many cool ideas for that app that I'm excited to get to work on! Needless to say, Improved Initiative will stay online in its current form, complete with your Patron benefits, for as long as it is supported by its Patrons.
As always, thank you so very much for your continued support. I hope that things in your life are starting to return to normal after the tough few years we've had, and I hope you have lots of time for RPGs!
-Evan
Update 10/6, v3.0.5: I've fixed an Account Sync issue that was affecting users. Take another look now and let me know if you're still having problems.
Comments
Evan Bailey
Hi Phillip, sorry to hear about the difficulty. There's no reason that Account Sync would have stopped working with the 3.0 update. Assuming you're logged in on the desktop, do you get any errors in the F12 developer tools when you save changes? I'll need more details to help you troubleshoot.
Getting a little frustrated here. Before this update the changes I made on my desktop synced to the laptop that I use for DM stuff. However ever since 3.0 I have do download the data, move it to my laptop and upload the file. How can I get back to just letting the information sync between devices?
Jared Beaulieu
I found what’s causing the problem, it’s the description. If you click on options after the window opens for importing it, you can turn off including descriptions. It probably has something to do with either the d8 in the description or the sheer length of it
Jared Beaulieu
I’m getting the same error but only for some creatures. For instance, the elder brain dragon works just fine
It works just like before on other creatures, however when I try to bring in a dragon or a creature from Fizban I get a blank screen with the error HTTP ERROR 431 using Chrome , and just a blank screen using Firefox.
Evan Bailey
Thanks Derrick! I appreciate the kind words, I agree it's important to have a backup plan. Still, I'm a professional so I take my uptime pretty seriously. I take it as a compliment when someone really relies on my software, but it's a double edged sword!
Evan Bailey
Is it fully not working, or does it just fail to bring in the Mythic Actions? I'm planning to take a look when I have some time.
Oh, and I want to bring to you attention that the stat importer is not working for the new stat block for Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons creatures. Not sure if I report that here?
Evan, you are doing a great job. No one should be so strapped to an online tools that the blame you for a "session is screwed over"... Cant even open a book for 1 night... While you work hard to make this product the best it can be, sometimes you have to go offline for a moment.
Jared Beaulieu
Yep, thank you
Maggie Stewart
Woohoo thank you so much!
Evan Bailey
Give it a shot now, should be fixed. Thanks for the heads up!
Evan Bailey
Give it a shot now, should be fixed. Thanks for the heads up!
Jared Beaulieu
Same
Maggie Stewart
I'm getting the error too. Thank you Evan for looking into it. My game tonight will be an interesting exercise in winging it. Shows how much I rely on your excellent application.
Jared Beaulieu
I’m getting that error
Jared Beaulieu
Is this present or an old message? Can’t look at the time stamp
Evan Bailey
Thanks everett! It looks like I deployed a time-bomb to my Redis database. I'm troubleshooting it now.
everett
An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. If you are the application owner, check your logs for details. You can do this from the Heroku CLI with the command heroku logs --tail
everett
just to let you know the website is down it says there is an issue with the coding of the site.
Evan Bailey
This is on my radar, I plan to support any changes to statblock formats.
Pyromstr
It's great to see my favourite DM tool still going strong! Thanks for all your hard work. One question; I know you have said you consider the tool "complete" but do you know if there are any plans to support the newly announced changes to D&D stat blocks? I'm sure it can be fudged pretty easily with the current tools, but it would be nice to be able to cleanly import the new monsters when they become available.
