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DonationCoder.com Software => Mouser's Zone => PBOL => Topic started by: Deozaan on April 19, 2020, 02:35 AM

Title: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 19, 2020, 02:35 AM
So, I'm doing my thing, crunching away at Ludum Dare, and I notice my PBOL says this:

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2 days 189 minutes? Not 2 days and 3 hours? Okaayyy then... :tellme:

I give it some serious side-eye but I'm busy working on the game jam, so I snap a screenshot and let it slide for the time being. A while later, I notice it's about 20 minutes away from being a full 24 hours since LD46 began (meaning I should have about 2 days 20 minutes remaining), but now it looks like this:

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Uh... what? :huh:

First of all, why is it telling me I have 189 minutes remaining and not showing hours? Second of all, why, when I'm finally at a point where showing me minutes remaining makes sense, does it totally omit the minutes and just round to 2 days? :-\

PBOL is weird.




But I still like it. :D
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on April 19, 2020, 06:43 PM
 :-* :P

I have to look into it -- it's been so long since I worked on PBOL.
It sounds like its messing up on the hours display.. Does it *ever* tell you you have X days and Y hours?
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on April 19, 2020, 06:43 PM
Maybe PBOL is just trying to keep you on your toes and show you new and creative ways to think about the passage of time..
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 20, 2020, 10:45 PM
Does it *ever* tell you you have X days and Y hours?
-mouser (April 19, 2020, 06:43 PM)

Yes. It was showing hours until about 2 days and 4-5 hours remained. I'm not sure exactly when it made the switch. But I noticed it had changed from hours to minutes when it was close to (but higher than) the 3 hours remaining mark.

Here's another weird one I noticed earlier today:

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Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 21, 2020, 01:47 AM
I just created a timelapse from the screenshots I took and I see PBOL went from 2 days 4 hours remaining to 2 days 239 minutes remaining. Then it went from 2 days 60 minutes remaining to 2 days remaining.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on April 21, 2020, 04:40 AM
I'm looking at the code now.. Can you post me a screenshot of your options for the bar that say how many words of detail to show, etc.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on April 21, 2020, 05:11 AM
Try new version:

Btw you'll find a menu option under help that will write a 2mb file of sample countdown times, to help diagnose if anything still seems weird.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: cranioscopical on April 21, 2020, 08:15 AM
Maybe PBOL is just trying to keep you on your toes and show you new and creative ways to think about the passage of time..
-mouser (April 19, 2020, 06:43 PM)
Or, perhaps he's using a second-hand copy.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 21, 2020, 02:40 PM
I'm looking at the code now.. Can you post me a screenshot of your options for the bar that say how many words of detail to show, etc.
-mouser (April 21, 2020, 04:40 AM)

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I haven't tried the new version yet. I'll test it out momentarily.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 21, 2020, 02:51 PM
The new version seems to still have the wrong display.

If you scroll down to about line 41,764 in the text file, you'll see some of the strange entries.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 21, 2020, 04:08 PM
And another weird one:

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Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 21, 2020, 04:19 PM
Basically, I think it should never show me the next lower unit of measurement while the larger one is greater than 0. So "24 weeks 3 days" is sufficient precision. Or "2 days 3 hours" But if it's 2 days 0 hours 45 minutes, it should just show 2 days 45 minutes.

I also just noticed it is showing "wks" and "hrs" which is how it's configured to display while docked. But it's currently a floating window, which I have configured to spell out the whole words and not abbreviate them. It makes me wonder which other settings aren't working properly. :-\
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on April 21, 2020, 04:27 PM
Uploaded new version, see if it fixed that.  I also see it was reversing when it used the docked vs undocked option for word abbreviations, hopefully that is fixed too.

Note that it will still do a non-intuitive switch when you get very near the end and only have a single value showing:
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That is by design to give you higher precision as you near the final end time.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on April 21, 2020, 07:30 PM
Note that it will still do a non-intuitive switch when you get very near the end and only have a single value showing:
-mouser (April 21, 2020, 04:27 PM)

Seems a little weird to me. Personally I think anything over two to possibly as much as three hours (120-180 minutes) is too far into the future to think about in terms of minutes. But I always show at least 2 values in the settings, so I won't be affected by that bit of weirdness. :D

The new version appears to fix the precision issue. Thanks!

While I've got you working on this... how about that third docking option (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=41732.0) or my alternative "minimal view" suggestion (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=45425.msg437756#msg437756)? And it's probably a good idea to update the menu options with the correct links to the homepage and forum section. :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on April 22, 2020, 05:45 AM
Glad to hear it's working.
I'll have a look at your docking idea.
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: dnm on May 20, 2020, 12:24 AM
Hi Mouser!

Just happened to be tinkering with PBOL recently, noticed some possibly odd behavior, and saw this thread with a new beta version. Tried the 2.07.00 beta, but still seem to be seeing the same thing, which is where the right edge of the bars always seems to extend past the right edge of the window, regardless of size, when I have captions on the left and "Full width bar panels (one per row)" selected for "Sizing". (Also have "Equalize widths" checked). Important to point out that if I switch captions to the right, no problem.

I can't recall exactly, and haven't yet tested (but will), but I don't think from a fresh (portable) install this was happening, I think it's only after I started adjusting appearance settings and trying out other skins. But not 100% sure. Will try with a fresh copy and see what happens.

Captions: Left
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Captions: Right
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Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: mouser on July 12, 2020, 10:35 PM
See if you can figure out what custom sizing/font option is causing that..
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on October 03, 2020, 03:06 PM
I noticed again some weird precision. It seems it rounds values to the nearest whole, so if there's 2 days, 23 hours, and 31+ minutes left, it will display as 2 days 24 hours remaining.

Perhaps it should always round down?
Title: Re: Weird precision (or lack thereof) in time remaining displayed
Post by: Deozaan on December 05, 2020, 06:10 PM
More weirdness:

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Here are my settings:

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Do a search in the WordTest.txt for things that don't make sense, such as "24 hours" or "60 minutes" and you will see plenty of results:
534 matches for "24 hours"
102 matches for "60 minutes"