Types of Objects

There are several different types of objects that are used throughout the Roll20 API. Here's a quick listing of each, what it is, and what properties it contains (along with the default values). As a general rule of thumb, properties that begin with an underscore (_) are read-only and cannot be changed. You must access properties on objects using obj.get("property") and set new values using obj.set("property", newvalue) or obj.set({property: newvalue, property2: newvalue2}).

Note: The id property of an object is a globally-unique ID: no two objects should have the same one, even across different types of objects. In addition, since an object's id is frequently-accessed and never changes, there is a shortcut available where you can access it by using obj.id instead of obj.get("_id") if you wish (either will work).

Path

For more information on the format of _path data, see: Objects/Path

Text

Graphic (Token/Map/Card/Etc.)

Important Notes About Linked Characters + Tokens

Note that for tokens that are linked to Characters, the controlledby field on the token is overridden by the controlledby field on the Character.

For token bars (e.g. bar1_value and bar1_max) where the token is linked to an Attribute (e.g. bar1_link is set), setting a value to the bar will automatically update the underlying Attribute's current and/or max values as well, so you don't have to set both manually.

In addition, when the Attribute (or token bar) is modified in-game, you will hear a change:attribute (and property-specific, e.g. change:attribute:current) event, followed by a change:graphic (and change:graphic:bar1_value) event. You can choose to respond to either event, but the underlying bar values will not yet be updated when the attribute event fires, since it fires first.

Important Notes About Status Markers

As of August 6, 2013 the way that status markers on tokens are handled has changed. The "statusmarkers" property of the Graphic object is now a comma-delimited list of all status marker colors/icons that should be active on the token. The format is as follows:

//Comma-delimited (use join to create or split to turn into an array). If a status icon/color is followed by an "@" symbol, the number after "@" will be shown as the badge on the icon
statusmarkers = "red,blue,skull,dead,brown@2,green@6"

While you can access the statusmarkers property directly, to maintain backward-compatibility with existing scripts, and to provide an easy way to work with the status markers without needing to write code to handle splitting up and parsing the string yourself, we provide a set of "virtual" properties on the object that you can set/get to work with the status markers. Each status marker has a "status_<markername>" property. For example:

obj.get("status_red"); //Will return false if the marker is not active, true if it is, and a string (e.g. "2" or "5") if there is currently a badge set on the marker
obj.get('status_bluemarker'); //Is still supported for backwards compatability, and is equivalent to doing obj.get("status_blue");
obj.set("status_red", false); //would remove the marker
obj.set("status_skull", "2"); //would set a badge of "2" on the skull icon, and add it to the token if it's not already active.

Note that these virtual properties do not have events, so you must use change:graphic:statusmarkers to listen for changes to the status markers of a token, and for example change:graphic:status_red is NOT a valid event and will never fire.

The full list of status markers that are available (in the same order they appear in the marker tray):

"red", "blue", "green", "brown", "purple", "pink", "yellow", "dead", "skull", "sleepy", "half-heart", "half-haze", "interdiction", "snail", "lightning-helix", "spanner", "chained-heart", "chemical-bolt", "death-zone", "drink-me", "edge-crack", "ninja-mask", "stopwatch", "fishing-net", "overdrive", "strong", "fist", "padlock", "three-leaves", "fluffy-wing", "pummeled", "tread", "arrowed", "aura", "back-pain", "black-flag", "bleeding-eye", "bolt-shield", "broken-heart", "cobweb", "broken-shield", "flying-flag", "radioactive", "trophy", "broken-skull", "frozen-orb", "rolling-bomb", "white-tower", "grab", "screaming", "grenade", "sentry-gun", "all-for-one", "angel-outfit", "archery-target"

Page

Campaign

Turn Order

The turn order is a JSON string representing the current turn order listing. It is an array of objects. Currently, the turn order can only contain objects from one page at a time -- the current Page ID for the turn order is the "initiativepage" attribute. Be sure to keep them both in-sync or you may end up with strange results.

