New/Edit Event Screen

 

This screen, called from the events screen, allows you to create a new text event or edit attributes of an existing one.  The details of each event attribute are defined below.

 

New/Edit Event Screen Elements

 

 

New Event Text Field

Enter the event text here.  Let’s say you wanted to do something whenever you saw the text “hey there” come across your screen.  You would then put the text “hey there” in this field.  Events can be a maximum length of 60 characters.  Each * you enter in this field will be used to populate a variable.  If you entered “* tells you” as the event text, this tells the program “I want whatever appears in place of that * to populate the variable I choose.”  The variable will be populated by whatever appears, be it “Bob” “Barry” etc.  Here’s a couple points to remember about *’s in event text.

 

·         *’s can be placed anywhere in the event text

·         Double *’s (**) are not allowed in the event text

·         Each * will require a corresponding Portal© variable to populate

·         A * at the beginning of the event text will return only the first complete word preceding the event text

·         A * at the end of the event text will return the entire string of text to the end of that line, even if it contains many words.  If you only want the first word following the event text, leave an extra space after the *

 

Note: You can also use the ^ character as the first character in the event to indicate that you only want the event to fire off if it is located at the beginning of the line.  That means that if you had the event "You say" it would fire anytime it appeared in any line.  If the event was "^You say" instead, it will only fire if the "Y" in "You" is the first character in the line.

 

Variables to be Populated by *'s in the Event Text

This read-only field displays the variables to be populated, in order shown, by the *’s in the event text.  To change the variable population, press the @ button or click in this field.

 

@ Button

Press this button to designate what variables get populated and where by stars in the event text.  This brings up the Select Variable screen, which has its own help file.  Please refer to that for help on selecting what variables to populate for the event.

 

Group Field

Selects the group the event will be placed into.

 

Attach a Sound to This Event Button (small loudspeaker icon)

This allows you to assign any .WAV file anywhere on your computer to the event.  Once you select one, that sound will play when the associated event text comes across on the display.

 

Sound Field

The name of the .WAV file for any associated sound file will appear here.  If there is no sound file associated, this field will be blank.  If you pass your cursor over this field while there is a sound file attached, the full path of the sound file will appear in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

 

Play Sound Button (musical notes icon)

If you have any sound file assigned, pressing this button will play it.

 

Clear Sound Button (small loudspeaker w/eraser icon)

Pressing this button will clear any sound attached to the event.

 

Event Text

The Event Text Button allows you to choose the color the event text will appear in.  You can choose any foreground and background colors you desire.  The entire event text will be colored accordingly when it comes across the display.  This will help you identify when exactly some events are occurring.

 

If you check off the Original Checkbox, the event text will appear in the original color as it comes across from the MUD.

 

Case Checkbox

If this box is checked, events will check to make sure the character case of the display text exactly matches that of the event text.  For example, if the event text is “hello” and this checkbox is checked, the event will fire only when it sees “hello” (all lowercase).  If this box is not checked the event will fire on hello, Hello, HELLO, hElLo, etc.

 

Filtered Checkbox

This box determines whether or not the event is "filtered" or not displayed on the main screen when it comes across.  The Retain checkbox determines whether or not the text is retained for later viewing in the system messages screen or simply tossed away.

 

Note: You can only filter events that don't use any variables (*'s).

 

Terminal Checkbox

This box determines whether or not the event is labeled as “terminal.”  You would set an event as terminal when you want to stop other events from firing if that event fires.  Please see the section below for more information on Terminal Events.

 

Disabled Checkbox

If this box is checked, the individual event will be disabled and not used.  Disabled events will appear in the Events Grid italicized, and in silver text.  You can also disable/enable events by right clicking on them in the Events Grid.

 

Create New Button (only appears when creating a new event)

Creates the new event.

 

Create New Event/Save Button (only appears when editing an existing event)

Saves changes made to the edited event.

 
Discussing Terminal Events & Terminal Order

 

Terminal events allow you to instruct Portal© that “if this event occurs, don’t fire off any events after it.”  The Terminal Order determines which events are defined as “after it.”

 

The Terminal Order is the order in which events are displayed in the Events Grid.  An event in the grid is considered “before” the events below it.  If an event is marked as terminal, and that event fires in a line, all events “after” it in the Terminal Order will not fire.  All events “before” it, however, will behave normally.

 

The Terminal Order of a specific event is local to the group that event is a member of (the BASE group, for example).  The Group Terminal Order is specified in the Setup Groups screen and determines which group’s events will be checked first.

 

If a terminal event fires, NO other events below it will fire.  This includes all events in all groups after the group in which the terminal event resides.  For example, if you listed the BASE group before the TEST group, and the BASE group had a terminal event that fired, not only would the events below it in the BASE group not fire, but no events at all in the TEST group will fire either.

 

Example

 

Group              Event                           Command

BASE               hits you very hard           ;process @veryhard++

BASE               hits you hard                 ;process @hitshard++

BASE               hits you                         ;process @hitsyou++

 

Without terminal events, if the text “hits you very hard” comes across, it would increment @veryhard AND @hitsyou.  You wouldn’t want this to happen as you only want to increment @veryhard.  To accommodate this, you would mark the 1st event as terminal, leaving all events in the order you see above.  This means when the “hits you very hard” text comes across, you have told the system “Don’t process anymore!”