I've decided to take a swipe at the pdf-based features of EABA v2 to give me a break from the perils of powers. Attached is the prototype of the on-screen dice roller. This is designed for the iPad, but it will work on a regular computer. Whether it works on other tablets is another matter.

Note: This probably only works on the iPad with PDF Expert (by Readdle). Basically, you need a form-capable pdf reader, and PDF Expert is still the best at it. Even so, it was like pulling teeth to make it work and the inefficiency of the coding makes me cringe. I'll tighten it up, but thank goodness that I'm not trying to get a passing grade on a CS course with this.

Those of you with tablets can try both on computer and on tablet.

Directions:
a) tap the die in the upper right to bring up the roller
b) choose the dice and options you want
c) results appear on the top header bar
d) tap the "hide dice" option to make them go away
e) tap "results" to reroll the same type of dice again

Let me know what you think. And if you know any other game-related forums where people might want to test it, let me know.

Update: Jan 6 2012
Added a few iterative loops rather than a bunch of manual table calls for populating and clearing arrays. This cuts down on the quantity of code, but probably will not change the computational overhead or whether it functions in a particular pdf reader.

Update: Jan 13 2012
All the bells & whistles. You can now do up to "best 6" and down to "best 2", the "best" dice are now in red, and if you tap to the left of the die icon, there is a hidden button there that just does a straight 3d6 roll with no embellishments as a single tap. As before, tapping the word "result" rerolls whatever type of die was the last one rolled. And this is now fairly easy to tell (if there are 6 showing and 3 are red, then the last roll was a 6d6 "best three").

The only downside at the moment is that last "roll" tap you have to make. This is an artificially enforced timing delay to allow all the variables to load. Otherwise I'm running into the problem that the randomizer runs so fast it is using the previous dice selection for its variables. This is unfortunately independent of coding order and is just one of the Acrobat Javascript quirks. It is easily fixed on the desktop, but the functions I need are not on the iPad version. I may be able to find a way around it, maybe not.

Still not sure if I can get any sound effects in there, but if I can I will. Gotta have the "dice clattering on table" sound...

I'm using firefox and pdf xpert. It locked up my desk computer twice and I had to use the 3 finger salute to get out of it.

It also ran very slowly and I just couldn't exit it.

That's exactly what happened, not trying to be critical, just telling you how it played out for me. I don't know how it'll run on my gtab yet.

I'll start trimming down the code this weekend. And you're using pdf Expert from Readdle? If so, and the trimmed version still causes problems, send them a message.

Also, your choice of browser (firefox) should be irrelevant, unless you were trying to open the pdf from within a browser (very, very bad idea).

Try using plain old Acrobat on your desktop machine. That's what I use as my standard. It runs the roller just fine, but just barely slower than my iPad does. And the iPad runs it quite fast.

Roger, wilco.

OK, ran it sans browser, worked fine with both standard adobe acrobat reader AND pdf xchange, which is what I use for editing PDFs, so maybe no need to edit code there.

Will try it on my gtab to see if it's pdf reader is up to it.

Works fine on Linux with Adobe Reader, with speed no issues on a desktop machine.

Well, since it seems to work, any comments or questions on the interface? Or things you wish it did? Bear in mind it is supposed to be fast and convenient and that supercedes "gobs and gobs of functions".

I think it's quite fine as it is; using 7d+0 with best 3 I can make almost every roll I need (if I need to roll three dice, I'll just read the first three and count their results only - no time wasted in changing the number of dice used).

Looking goodly. Any reliably vague estimates when the v2 might be done? No rush...

Ack. Do not do that. The dice results shown are always sorted from high to low (high on the left). If you roll 7d best three and just count the 3 on the left, you are always seeing the three highest, not three random dice.

If you want a 3d roll, set it to 3d. Then just hit the "results" button to reroll it as needed.

Hm. It works when I open it in Chrome. It doesn't work for SumatraPDF (it doesn't even indicate anything special when I put the cursor over it.) When I tried to open it with PDF XChange, it let me choose the dice options, but never displayed a result.

That's interesting. There is no Chrome for the iPad, so I cannot test it out. As with any pdf that is more than just a document to read, you want a full-featured reader. On tablets, PDF Expert and possibly Chrome (if Android) has that. On the desktop, the Adobe Reader. But we'll see how many other readers the EABA interface is compatible with.