To work with the turn order, you will want to use JSON.parse() to get an object representing the current turn order state (NOTE: Check to make sure it's not an empty string "" first...if it is, initialize it yourself with an empty array). Here's an example turn order object:

[
    {
     "id":"36CA8D77-CF43-48D1-8682-FA2F5DFD495F", //The ID of the Graphic object. If this is set, the turn order list will automatically pull the name and icon for the list based on the graphic on the tabletop.
     "pr":"0", //The current value for the item in the list. Can be a number or text.
     "custom":"" //Custom title for the item. Will be ignored if ID is set to a value other than "-1".
    },
    {
     "id":"-1", //For custom items, the ID MUST be set to "-1" (note that this is a STRING not a NUMBER.
     "pr":"12",
     "custom":"Test Custom" //The name to be displayed for custom items.
    }
]

To modify the turn order, edit the current turn order object and then use JSON.stringify() to change the attribute on the Campaign. Note that the ordering for the turn order in the list is the same as the order of the array, so for example push() adds an item onto the end of the list, unshift() adds to the beginning, etc.

var turnorder;
if(Campaign().get("turnorder") == "") turnorder = []; //NOTE: We check to make sure that the turnorder isn't just an empty string first. If it is treat it like an empty array.
else turnorder = JSON.parse(Campaign().get("turnorder"));

//Add a new custom entry to the end of the turn order.
turnorder.push({
    id: "-1",
    pr: "15",
    custom: "Turn Counter"
});
Campaign().set("turnorder", JSON.stringify(turnorder));

Player

Macro

Rollable Table

Table Item

Character

Attribute

Important: See the note below about working with Character Sheets for information on how Character Sheet default values affect the use of Attributes.

Ability

Handout

Note: The API does not have access to the folder hierarchy. API created handouts will be placed at the root level.

Deck

//Note at this time you can't use the API to "draw", "deal", or "shuffle" cards from the Deck. We're working on helper functions to enable this functionality.
{
    _id: "", //id of the deck
    _type: "deck",     
    name: "", //name of the deck
    _currentDeck: "", //a comma-delimited list of cards which are currently in the deck (including those which have been played to the tabletop/hands). Changes when the deck is shuffled.
    _currentIndex: -1, //the current index of our place in the deck, 'what card will be drawn next?'
    _currentCardShown: true, //show the current card on top of the deck
    showplayers: true, //show the deck to the players
    playerscandraw: true, //can players draw cards?
    avatar: "", //the 'back' of the cards for this deck
    shown: false, //show the deck on the gameboard (is the deck currently visible?)
    players_seenumcards: true, //can players see the number of cards in other player's hands?
    players_seefrontofcards: false, //can players see the fronts of cards when looking in other player's hands?
    gm_seenumcards: true, //can the GM see the number of cards in each player's hand?
    gm_seefrontofcards: false, //can the GM see the fronts of cards when looking in each player's hand?
    infinitecards: false, //are there an 'infinite' number of cards in this deck?
    _cardSequencer: -1, //internally used to advance the deck when drawing cards.
    cardsplayed: "faceup", //how are cards from this deck played to the tabletop? 'faceup' or 'facedown'.
    defaultheight: "", //what's the default height for cards played to the tabletop?
    defaultwidth: "",
    discardpilemode: "none", //what type of discard pile does this deck have? 'none' = no discard pile, 'choosebacks' = allow players to see backs of cards and choose one, 'choosefronts' = see fronts and choose, 'drawtop' = draw the most recently discarded card, 'drawbottom' = draw the oldest discarded card.
    _discardPile: "" //what's the current discard pile for this deck? comma-delimited list of cards. These are cards which have been removed from play and will not be put back into the deck on a shuffle until a recall is performed.
  }

Card

{    
   name: "", //Name of the card
   avatar: "", //Front of the card
   _deckid: "", //ID of the deck   
   _type: "card",    
   _id: ""
}

Hand

//Note that each player should only have ONE hand.

{
    _currentHand: "", //comma-delimited list of cards currently in the hand
    _type: "hand",
    _parentid: "", //ID of the player to whom the hand belongs
    _id: "",
    currentView: "bydeck" //when player opens hand, is the view 'bydeck' or 'bycard'?
}

Jukebox Track

imgsrc and avatar property restrictions

While you can now edit the imgsrc and avatar properties, in order to provide safety to all Roll20's users we have put the following restrictions in place for those properties:

• You must use an image file that has been uploaded to your Roll20 Library -- not an external site (such as Imgur), and not the Roll20 Marketplace. It will begin with 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.d20.io/images/' for images uploaded to the Main server, or 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.staging.d20.io/images/' for images uploaded to the Dev Server. You can view an image's source URL using the developer tools of your browser.

• You must include the query string in the URL -- for example 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.staging.d20.io/images/123456/med.png?12345678', not just 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.staging.d20.io/images/123456/med.png'

• For Graphic objects (tokens), you must use the "thumb" size of the image. It should look like 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.staging.d20.io/images/123456/thumb.png?12345678'.

