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Novice Joined: 22 Apr 2011 Posts: 36 Location: Colorado

Hey Guys,

So Im trying to make a alarm that works seperate from the tic timer.

I want a countdown of 30 mins from when I "control a spirit"

The exact text to match is: The spirit of a kender citizen fades into existence as you bind it to this world
With "the spirit of a kender citizen" changing depending on the mob Im controling. "
I can control muiltiple spirits at once so Ideally I would like the alarm to output (or even better, make a guage)
that would say something like "25 mins remaining on "spirit of a kender citizen"
"20 mins remaining on "spirit of a yellow dragon"

and then clear when 30 mins is up and stop fireing. (after 30 mins I loose control of a spirit).
I also want to the alarm to clear at "the spirit off whatever stops following you"

So far what I tried to use is:

into existence as you bind it to this world
#Alarm "spirit" {-30:00} {#echo Spirits Exausted}
#Alarm {+10} {#show id:%alarm{spirit} Pattern:%alarm("-30:00")}

I got a message saying that "the alarm fired but did not compile"

Im not sure I really understand how to code a alarm right.

Anyoen able to help out?

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

It didn't compile because you're trying to use {} instead of () for the first %alarm.

You will find, eventually, that having lots of alarms is going to be quite laggy and redundant, so you might want to look into building yourself a centralized timing script that raises events. Each script would then just need to maintain a variable and the event.

Novice Joined: 22 Apr 2011 Posts: 36 Location: Colorado

so I tried replaceing both {} with (), both, one, the other, no luck

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Matt said the problem was in the first %alarm. %alarm{spirit} should be %alarm(spirit)

Novice Joined: 22 Apr 2011 Posts: 36 Location: Colorado

I Gotcha now, thats because it was already inside {} so you have to move to the next level, Gotcha, sorry been over a decade since I programmed. Thanks Rahab

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:00 pm

It's because %alarm is a function and spirit is the parameter.

Matt: Could you provide an example of the timing script? How would you refactor your alarms, one alarm that fires every minute? Use %secs?

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Novice Joined: 22 Apr 2011 Posts: 36 Location: Colorado

Ok, so apparently I still dont know what Im doing.

My alarm never does anything I can see.

Here's the exact script:
#cw Aqua
#Alarm "spirit" {-30:00} {#echo Spirits Exausted}
#Alarm {+10} {#show id:%alarm(spirit) Pattern:%alarm("-30:00")}

What I was trying to do is every 10 mins get a update on how long I have left on my spirits
Ideally I would actually like to change that to a countdown every minute for 30 minutes,
Even better would be if I had a gauge that counts down from 30 mins, showing mins and seconds, for each spirit I control (each spirit has a unique name, ex: The spirit of the Ogre shaman, The spirit of the Guardian of the Tower, The spirit of a Ogre scout)
Could anyone wright this script for me? Either for just something that locally echo's the time left on the spirit every minute, or even better, if it can be done, as a guage? And then break down what does what so I can get a better idea of how this work so I can make my own timers for other things? Such as a alarm that reminds me every 30 mins how long Ive been playing and to check with the wife to see if she needs anything and I dont take wife agro.

Magician Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 358 Location: USA

This sounds similar to a script I use, where I have a large group of abilities that each have their own durations, and only a few can be active at one time. I have a pair of functions that convert the computer's clock time from minutes and seconds to the number of milliseconds since the month started (This script has the limitation that it cannot span months. If a timer is running when it strikes midnight on Halloween, it will break.)

Novice Joined: 22 Apr 2011 Posts: 36 Location: Colorado

So do you do that to save on processor work or something? Or is it impossible to make a alarm w/o having it reference the actual clock? I just wanta simple countdown from 30 mins to 0 triggered on binding a spirit :-P I thought this was what alarms where designed to do basicle.

Magician Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 358 Location: USA

If you want to just count down 30 minutes, yeah an #ALARM is appropriate. But all it will do is fire when time's up - you can't track how much time is remaining. The code I outlined above allows a gauge to keep track of how much time remains or has passed.

Novice Joined: 22 Apr 2011 Posts: 36 Location: Colorado

Out of curiosity, I remember way back when (atleast I think it was zmud) when zmud was able to make muiltiple tic timers. Any particular reason you cant do this in CMUD anymore?

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Zmud was never able to make multiple tick timers either.

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 9:32 am

Here's what I came up with, hoping you know how to use XML to add things.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

In essence, "#RAISE eventname" means "if there is an event named eventname, execute it." An event is somewhat like an alias, except that it runs in its own thread and you can have more than one with the same name. You could have a dozen events named onMinute, and when you execute "#RAISE onMinute" all of those events will run (as long as they are enabled). Each of those events can be enabled or disabled independently. If there are no enabled events with that name, nothing happens. This allows you to create modular code like Matt's. He could write that code before he ever decided that he needed something to run on the hour, or on the minute, etc. And whenever he comes up with something new he wants to run on the timer, he just creates a new event with the appropriate name.