2008-12-01, 14:25
Several times in the past, I have encountered situations that could have been resolved or at least significantly eased by the existence of a universal system state conditional that applies to all infolabels. Ahead of time, please forgive me if it isn't possible to implement anything like this without going through it all manually. However, it SEEMS like it should be possible, you just need to find the value of the infolabel name you state, and see whether it matches the value you state. I think this is easiest explained through example.
So, for this example, assume you want to show a certain texture in the skin only when the current weather state is Snow, snow-rain mix, or ice/rain-snow mix (obviously those aren't the correct names but you get the idea). It might go something like this:
<visible>Infolabel.Is(Weather.Conditions(Snow) | Weather.Conditions(Snow-Rain Mix) | Weather.Conditions(Ice/Rain-Snow Mix)</visible>
It seems like this would eliminate the need to separately add conditionals support for all the different system states or infolabels that exist and will exist in the future when people find a use for such and such a boolean.
This secondary part of the idea may not be so simple or possible as the the first part (i don't know), but to extend this further, for infolabels that would be numbers, some sort of less than greater than symbology could be useful, perhaps along the lines of condition(startnumber,endnumber) to specify the boundaries of when that condition would be true, and using the format hh:mm
s for times, and just integer values for non time values, such as number of items in a playlist or whatever. Leaving off the endtime parameter would mean anything equal to or greater than the number entered would come back as true. For less than, of course, you just make it as between 0 and whatever other number.
Another random example. Assume you wanted some sort of notification or image to appear when Videos of over 2 minutes in length had 30 seconds remaining and you weren't in full screen. It could look something like this:
<visible>Player.HasVideo + !VideoPlayer.IsFullscreen + Infolabel.Is(Player.Duration(00:02:00) + (Player.TimeRemaining(00:00:30,00:00:05)</visible>
Perhaps you guys wouldn't allow the connector (ie, +) symbols within the infolabel tag, not sure how you apply all that stuff. Anyway, I'm just trying to make things easier on you guys while expanding options for the skinners. It seems to me (the non-knowledgable's perspective!) that you could add a lot of functionality in one fell swoop while simultaneously avoiding many future feature requests and the need to make changes when such a conditional is deemed worthy.
Thanks for your time, in advance!
So, for this example, assume you want to show a certain texture in the skin only when the current weather state is Snow, snow-rain mix, or ice/rain-snow mix (obviously those aren't the correct names but you get the idea). It might go something like this:
<visible>Infolabel.Is(Weather.Conditions(Snow) | Weather.Conditions(Snow-Rain Mix) | Weather.Conditions(Ice/Rain-Snow Mix)</visible>
It seems like this would eliminate the need to separately add conditionals support for all the different system states or infolabels that exist and will exist in the future when people find a use for such and such a boolean.
This secondary part of the idea may not be so simple or possible as the the first part (i don't know), but to extend this further, for infolabels that would be numbers, some sort of less than greater than symbology could be useful, perhaps along the lines of condition(startnumber,endnumber) to specify the boundaries of when that condition would be true, and using the format hh:mm
s for times, and just integer values for non time values, such as number of items in a playlist or whatever. Leaving off the endtime parameter would mean anything equal to or greater than the number entered would come back as true. For less than, of course, you just make it as between 0 and whatever other number.Another random example. Assume you wanted some sort of notification or image to appear when Videos of over 2 minutes in length had 30 seconds remaining and you weren't in full screen. It could look something like this:
<visible>Player.HasVideo + !VideoPlayer.IsFullscreen + Infolabel.Is(Player.Duration(00:02:00) + (Player.TimeRemaining(00:00:30,00:00:05)</visible>
Perhaps you guys wouldn't allow the connector (ie, +) symbols within the infolabel tag, not sure how you apply all that stuff. Anyway, I'm just trying to make things easier on you guys while expanding options for the skinners. It seems to me (the non-knowledgable's perspective!) that you could add a lot of functionality in one fell swoop while simultaneously avoiding many future feature requests and the need to make changes when such a conditional is deemed worthy.
Thanks for your time, in advance!
. Anyway, your way (not surprisingly) is certainly much better and more concise.
And, will do.