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I've found that using dice to keep track of how many 'crons I have left before phase out leads to too many
mistakes for me, so I wrote up a perl script to generate a grid of check boxes to use for tracking the same
information. I thought it might prove handy for other people too, so I figured I'd post it. It's pretty simple,
just invoke it as follows:
checkboxes.pl <#of empty boxes> <#of boxes per line><total # of boxes>

So for example, to make the grids that I'll be using for the tournament I'll be playing in this weekend it looked
like this:
$ ./checkboxes 34 15 45 +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 15 +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 30 +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ | | | | |XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX|XX| 45 +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ (note: it looks much better if you hit "view plain")

Checkboxes are a good idea. Thanks for sharing!

That's a great tip, and I think would make a great article! Any interest in making it one?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Article_Tutorial

Here's another version written in java with a friendlier interface. More people are likely to have
java than perl on their machines, and this one can be run with out having to be a console jockey.

You should just have to double click on the downloaded file, and it should go. If not use your
systems preferred method of launching commands and run "java -jar CheckBoxGenerator.jar"

Let me know either here or via PM if you have any feedback. I'll set up an article in the not too
distant future.

Even awesomer!

Yes, that's a word.

I forgot to mention, I've packed the source code in with the jar, in case anyone is interested in seeing it.

I'm dumb. I dont' get it. Can you break it down real quick?

Edit: Wait, before I confirm me being dumb. Is it that simple that you just put down your starting number in the first and each turn just take away? Or, are you checking the the number of deaths each turn?

I don't know what any of this means.

mughzee wrote:I'm dumb. I dont' get it. Can you break it down real quick?

Edit: Wait, before I confirm me being dumb. Is it that simple that you just put down your starting number in the first and each turn just take away? Or, are you checking the the number of deaths each turn?

When you play necrons, you have to keep track of how many dudes you have left. If you get down to <=25%, you phase out and loose the game. In the past I've
kept track using 2d10. I've recently found that I'll make mistakes when I do it that way though. So I figured I'd make checkboxes to mark every time I fail a WBB
roll.

ArbitorIan wrote:I don't know what any of this means.

Since I won't necessarily be playing the same list every time, the number of checkboxes I'll need will change from list to list. Rather than edit my check box
file every time I want a new number of boxes, I wrote a program to make the file for me. The first program was in perl, which is a handy language which ships
by default with most Linux distros, and is on OS X, but is a separate download for Windows. Further, the first program is command-line only. This isn't too
big of a problem for me, but not everyone is comfortable with the command-line. So I decided that given the majority of people here probably don't have
perl on their system, but likely have java, that I would rewrite it using that language. And as long as I was rewriting it, I figured go ahead and build a GUI
for it so that you don't have to be a console jockey to use it.

So both programs produce the same output (almost, the java version has a place for you to put some text that will be written out under the checkboxes), but
the java version is more likely to be useable in more places, and has a more user friendly interface. On most systems you should be able to just double click
on the jar file and it'll run the program. Jar files are like an exe for java, they contain the executable code and some other information that the system needs.
The cool thing is that they're just zip files though, so you can change the extension and decompress them if you want to know what's in one. I almost always
include the source code for my programs in the jar files I make, so if you wanted to read how the program worked (and knew java) you could unzip the jar
and read the Generator.java file. I didn't make the comment about the perl source because perl is different in that the source and the executable are the
same.

Thanks for the explanation... I didn't get it at first, either

And I'm trying to teach myself java right now! So maybe I will have a look at your source code...

so your program just automatically generates the number of boxes you need for each Necron subject to the rule. That's cool

I don't get it.........

RiTides wrote:
And I'm trying to teach myself java right now! So maybe I will have a look at your source code...

Coding in Eclipse is a big help, it lists class members and methods as you go. If you don't already
have a book that you're working from, I highly recommend the O'Reilly books. I've very rarely had
one from them that wasn't good. Maybe 1-3 in the 25 or so that I own.