Draw Steel Hero Importer

Obsidian plugin that imports a Draw Steel hero — from a ForgeSteel .ds-hero export, or a filled official MCDM Draw Steel character-sheet PDF — into a single Note formatted with Draw Steel Elements codeblocks.

Prerequisites

• Obsidian ≥ 1.13.0
• Draw Steel Elements — required. The generated Note only renders correctly with this plugin installed and enabled, and only in Reading view (Draw Steel Elements doesn't support Live Preview). Unaffiliated with this plugin.
• ForgeSteel — where .ds-hero files come from. Not a dependency to install; unaffiliated with this plugin.
• A filled official MCDM Draw Steel character-sheet PDF — the other supported input format. Not affiliated with this plugin either. Only tested against MCDM's Standard character sheet (free download); see FILLABLE PDF BEST PRACTICES.md before filling one out.
• Optional: Power Roll Detector — makes the Note's Power Roll + N values clickable dice rollers.

Features

• Imports a .ds-hero file or a filled character-sheet PDF into one Note (Name.md) with Characteristics, Vitals, Resources, Statistics, Skills, Actions, Traits, Background Info, and Kit sections.
• Ability Power Rolls and tier damage are resolved to the hero's actual values (e.g. Power Roll + 2, 5 + 2 psychic damage) — compatible with Power Roll Detector.
• PDF import looks up whatever the sheet doesn't carry (Kit bonuses/equipment/Signature Ability, Ancestry Trait and Class Feature descriptions) from a DS Compendium vault folder, where one exists.
• Frontmatter properties (name, ancestry, class, level, characteristics, Victories, XP, max stamina, speed) are set for quick reference — e.g. a Base/Dataview view across every PC — and Victories/XP stay in sync with their ds-counter blocks.
• Re-importing a hero keeps Name.md as the current Note (so existing [[links]] keep resolving) and archives the previous version into a timestamped file.

See DOCUMENTATION.md for full details on both import paths and exactly what each Note section contains.

Installation

Recommended: BRAT

1. Install and enable the BRAT community plugin (Settings → Community plugins → Browse).
2. Open BRAT's settings (or run BRAT: Add a beta plugin for testing) and add this repo: zachhall/drawsteel-hero-importer.
3. BRAT downloads main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release and enables the plugin. Run BRAT: Check for updates to all beta plugins to pull in future releases.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from a release (or build from source, below).
2. Copy them into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/drawsteel-hero-importer/.
3. Reload Obsidian and enable Draw Steel Hero Importer under Settings → Community plugins.

Usage

1. Run the Import Draw Steel Hero command, click the ribbon icon, or use the Choose file... button in the plugin's settings tab.
2. Pick a .ds-hero file exported from ForgeSteel, or a filled character-sheet PDF.
3. The Note opens automatically once imported.

Settings

• Destination folder — vault folder new Hero Notes are created in. Defaults to the vault root.
• DS compendium folder — vault folder your DS Compendium lives in, used only for PDF imports to look up data the sheet doesn't carry. Defaults to DS Compendium.
• Archive folder — vault folder the previous version's content is copied to on re-import. Defaults to hero-archive.
• Clean up old Hero Notes — deletes every archived version except the most recent one, for every hero. Never touches a hero's current Note.

Building from source

npm install
npm run dev    # watch build
npm run build  # production build
npm run lint   # eslint-plugin-obsidianmd (developer guideline checks)
npm test       # Obsidian community-directory compliance checks (tests/)

esbuild.config.mjs writes main.js into this folder, so if the repo lives in your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory, no copy step is needed — just reload Obsidian.

License

MIT