Animation + "button"

[nflavour]

Hi!
I am working something for school, and i am doing a short animation, which is make a word flash and change colour.
The animation should go on forever until i click on a button.
But I use all the buttonwait, and mousewhere and stuff, they won't work, since the animation runs forever.
So, if i put the button before the animation loop, buttonwait, or mousewhere would stop.
If i put it in the loop, it will stop to wait for the button when i use buttonwait, and mousewhere would only respond once a while, as it takes time for the animation to run.
If i put it at the end, it won't get the buttons, becuase the loop never ends.
I try to use GUI, but i can't exit the animation loop with it...
Anyone got any idea on how i should do the animation and the button together?
or Do I have to delete the animation for the button to work.
Here is my animation code

Turing:

var tcolor:int:=0 var height:int:=130 const STRING:="SOMETHING" const FONT:=Font.New ("Arial:13:bold") const DELAY:=150 loop    tcolor += 1     for i : 1 .. length (STRING)         Font.Draw (STRING (i), 610, height, FONT, tcolor)         delay (DELAY)         height -= 15     end for     height := 130     for i : 1 .. length (STRING)         Font.Draw (STRING (i), 610, height, FONT, 0)         height -= 15     end for     height := 130     if tcolor = 255 then         tcolor := 0     end if end loop

[Tony]

use a single loop (no for-loops), Mouse.Where, and no delays. You want Mouse.Where to run together with the animation in the same loop, but it's not going to work during the delays.

[nflavour]

Tony @ Tue Jan 06, 2009 4:51 pm wrote:

use a single loop (no for-loops), Mouse.Where, and no delays. You want Mouse.Where to run together with the animation in the same loop, but it's not going to work during the delays.

Well, is there a way for me to not change the loops or the delays and have a working button?
This is the best i can do:

Turing:

var tcolor : int := 1 var height : int := 130 var i : int := 1 const STRING := "SOMETHING" const FONT := Font.New ("Arial:13:bold") const DELAY := 150 var x, y, button : int Draw.FillBox (150, 150, 200, 200, black) loop     if height = 130 - 15 * length (STRING) then         height := 130     end if     if tcolor > 255 then         tcolor := 1     end if     if i > length (STRING) then         i := 1     end if     Font.Draw (STRING (i), 610, height, FONT, tcolor)     delay (100)     i += 1     height -= 15     tcolor += 1     Mouse.Where (x, y, button)     exit when x > 150 and x < 200 and y > 150 and y < 200 and button = 1 end loop

i made the delay less, and check Mousewhere everytime it runs, since it doesn't have a for loop. But sometimes it would work, cuz it miss the moment when it does the Mouse.Where

[TheGuardian001]

you really shouldn't have a delay if you want this to work. The problem with having a delay is that the user is still able to click the mouse while the program is waiting, and the click won't be registered.
If you need the delay due to flickering, I would advise you to look into View.Update and "offscreenonly" mode for View.Set, although I'm not sure that would work since you draw each letter individually... it would probably screw that up

[nflavour]

TheGuardian001 @ Tue Jan 06, 2009 6:31 pm wrote:

you really shouldn't have a delay if you want this to work. The problem with having a delay is that the user is still able to click the mouse while the program is waiting, and the click won't be registered.
If you need the delay due to flickering, I would advise you to look into View.Update and "offscreenonly" mode for View.Set, although I'm not sure that would work since you draw each letter individually... it would probably screw that up

Is there a way to do my animation without drawing each letter individually then?

[andrew.]

If you want to do it with a delay without using the command "delay (DELAY", you could check the time and mod it by 100 (your delay).

e.g. Instead of putting:

code:

Font.Draw (whatever) delay (150)

You can put something along the lines of:

code:

if Time.Elapsed mod 150 = 0 then     Font.Draw (whatever) end if

What this does is that it checks how long the program has been running for in milliseconds and modulus it by 150 (divide it and return the remainder). If the time modulus 150 is 0, meaning it divides into 150 evenly, then it will do Font.Draw (whatever).

[Tony]

instead of

code:

delay (100) i += 1

you could use

code:

delay(1) i += 0.01

[Tony]

andrew. @ Tue Jan 06, 2009 9:19 pm wrote:

running for in milliseconds and modulus it by 150

you are expecting that line to be executed during an exact millisecond, which might not always be the case.