Jonathan Beyrak-Lev had a good suggestion: shouldn’t I reconsider relying on the Encounter Editor? We get stuck in our habits even when those habits are losing their value. The Encounter Editor was imposing constraints on my development process that were becoming cumbersome.
The alternative would be to just edit the JSON object data directly in a text editor. This would impose its own problems, so I had to weigh the costs and benefits of the Encounter Editor against the text editor.
The text editor permits me to enter JavaScript code directly into each encounter, so that I don’t need to build that virtual calculator. That’s a big advantage.
The disadvantage of using the text editor is that the Encounter Editor has pop-up menus containing the entire list of encounters, sorted either alphabetically or by date. This makes it easier to locate encounters to edit them. Also, when I need to reference an encounter (in setting prerequisites, disqualifies, or consequential encounters), I don’t have to look up the precise spelling and get it right; it’s always right.
This argues strongly for staying with the Encounter Editor. So is there some way I can somehow combine them to get the benefits of both? I tried a couple of possibilities, but neither one worked out.
I’ve been wringing my hands over this decision for four days now, and I still can’t make a decision. Therefore, I’m going to shift to another front and expend my energy actually accomplishing something. I’ll first work on re-setting all the timing windows so that they make sense. Then I’m going to deal with Prerequisites and Disqualifies. Next will come the various reaction possibilities and their inclination terms. That should keep me busy for a while. Perhaps the solution to this problem will come to me later.