Guide to the Guide

Future chapters cover the various types of coding you need – HTML, CSS, JS, and the various combinations of those things. This chapter, on the other hand, covers more fundamental things – where do you write your code, how do you publish the code for others to use, and so in. So this guide covers:

• The Custom Sheet Sandbox
  How to take exploit Roll20’s best-kept secret for creating character sheets.
• Use a Syntax-Aware Code Editor
  How to use a Code Editor to make writing your code easier and faster.
• Validating Your Sheet
  When your Code Editor isn’t quite enough, use a web page or plugin to find errors faster.
• Inspecting the Browser
  Every modern browser has a built-in tool to help you inspect code and test changes instantly.
• Publishing Sheets to GitHub
  Here’s a quick guide to uploading your sheet to to the Roll20 repo on GitHub to share your sheet with the community.
• Publishing Sheet Images
  It’s very common for sheets to lose images. ruining their design. It’s pretty simple to stop this from happening.
• Default Sheet Settings
  In some systems, it’s handy to provide some settings a GM can set for all sheets in the campaign at once. Here’s how.
• Sandbox Sheet Glitches
  There’s a couple of weird nuisances you can encounter when using the sandbox, Here’s how to deal with them.
• Divitis and Style
  There’s a syndrome among webspages created by those unfamiliar with CSS. Here’s to avoid it.
• Why You Must Test Roll20 Sheets on Roll20
  Some things to be wary of when making your sheet.
• Can a Sheet Be Modified?
  Can the design of a sheet be tweaked, to change stats or whatever – and if not, why not?
• Character Sheet Corruption Will Happen!
  A rare but expected danger, especially when creating character sheets.
• Translating Default Sheet Settings
  Sheets might have default sheet settings. These can be translated.
• Using ChatGPT for character design
  I’ve seen people using chatGPT to aid character designs, and i have some guidance for that.
• The Case Against Pug (and Sheet Templating generally)
  The biggest problem with sheet templating (and with PUG).

I originally planned to make this Chapter 3 of the guide, after HTML and CSS, but it makes more sense to have it as Chapter 1. It’s true that some of this Chapter’s contents only matter once you have a sheet ready to upload, but all Sheet Authors should be using parts 1-3 anyway, so order doesn’t really matter.