This branch contains the code that supports the Star Trek Adventures character creator version found at https://sta.bcholmes.org . This is an alternative (and possibly temporary) version of the original character generator app.

Why does an alternative version exist? I wanted to make some additional features available a bit faster than it was taking to get pull requests processed (and deployed) on the original codebase.

Over two years have passed since any of my pull requests have been accepted into azjerei's original codebase, and this copy is now more than 700 commits ahead of the original. So I think it's time to accept that the original repo has been abandoned, and that this version is now the primary one. I've now severed the "fork" relationship between my repo and the original. Mainly because I want to count the commit activity on my GitHub profile.

To build the application, you'll need to install:

• NodeJS - v10.13.0 or higher. I'm not really sure what the minimum version you'd need is, but just grab something recent.

Node will install an important tool called the "Node Package Manager" or npm. All other dependencies will be installed by npm by following the "Getting Started" directions, below.

You might want to install an IDE. The original developer of this codebase used Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition (which only runs on Windoze). I tend to use VS Code on my Mac.

1. Open a command prompt in the WebTools/ folder and type npm install to install node modules, including TypeScript, React, Bootstrap and more.
2. Start the development server using the npm run start command
3. Once the development server starts, it should automatically open http://localhost:3000 in your browser

If you are making changes to the code, your browser should automatically reload, and you'll see the updates reflected there.

1. If you're building a new version to deploy to a server, you should open up the package.json file and manually update the version number. I keep the version number in sync with the current date. You should probably also update the news.tsx, provding some text description of what's changed since the last version. If you're just trying things out, you can skip this step.
2. Open a command prompt in the WebTools/ folder and type npm install to install node modules.
3. Build the assets using the npm run build command

The build process creates a series of files in the WebTools/build folder. Upload the contents of the WebTools/build folder to a web server, and you're done.

Contributions are welcome. Use a PR to get your changes into the master branch.

I can especially use some help with translating text to support languages other than English. If that's your skillset, I'd really value assistance there.