[Req] Someone to create a Plugin for Articy 3

Fri 17. Feb 2017, 05:39

Hi all

I've been working on a few ideas for a program for awhile now. My problem is, I am not a programmer, and need some help. What i'm looking for is a plugin for the newly released Articy:Draft 3 that will allow me to import data from Excel files into articy. Most of the files are going to go into either the entities, locations, assets or flow categories in Articy. With my zero experience in working in c, vb, or any of the .net studios, i'm looking at having to manually enter all of this data into articy, and it's just simply too much. I'm writing this to ask for the help of anyone with the programming chops to help.

I need a (hopefully) simple, plugin that will read the data in an excel file, in much the same way articy currently uses when you use the export and re-import feature. the main difference is that the source file was not created in articy.
My concerns with this project is that i have different files of different sizes, for example, some of the more extreme examples are below:

    78 colums, 1048576 rows
    6 columns, 18284 rows
    6 columns, 57495 rows
    1500 colums, 15 rows

In creating the files, there were only 2 rules that i tried to keep consistent across all of the worksheets:
    - Column 1 will always contain an id number starting with number 1, be only a numeric value, and step in increments of one (Example: 1 - 70,000)
    - Row 4 will always contain column headers for the data

I'm willing to be flexable, and would be willing/able to change some of the data or formats in the excel files to fit, but if anyone can help by creating an Articy 3 - compatible plugin, I would truly appreciate it.
If anyone is willing to help please contact me via reply or message me. What i've typed are the major goals i need for the plugin.

I hope to hear from you soon, and thanks for reading!
rpoteat
 
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed 1. Feb 2017, 19:43

Re: [Req] Someone to create a Plugin for Articy 3

Fri 17. Feb 2017, 10:02

To be honest, this is nothing like a simple Plugin.

First the count of rows in your files are irrelevant, if you are able to accept a longer import time. Mainly...what worries me the most is, you say there are only a few coloums that are constantly used in the tables of your file(s). The main reason articy provides you with a scheme for your Import is, this is the only possible mehtod to make sure your data can be imported correctly into articy. Your approach results in a very specific implementation or in a much more dynamic style, which leads to more Problems than it might help.

That is my opinion.
Sorry.
Nikolas Koop
Quality Assurance Manager | Nevigo | LinkedIn
[Nevigo] Nikolas Koop
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu 10. Nov 2016, 12:59

Re: [Req] Someone to create a Plugin for Articy 3

Sun 19. Feb 2017, 19:03

[Nevigo] Nikolas Koop wrote:To be honest, this is nothing like a simple Plugin.

First the count of rows in your files are irrelevant, if you are able to accept a longer import time. Mainly...what worries me the most is, you say there are only a few coloums that are constantly used in the tables of your file(s). The main reason articy provides you with a scheme for your Import is, this is the only possible mehtod to make sure your data can be imported correctly into articy. Your approach results in a very specific implementation or in a much more dynamic style, which leads to more Problems than it might help.

That is my opinion.
Sorry.


I'm VERY confused by this. I realize that i'm not a programmer, but what i find most frustrating & confusing with this request is that Articy seems to have this capability built-in at present. Right now, i can export Articy info into an .xlsx file, and the data looks like this:

Image

This information can be re-imported into articy, and when i re-import it, i get the a dialogue box similar to this:

Image

(For the record, this picture is taken from the helpfile). Now if instead of the articy data, i have the following table:

Image

What i'm wondering is this: If/since articy is able to read the excel data, why can it not take the header data and convert it into the equivalent of what i believe is called the display name in articy, and then show us the number of usable rows it found that can be used for import? As an example, see the Mock-up below:

Image

This is showing what I have envisioned. Articy has taken the data shown in row 4, (the header), and used it as the Display Name for each field. I would be ok with it just reading it as Row 1, Row 2, Row 3, etc.. And then having to manually change the information via properties. Or at the very worst, having to Pre-Create a template to use when importing. Having to Pre-Create the template may also solve what you called the Dynamic Style. By having the pre-made template, It would force Articy to stay within pre-set rules, while giving the user the ability to mass-import custom data. If not, could the plugin simply have Articy read the data, and then allow you to create a template based on the scan results before you can import the data into Articy? (yes, I'm making this up as i'm typing, but i hope you get the general idea of what i'm saying: if the problem is needing to stick to set rules, allow the plug-in to read data, then create a template for the ruleset, or either have a pre-made rule-set for each type of data imported. Users should be able to make adjustments after the fact by going through either properties or templates after the import is complete). After selections are made or adjusted, i would then click the "Next" buttion, and i could get a dialog/window asking me where to put the imported data, for a visual reference, see below:

Image

Alternately, this could be selected as a drop-down or button-press function on the import window, and not necessarily a separate step in and of itself. Or if using the template method, a template can be created in this step, and then the data gets imported... but once again, I'm thinking this out while typing the response. And once again, this is something that seems to be already present in Articy - I just want to take it one or two (hopefully) small but powerful steps further.

Even if the process is limited to one page per import, i would still be able to get all the data i need put into articy easily. I would even be ok with only being able to import to pre-set areas within Articy such as Assets, Entities, Locations, and documents only. This way, i don't have to go in and manually re-enter hundreds of pieces of information. For another example, see below:

Image

This picture shows the biggest concern i have. this is a my list of usable soundfiles. I have tens of thousands of individual files, and this is the data i most want to import. I realize i can import the files directly into articy, but the problem then becomes that articy will copy the files into another directory that it uses. For the project(s) that I will be creating the file locations MUST remain as they are shown here. this was the easiest way to work around that concern, and it gives me the ability to search files not only by the speaker, but i can set the type of response as well. this is also an example of how using a program such as excel to manuplate data may be faster and (arguably), more appropriate. I can make changes, setup the data that i want quickly and easily with excel, and then be able to import them into articy for fast and easy referance. Another Example of this is below:

Image

I hope this Better clarifies what I'm looking for. As i mentioned, I am not a programmer, but it just seems that at present, Articy has the beginning of this ability already. I'm just looking for a plug-in that will allow me to utilize this ability in a different, slightly more flexable manner.

Attached, I am placing a copy of an excel file that contains the actual data pictured, along with a few other samples of the types of data that i want to be able to import. Once again, any and all help is appreciated, and i'm sure many eagle-eyed readers of this post will realize not only the game i intend to create for, but a few of the tools i hope to be able to adapt. Ideas and suggestions are always welcome!

Thanks,
R.

PS;
My deepest, humblest, and most sincerely heartfelt apologies to your art staff, and those who created the UI. I wanted to have something a bit more visual to help me present this idea, so i took a few relevant pictures from your online help files, and then modified them (badly and hurriedly) in a paint-like program over about 4 hours. I hope the pictures help to better define my idea without offending anyone. PLEASE DO NOT SUE ME.
rpoteat
 
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed 1. Feb 2017, 19:43

Re: [Req] Someone to create a Plugin for Articy 3

Mon 20. Feb 2017, 13:44

Hi rpoteat,

Thanks for explaining your request in such detail. That's exactly something we developed the Macro Devkit for, so that people can customize articy:draft features to exactly fit their unique use cases. But I'm not sure if you find a programmer here to implement this for you. Maybe you have contacts to a local indie developer community where you could ask someone for help?

Best wishes,
Julius
User avatar
Julius Kuschke
 
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu 24. Nov 2011, 14:02
Location: Bochum

Re: [Req] Someone to create a Plugin for Articy 3

Tue 2. May 2017, 20:30

Not sure if you found someone yet or not, but ping me if you still need help, I may be able to work something out for you
JohnRossitter
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue 2. May 2017, 19:57

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