In the future we may add a tool so that images can be uploaded specifically for use with API scripts, but for now just use images uploaded to your own library. Note that if you delete an image from your library, it will be removed from all Games which use that image, including Games using your API scripts.

Using the Notes, GMNotes, and Bio fields

In order to access the "notes", "gmnotes", or "bio" fields on Characters and Handouts, you must pass a callback function as the second argument to the get() function. Here's an example:

var character = getObj("character", "-JMGkBaMgMWiQdNDwjjS");
character.get("bio", function(bio) {
    log(bio); //do something with the character bio here.
});

You can set the value of these fields as normal.

Working with Character Sheets

The Character Sheets feature affects the usage of the Attributes object type, because the sheets have the capability of specifying a default value for each attribute on the sheet. However, if the attribute is set to the default value, there is not yet an actual Attribute object created in the game for that Character. We provide a convenience function which hides this complexity from you. You should use this function to get the value of an attribute going forward, especially if you know that a game is using a Character Sheet.

getAttrByName(character_id, attribute_name, value_type)

Simply specify the character's ID, the name (not ID) of the attribute (e.g. "HP" or "Str"), and then if you want the "current" or "max" for value_type. Here's an example:

var character = getObj("character", "-JMGkBaMgMWiQdNDwjjS");
getAttrByName(character.id, "str"); // the current value of str, for example "12"
getAttrByName(character.id, "str", "max"); //the max value of str, for example "[[floor(@{STR}/2-5)]]"

Note that fields which have auto-calculated values will return the formula rather than the result of the value. You can then pass that formula to sendChat() to use the dice engine to calculate the result for you automatically.

Be sure to also look at the Character Sheet documentation for more information on how the Character Sheets interact with the API.

getAttrByName will only get the value of the attribute, not the attribute object itself. If you wish to reference properties of the attribute other than "current" or "max", or if you wish to change properties of the attribute, you must use one of the other functions above, such as findObjs.

Creating Objects

createObj(type, attributes)

Note: currently you can create 'graphic', 'text', 'path', 'character', 'ability', 'attribute', 'handout', 'rollabletable', 'tableitem', and 'macro' objects.

You can create a new object in the game using the createObj function. You must pass in the type of the object (one of the valid _type properties from the objects list above), as well as an attributes object containing a list of properties for the object. Note that if the object is has a parent object (for example, attributes and abilities belong to characters, graphics, texts, and paths belong to pages, etc.), you must pass in the ID of the parent in the list of properties (for example, you must include the characterid property when creating an attribute). Also note that even when creating new objects, you can't set read-only properties, they will automatically be set to their default value. The one exception to this is when creating a Path, you must include the 'path' property, but it cannot be modified once the path is initially created.

createObj will return the new object, so you can continue working with it.

//Create a new Strength attribute on any Characters that are added to the game.
on("add:character", function(obj) {
    createObj("attribute", {
        name: "Strength",
        current: 0,
        max: 30,
        characterid: obj.id
    });
});

Deleting Objects

object.remove()

Note: currently you can create 'graphic', 'text', 'path', 'character', 'ability', 'attribute', 'handout', 'rollabletable', 'tableitem', and 'macro' objects.

You can delete existing game objects using the .remove() function. The .remove() function works on all of the objects you can create with the createObj function. You call the function directly on the object. For example, mycharacter.remove();.

Global Objects

There are several objects that are globally available anywhere in your script.

Campaign() (function)

A function which returns the Campaign object. Since there is only one campaign, this global always points to the only campaign in the game. Useful for doing things like checking to see if an object is on the active page using Campaign().get("playerpageid").

state

The state variable is an object in the global scope which is accessible to all scripts running in a game. You can access the state object from any function or callback at any time just by using the global variable named state. Additionally, the state object is persisted between executions of the Sandbox, so you can use it to store information you want to have in future runs of your script.

Note: You should use the state object to store information that is only needed by the API, since it is not sent to player computers and does not make your game file larger. Store values that are needed in-game in the Roll20 objects' properties.

Storable Types

The state object is only capable of persisting simple data types, as supported by the JSON standard.

Warning: While functions will appear to work when stored in the state initially, they will disappear the first time the state is restored from persistence, such as on a sandbox restart.

Important Reminders

The state object is shared between all of the scripts in a sandbox. To avoid breaking other scripts, it is important to follow a few simple guidelines:

• Never assign directly to the root state object.

state = { break: 'all the things' };  // NEVER DO THIS!!!

