WM3 Time Words[]
Wall Manager has always had some interesting time selections, passed down from its infantcy as FVWM. Those time formats used words to define time settings instead of numbers, and/or allowed randomized time ranges you could select.
With the new rules manager option "setHostOption", which was added in WM3b19, you can now alter time related options from outside the options menu. To make use of that function, and to change those word-type time values, you need a list of what WM can understand. Here is a list of the original time words:
- "off" = turned off, for those options that allow turning something off completely
- "tenth" = 6 seconds
*"sixth" = 10 seconds
*"half" = 30 seconds
- "one" = 1 minute
*"two" = 2 minutes
*"three" = 3 minutes
*"four"
*"five"
*"ten"
- "fifteen"
"thirty"
- "hour"
*"2hour"
*"3hour"
*"4hour"
*"8hour"
*"12hour"
*"18hour"
*"24hour"
*"32hour"
*"48hour"
- "30s2m" = a random number between 30 seconds and 2 minutes
*"2m5m" = random from 2min to 5min
*"5m10m"
Until recently, that is all WM could understand and make use of in the options menu time dropdowns. However, WM now has three more input formats for word-time.
WM Time Formats[]
U Time[]
U time format is an exact count of milliseconds (1000 seconds). If you have an option that requires a delay, such as oldinterval or newinterval (fetch older posts and fetch new posts respectively), you need to use either the words above, or try these time formats.
Lets say you want to set your newinterval to a delay of 5 minutes in U format. You would do the following:
- set your rule's action to "Set Host Option", first parameter "newinterval"
- your second parameter would be "u:300000": (5 minutes * 60 seconds/minute * 1000 milliseconds/second)
So after 300000 milliseconds, WM will get you some new posts. You will also see the option change reflected in your options menu listing.
S Time[]
S time format is exactly like U time, except that its in seconds. WM multiplies by 1000 for you. See U Time above for details. The format is "s:300" for 300 second delay, or 5 minutes.
T Time[]
T time format takes a colon (:) delimited list of time segments, in the format of ##d:##h:##m:##s, days, hours, minutes, and seconds respectively. To make use of the format, simply specify "t:1d:8h" for a time of 1 day and 8 hours. WM will calculate the number for you internally.
T time format can take any combination of the four time increments, meaning you can omit the day portion, or just use one of the four parts, like "t:30s" to set a 30 second interval.
I suggest you make sure you do not have two of any of the time increment types in your entry. For example: "t:3d:2h:1d" which is an attempt at 3 days and 2 hours with an accidental 1 day at the end, will still come up 3 days and 2 hours because WM reads only the first instance of any of the increment types.
T time format can be entered in any order. You can put seconds first, or day first, it does not matter.
Notes[]
Just to be clear, this time format only works on specific WM3 options values. If you switch back to WM2, these options wont work. As of WM3b26, you can use these time formats to create intervals or timers on WM3 rules manager rules, in addition to just entering number values.
As of the time of writing, these are the only host options that accept time words:
- newinterval = fetch newer posts delay
- oldinterval = fetch older posts delay
- maxinterval = how old is too old
- cleaninterval = the finished/unwanted post wiper interval
Some versions of firefox, or special settings in your about:config, will confine timers and intervals to a minimum of 1 second. If you set your option lower than 1 second and notice it is slow, if less than one second is really what you need, research this topic on mozilla.com or use google to look for ways to get around this issue.
If you use timers that are less than 6 seconds, just remember you are asking for a lot of data from facebook and/or making a lot of requests. I highly suggest using 6 seconds or more for any reason, which is why the smallest value in the options menu dropdowns was 6 seconds.