if-then-never

[rnzone]

With 40yrs of programming I will not belabor the point that "else" logic is a requirement for tight code. Trying to figure out how to use the events GUI to toggle a z-wave door lock from a manual trigger has been frustrating.

I have looked everywhere on this forum and I even RTFM.

What does "never" do?
Thanks
Rod

[cerjzc]

I think this has come up a few times. After a quick search this is one of the posts on it.

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=163818

Jeff

[Uncle Michael]

FWIW, one way to use events to accomplish if-then-else logic is with three events.
- The first event triggers the other two, checking their conditions.
- One of those events has the If conditions.
- The other has the inverse conditions.

The approach can be extended to simulate select-case logic as well.

The biggest drawback I've found is that the 'else' event conditions can be a challenge to craft in some cases.

A script is usually much easier to construct and maintain.

[sparkman]

With 40yrs of programming I will not belabor the point that "else" logic is a requirement for tight code. Trying to figure out how to use the events GUI to toggle a z-wave door lock from a manual trigger has been frustrating.

I have looked everywhere on this forum and I even RTFM.

The "lack" of Else has been discussed many times before. As an example:

If Light Changes to ON
Then Do Something
Else Do Something else

In this case the Else would continually trigger if Light was Off. If it was available like that, it would get a lot of people in trouble with events triggering over and over again. Therefore HST set it up so that you would have to use a second event to accomplish the Else piece. It's there, just a different way of doing it.

Cheers
Al

[randy]

As Jeff posted, "never" is a means of disabling an action without removing it from an event for the purposes of testing, troubleshooting or temporarily altering an event.

As Al said, it would be pointless to have an else on a trigger. Since a trigger is a "moment in time", an else on a trigger would always be true if not at that moment in time. It is useful and possible to have an else on actions.

Say you would like to:
At sunset
If the house is occupied turn the Driveway lights on and the front entry lights off
Else turn the front entry lights on and the driveway lights off.


This can be done easily by nesting events as in the screenshot below. The first event is the sunset trigger, the second event is the "if" and the third is the "else".

Edit: I missed Uncle Michael's reply, saying exactly what I posted. Sorry for the redundancy, but now there are pictures
.

[happnatious1]

With 40yrs of programming I will not belabor the point that "else" logic is a requirement for tight code. Trying to figure out how to use the events GUI to toggle a z-wave door lock from a manual trigger has been frustrating.

I have looked everywhere on this forum and I even RTFM.

What does "never" do?
Thanks
Rod

I can't for the life of me think why you would ever want a toggle a door lock in an event.

[rnzone]

haapnatious - I can't understand why you want a red car. Your comment is not productive. But, thanks for reading my post.

I have 258 HS devices configured. I might be doing something outside the box. I am migrating from HAI, and Castle to HS.

I have a HStouch icon that shows the state of the z-wave door on my home screen. If i want it flipped (locked or unlocked) i simply press the status image. I can instantly see the door status and change it with a press.

rprade - Thanks for the clarification "never". Yes, I absolutely want to execute based on a moment in time since my trigger variable is the variable that I am going to change. Now I need to register my variable/ create pointer so I can track it through the stack.

Also found out z-wave is not 999.99 and the instant status was imperative.

I reverted to a lame hack to get this to work within the GUI.
Screens attached.

Thank you all for the prompt and helpful responses.
Rod

[rnzone]

I was actually sincere when I stated -
"Thank you all for the prompt and helpful responses."

I started off with the red car and it probably sent the wrong tone via text.
I am sure that within the 1000 posts there are some gems in there.

I purchased the product a couple of weeks ago and I appreciate the assistance.

My interpretive code is a hack and if anyone has another solution I would love to see it.

Peace -
rod

[randy]

I was actually sincere when I stated -
"Thank you all for the prompt and helpful responses."

I started off with the red car and it probably sent the wrong tone via text.
I am sure that within the 1000 posts there are some gems in there.

I purchased the product a couple of weeks ago and I appreciate the assistance.

My interpretive code is a hack and if anyone has another solution I would love to see it.

Peace -
rod

I understand, it can get frustrating during the learning curve. If you could post exactly what you want to do, I'm sure one of us could get you pointed in the right direction.

[sparkman]

Hi Rod,

I took a look at your PDF and not sure what the counter is intended to be used for. There should be no need to a counter for a toggle function, just the current state of the lock should be sufficient. It looks like you're on the right track, but should be able to simplify:

Event 1. Manually triggered and called by your HS Touch button. Actions are to run Events 2 and 3, respecting their conditions.

Event 2. Manually triggered with a condition of the door being unlocked. Action is to lock the door.

Event 3. Manually triggered with a condition of the door being locked. Action is to unlock the door.

Cheers
Al

[sparkman]

An alternate approach is to use a single event and a script. Here's a script I use to toggle lights on/off:

Sub Main(ByVal theDevice As String)
	' Toggle the Specified Device ON/OFF
	' DIM is considered ON
	' Specify the Device ID as the Parameter
	Dim devValue As Double

	' Get the Device Status
	devValue = hs.DeviceValue(theDevice)
	' Toggle it
	Select Case devValue
		Case Is > 0
		' Device ON or DIM, turn it OFF
		hs.CAPIControlHandler(hs.CAPIGetSingleControl(theDevice,true ,"off",false,true))
		Case 0
		' Device OFF, turn it ON
		hs.CAPIControlHandler(hs.CAPIGetSingleControl(theDevice,true ,"on",false,true))
	End Select
End Sub

It could easily be modified to control a lock (by changing the "on" and "off" strings to the correct strings for the lock "lock" and "unlock").

Cheers
Al

[sirmeili]

I think Al has perhaps the best approach with the Script, but if you want to do it purely with events, I believe this will do what you want (image attached).

[rnzone]

Thanks sparkman - given the lackadaisical documentation on the basics of system I am not ready to jump into scripting. Once I get the basics working I will be balz deep in coding.

I tried that yesterday sirmeili and the log file showed 'toggle lock' executed 3 consecutive, looping, times and the last to run event was always true hence i used the counter to track it. Maybe I did something wrong on my first pass at it. I will try it again.

[sirmeili]

Thanks sparkman - given the lackadaisical documentation on the basics of system I am not ready to jump into scripting. Once I get the basics working I will be balz deep in coding.

I tried that yesterday sirmeili and the log file showed 'toggle lock' executed 3 consecutive, looping, times and the last to run event was always true hence i used the counter to track it. Maybe I did something wrong on my first pass at it. I will try it again.

Now that I think of it, yes, it will cause issues. it will run one than the other so it will either lock -> unlock or just unlock

Let me ponder on it.

[sirmeili]

Ok, so I haven't tested this, but see if this works.


Delay the first one by 1 second. If the second one goes through, cancel the delay of the first one.. .otherwise the first one will still run 1 second later. I've attached an image. Perhaps someone can tell me if this is crazy or genius! LOL

I've attached an image of the modified events (i've circled my changes).

Edit: note that Al's script will simplify this greatly. I will see if I can modify the script to work with a lock.