$TimeQueued issue

[MattRutter]

R9.0.4 VM Pro.... I'm trying to compare $TimeQueued several times, to make a decision on which message to play....
$TimeQueued<30 Play Msg A
$TimeQueued<60 Play Msg B
$TimeQueued<90 Play Msg C etc....

It always falls right through the filters....

As part of debugging, I put in a generic action to speak $TimeQueued on each pass.... Strangely this only works if it's written $TimeQueued and NOT $TIMEQUEUED....

I've tried this substitution in my conditions, but to no avail!


Any thoughts?

Matt

 

[intrigrant]

Put 30 in a user var as $CP0, 60 in $CP1 etc and try $TimeQueued<=$CP0

 

[Gunnaro]

$TimeQueued is just a time stamp, not a counter.
Compared against current time, it gives the difference.
As a prompt it's useless.

Solved this about a week ago for a fellow member in the same situation as you:
thread940-1743032

You find everything you need there

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[MattRutter]

Intrigrant... I tried using user variables, but with the same result....

Gunnaro... I was just playing $TimeQueued as a debugging aid... If I ask it to play $TIMEQUEUED it plays the time of day!
If I ask it to play $TimeQueued it works properly.. it's good for diagnaosis as it tells me quite accurately how long my loop time is....

It seems the VM is looking up this variable wrongly depending on how it's capitalised!

 

[Gunnaro]

I ran some tests on my system the other day, $TIMEQUEUED and $TimeQueued makes no difference on my R9.1

On IPO
"HG 400", First Announcement On, repeat every 5 sec.

In VMPro:
HG 400 Queued-> Start point / Generic Action: Free format-> CP0:$TIMEQUEUED / Speak text Action: $CP0

You got it working then?

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[MattRutter]

Yes.. that works for me too....

If I use $TIMEQUEUED as an entry prompt, it says the current time of day...
If I use $TimeQueued an an entry prompt, it gives me the time I've been queuing..

If I use a generic command to set $CP0 to $TimeQueued OR $TIMEQUEUED, and then a Speak Text action to read $CP0, it gives me the time I've been queuing....

I'm still stuck with the issue of using $TimeQueued in a Condition... which still doesn't work!

Matt

 

[Gunnaro]

Tell me, did you upgrade the IPO from R9.0 or lower? Or was it a clean install from scratch?
(There is a difference)

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[MattRutter]

Completely fresh install.... at 9.0.4....

 

[Gunnaro]

Sorry, I had my mind set on R9.1.

This works just fine on R8.1, R9.0 and R9.1. (I just ran a test on all of them)

Export the conditions and post them here.


Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[MattRutter]

I've actually found a MUCH better way of doing the job without using conditions at all.....

My new call flow is as follows:

Start
Generic - $CP0=$TimeQueued
Generic - $CP1=$CP0/18 (18 is my queue's total loop time - 15 seconds set in the IPO, plus 3 seconds of message)
Generic - $CP2=$CP1%3 (Modulo.. gives you the remainder when divided by 3... will only ever equal 0,1 or 2 (I want 3 messages on rotation))

Test Variable $CP2 = 0 (Yes, play message 1, No, goto next step)
Test Variable $CP2 = 1 (Yes, play message 2, No, goto next setp)
Generic - Play message 3

This does make an obvious assumption... namely that all three of my messages are of very similar length!

 

[Gunnaro]

You made conditions from scratch then

And yes, the Modulus will make it rotate on 3, but it takes some fine tuning before working perfectly.

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[MattRutter]

Yes Gunnar... It does take some tuning!!! I have three messages on rotation, of different lengths... I'm using the average time in the maths, and occasionally it plays them out of order....

If they were identical in length, they'd always rotate properly!

Still, Customer seems happy!

 

[Gunnaro]

Customer happy => Mission Accomplished

But will it work if Announcements are synchronized? Hmmm...



Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

 

[RINGINnBLINGIN]

this is really cool. other than nerding out to my fellow coworkers, what scenario would this be needed?

 

[Gunnaro]

If you have 3 promos going, and you really want to tell your customers about them, but not in one blow.
Let's say a car dealer selling Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini. They don't want those ads tucked in together.

Other than that, making ridiculous VMPro modules is a good brain exercise

Kind regards

Gunnar
______________________________________
Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam