Should "dispatch" be extended for timers?

[Bob Sneidar]

You cannot dispatch in time. But you can send in time. If you:

send doSomething to me in 0 seconds
do someotherthingsfirst

then someotherthingsfirst will run and anything else that comes after it. doSomething will run the next idle message. 

Bob S


On Aug 27, 2014, at 07:46 , dunbarx at aol.com wrote:

> Richard.
> 
> 
> When you say "send" is blocking, in what way? Is this really any different that calling any handler? For example:
> 
> 
> on mouseUp
>  doSomething
> end mouseUp
> 
> 
> on MouseUp
>  send "doSomething" to this card
> end mouseUp
> 
> 
> Can you explain the difference?
> 
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Gaskin <ambassador at fourthworld.com>
> To: use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>
> Sent: Wed, Aug 27, 2014 10:18 am
> Subject: Re: Should "dispatch" be extended for timers?
> 
> 
> Peter Haworth wrote:
> 
>> Sounds like a great idea to me.  I seem to remember that one of
>> dispatch/send is blocking and the other isn't. Could that be a
>> possible reason for the lack of "in" with dispatch?
> 
> Both are blocking when called immediately; "send" can become on-blocking 
> by specifying a later time to send the message.
> 
> 
> dunbarx wrote:
> 
>> "Send' can, er, send parameters as well as a command. In a button
>> script:
>> 
>> on mouseUp
>>   send "putArg" && random(99) && random(99)  && "XYZ" to me in 5
>> end mouseUp
>> 
>> on putArg var
>>   put var
>> end putArg
>> 
>> You get pairs of random numbers and the text as well. All parameters
>> come across as a batch.
>> 
>> Or you can separate in the usual way:
>> on mouseUp
>>   send "putArg" && random(99) & "," & any char of "ABCD" to me in 5
>> end mouseUp
>> 
>> on putArg var,var2
>>   put var2 --or the first one or both
>> end putArg
> 
> Yes, both "send" and "dispatch" allow passing arguments, but as we saw 
> with yesterday's forum post it seems unintuitive to have to put quotes 
> around things that aren't strings, making "dispatch" feel more natural.
> 
> Of course in a certain Zen sort of way even variable names are 
> technically strings on some level, but having to quote them to pass them 
> with "send" is something I see a lot of newcomers guess wrong.
> 
> FWIW I submitted a request to have "dispatch" extended with "in" for timers:
> 
> <http://quality.runrev.com/show_bug.cgi?id=13287>
> 
> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin
>  Fourth World Systems
>  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
>  ____________________________________________________________________
>  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com
> 
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