• Avoid using local variables named state in your scripts. While this will work, it will be confusing to later users of your scripts and could cause issues if the code is carelessly edited.

function turn(){
    var state = Campaign().get('turnorder');  // Bad Practice, Avoid it!
    // ...
}

• Always place your properties beneath at least one namespace property. Be sure to use a sufficiently descriptive namespace property. Avoid names like script or settings. It's best to either use the name of your module or your own name or handle.

if( ! state.MyModuleNamespace ) {
    state.MyModuleNamespace = { module: 'my module', ok: 'this is fine!', count: 0 };
}
state.MyModuleNamespace.count++;

Example Usage

This is a working example that uses the state object appropriately.

on('ready',function() {
    "use strict";

    // Check if the namespaced property exists, creating it if it doesn't
    if( ! state.MyModuleNS ) {
        state.MyModuleNS = {
            version: 1.0,
            config: {
                color1: '#ff0000',
                color2: '#0000ff'
            },
            count: 0
        };
    }

    // Using the state properties to configure a message to the chat. 
    sendChat(
        'Test Module',
        '<span style="color: '+state.MyModuleNS.config.color1+';">'+
            'State test'+
        '</span> '+
        '<span style="color: '+state.MyModuleNS.config.color2+';">'+
            'Script v'+state.MyModuleNS.version+' started '+(++state.MyModuleNS.count)+' times!'+
        '</span>'
    );
});

Finding/Filtering Objects

The API provides several helper functions which can be used to find objects.

getObj(type, id)

This function gets a single object if pass in the _type of the object and the _id. It's best to use this function over the other find functions whenever possible, as its the only one that doesn't have to iterate through the entire collection of objects.

on("change:graphic:represents", function(obj) {
    if(obj.get("represents") != "") {
       var character = getObj("character", obj.get("represents"));
    }
});

findObjs(attrs)

Pass this function a list of attributes, and it will return all objects that match. Note that this operates on all objects of all types across all pages -- so you probably want to include at least a filter for _type and _pageid if you're working with tabletop objects.

var currentPageGraphics = findObjs({                              
  _pageid: Campaign().get("playerpageid"),                              
  _type: "graphic",                          
});
_.each(currentPageGraphics, function(obj) {    
  //Do something with obj, which is in the current page and is a graphic.
});

You can also pass in an optional second argument which contains an object with a list of options, including:

• caseInsensitive (true/false): If true, string properties will be compared without regard for the case of the string.

var targetTokens = findObjs({
    name: "target"
}, {caseInsensitive: true});
//Returns all tokens with a name of 'target', 'Target', 'TARGET', etc.

filterObjs(callback)

Will execute the provided callback funtion on each object, and if the callback returns true, the object will be included in the result array.

var results = filterObjs(function(obj) {    
  if(obj.get("left") < 200 && obj.get("top") < 200) return true;    
  else return false;
});
//Results is an array of all objects that are in the top-left corner of the tabletop.

getAllObjs()

Returns an array of all the objects in the Game (all types). Equivalent to calling filterObjs and just returning true for every object.

getAttrByName(character_id, attribute_name, value_type)

Gets the value of an attribute, using the default value from the character sheet if the attribute is not present. value_type is an optional parameter, which you can use to specify "current" or "max".

getAttrByName will only get the value of the attribute, not the attribute object itself. If you wish to reference properties of the attribute other than "current" or "max", or if you wish to change properties of the attribute, you must use one of the other functions above, such as findObjs.

You can achieve behavior equivalent to getAttrByNamewith the following:

// current and max are completely dependent on the attribute and game system
// in question; there is no function available for determining them automatically
function myGetAttrByName(character_id,
                         attribute_name,
                         attribute_default_current,
                         attribute_default_max,
                         value_type) {
    attribute_default_current = attribute_default_current || '';
    attribute_default_max = attribute_default_max || '';
    value_type = value_type || 'current';

    var attribute = findObjs({
        type: 'attribute',
        characterid: character_id,
        name: attribute_name
    }, {caseInsensitive: true})[0];
    if (!attribute) {
        attribute = createObj('attribute', {
            characterid: character_id,
            name: attribute_name,
            current: attribute_default_current,
            max: attribute_default_max
        });
    }

    if (value_type == 'max') {
        return attribute.get('max');
    } else {
        return attribute.get('current');
    }
}