Conceptualization

Big word ^_^

Well, it's what I do, conceptualize things that is, not just use big words though I tend to do that too when it fits. This time I've improved upon what many of us know as a timer.

Now of course it's still a timer and it really isn't that much improved. But if there's a common thing I've seen when setting a timer in a new toy its that each one works differently. Now I'm not expecting my release of this concept to revolutionize anything but it's a layout that allows people to include those things into their timer script with a fairly intuitive menu and concept.

By now I'm sure everyone knows of Timers favorite companion the AutoLock that evil little function that has you waiting (knowing or not knowing) that something is coming and you can't stop it.

It's a function found in my Slave Harness and Simplicity Cuffs along with the upcoming Pony Bridle. Now it's my nature to try and improve on my functions each time I write them and I was looking for a more convenient (and memory efficient) method of including an AutoLock into the Bridle.

And it dawned on me, as is the want of innovations, that why couldn't I just make it like a regular timer and if people add a delay it becomes an AutoLock? Thinking of it as a timer with a delay I tried to reason why I had done it as two separate functions in the past.

So anyway that's the first part of the concept. The second is brought on because of the limit of dialog buttons (12 per page) and my desire not to make more menus then I had to (a menu eats up a list which takes memory) but at the same time I was frustrated with only having 9 left after the control functions (Start / Clear / Back) which would give me an uneven distribution of values if I wanted to split them between positive and negative.

Now of course the Clear button is there for a reason, it resets the timer to 0; but I don't want people to have to do that just to take 10 minutes off of a timer so I wanted a couple minus values as options too. Well with the delay function in place taking up two more menu slots (Delay / Clear Delay) I had only 7 slots left to get a decent + and - group out of.

Well now here's where my OCD comes in, I didn't want to just have +10, 20, and 30 and then -10, 20 and 30. Can you imagine how annoying it'd be to set a 6 hour timer? Why not use bigger numbers? But then it's the same issue with lower length timers. My OCD wouldn't let me just use three spots for plus and minus.

So it used all six for plus and used slot number 7 still left over for a swap to minus. Making the menu look like this:

[+60 Min] [+3 Hr] [+12 Hr]
[+5 Min] [+10 Min] [+30 Min]
[Delay] [Clear Delay] [Minus]
[Start] [Clear] [Back]

What this shows is, to my mind, an efficient layout combined with enough function to satisfy long and short timers with long or short delays without the need to clear a timer just to remove a denotation of time as well as only using one list to generate the entire menu saving on memory using only two integers (beyond of course the integers storing the timer data itself) to determine if you're seeing delay or timer with positive or negative progression.

Keep in mind that this is a concept and not a finished script yet, I may even post it for you to use in your own products when it's done if it works well enough.