Vitals

The vitals block renders a 4‑slot tracker grid for a character’s core resources:

• HP – rectangular boxes.
• Stress – rectangular boxes.
• Armor – rectangular boxes.
• Hope – diamond‑shaped boxes.

It supports:

• Custom labels (e.g. “Wounds” instead of “HP”).
• Numeric or template‑driven max values (e.g. from frontmatter).
• Persistent state per tracker using stable keys, shared with rest, damage, and the single‑tracker blocks (hp, stress, armor, hope).
• Optional Hope Feature rows under the Hope track for “once per rest” abilities or notes.

The block is registered under two names:

• vitals – primary name.
• vital-trackers – alias, for readability.

How the trackers work

Each of the four trackers draws a row of boxes:

• Click a box to fill or unfill it.
• Filled boxes are saved using a state key (like din_health, din_stress::Characters/Marlowe).
• When you reopen the note, the filled counts are restored from the state store.

These same keys are what rest and damage use to apply healing and damage.

Default keys and overrides

By default (per‑note defaults based on the current file path):

• hp_key: "din_health::NOTE_PATH"
• stress_key: "din_stress::NOTE_PATH"
• armor_key: "din_armor::NOTE_PATH"
• hope_key: "din_hope::NOTE_PATH"

Where NOTE_PATH is your Obsidian note path (for example, Characters/Marlowe).

You can override any of these in the vitals YAML if you want to share a pool across notes or separate multiple characters in one file.

Dynamic max values

Each tracker’s hp, stress, armor, and hope field can be:

• A number:

  hp: 10
  stress: 6

• A simple frontmatter reference:

  hp: frontmatter.hp
  stress: "{{ frontmatter.stress }}"

• Any template string that resolves to a number:

  hp: "{{ add 2 frontmatter.tier }}"

Under the hood:

• If the value is like frontmatter.hp or {{ frontmatter.hp }}, it reads that field directly and parses it as a number.
• Otherwise it runs the template through the shared template engine and parses the result as a number.
• Non‑numeric or missing values fall back to 0 (except hope, which defaults to 6 if it would otherwise be 0).

Example – Standard vitals grid

```vitals
styleClass: 

# Labels
hp_label: "HP"
stress_label: "Stress"
armor_label: "Armor"
hope_label: "Hope"

# Maximum boxes (numbers or templates)
hp: 10
stress: 6
armor: "{{ frontmatter.armor }}"
hope: 6  # if omitted or 0, defaults to 6

# Optional: override state keys (normally you can omit these)
hp_key: "din_health::Character/Marlowe"
stress_key: "din_stress::Character/Marlowe"
armor_key: "din_armor::Character/Marlowe"
hope_key: "din_hope::Character/Marlowe"

# Optional: extra info under the Hope track
hope_feature:
  - label: "Volatile Magic:"
    value: "Spend 3 Hope to reroll any number of your damage dice on an attack that deals magic damage."
```

Example – Using frontmatter values

---
hp: 12
stress: 6
armor: 3
hope: 6
---

```vitals
styleClass:

hp_label: "HP"
hp: frontmatter.hp

stress_label: "Stress"
stress: "{{ frontmatter.stress }}"

armor_label: "Armor"
armor: "frontmatter.armor"

hope_label: "Hope"
hope: "{{ frontmatter.hope }}"

The block will:

• Read hp, stress, armor, and hope from the note’s frontmatter.
• Build the correct number of boxes for each tracker.
• Use its default *_key values unless you override them.

Working with rest and damage

Because the vitals block uses stable keys:

• rest can auto‑detect the HP/Stress/Armor/Hope trackers in the same note and apply Short/Long Rest and resets.
• damage can use hp_key / armor_key to apply tiered damage directly to the same HP/Armor pools.

For most character sheets:

1. Put your frontmatter at the top (with hp, stress, armor, etc.).
2. Add a vitals block.
3. Add a rest block under it (for Short/Long rest & resets).
4. Add a damage block wherever you want a compact damage input.

Configuration – vitals block

Top‑level options:

Property	Type	Default	Description
styleClass	String	none	CSS class applied to the whole vitals grid.
hp_label	String	"HP"	Label for the HP tracker.
stress_label	String	"Stress"	Label for the Stress tracker.
armor_label	String	"Armor"	Label for the Armor tracker.
hope_label	String	"Hope"	Label for the Hope tracker.
hp	Number / String	0	Number of HP boxes; supports templates and frontmatter.* shorthand.
stress	Number / String	0	Number of Stress boxes; templates allowed.
armor	Number / String	0	Number of Armor boxes; templates allowed.
hope	Number / String	6 if missing/0	Number of Hope diamonds; templates allowed (defaults to 6 if falsy).
hp_key	String	"din_health::NOTE_PATH"	State key for HP tracker (defaults to the current note path).
stress_key	String	"din_stress::NOTE_PATH"	State key for Stress tracker.
armor_key	String	"din_armor::NOTE_PATH"	State key for Armor tracker.
hope_key	String	"din_hope::NOTE_PATH"	State key for Hope tracker.
hope_feature	String / Object / Array	none	Optional text or list of {label, value} rows under the Hope tracker.
footer	(alias)	none	Alias for hope_feature (for backwards compatibility).

Single trackers (hp, stress, armor, hope)

In addition to the 4‑slot vitals grid, DH‑UI provides standalone tracker blocks:

```hp
```
```stress
```
```armor
```
```hope
```

These are useful when you want to place individual trackers in different parts of the layout (for example, Hope near Experiences, or Armor next to your equipment).

Each standalone tracker supports:

Property	Type	Default	Description
label	String	Block name in uppercase (e.g. "HP")	Text label shown to the left of the boxes.
state_key	String	none	Storage key for this tracker; required if you want it to persist.
uses	Number / String	0 (or 6 for hope if missing)	Number of boxes. Supports templates and frontmatter.* shorthand.
hp / stress / armor / hope	Number / String	none	Optional aliases for uses; the field matching the block name takes priority when present.
styleClass	String	none	CSS class applied to the outer tracker container, for custom styling.

Behavior notes:

• If both uses and a type‑specific field are provided (e.g. hp: in an hp block), the type‑specific field wins.
• hope trackers default to 6 boxes when uses/hope are omitted or resolve to 0.
• Like vitals, filled boxes are stored under tracker:<state_key> and participate in dh:tracker:changed events.

Example – Standalone tracker

```hp
styleClass: 
label: "HP"
state_key: "din_health::Character/Marlowe"
uses: "{{ frontmatter.hp }}"
```

Example – Standalone Hope tracker

```hope
styleClass: 
label: "Hope"
state_key: "din_hope::Character/Marlowe"
# uses omitted → defaults to 6 diamonds
```

See also

|- Rest – Short & Long – uses these trackers to apply rest moves. |- Full Heal & Reset All – utilities to clear HP or all trackers in a note. |- Damage – tiered damage application that updates HP/Armor. |- State Storage – how hp_key, stress_key, etc. are stored. |- Dynamic Content – using templates to compute tracker sizes.