Timer on iPhone, any solutions ?

[+jonny65]

Hey again. I've made several attempts with timers, intervall and countdown, but no chance to realize a periodically event on an iphone. All variations are working with other devices for example the phone ringing i have posted some weeks ago. Or in my current Wherigo i want to decrease the living energy of the player each minute. This works too on other devices but not on iphone. Someone who has an idea to make this work or is there no way with an iphone ?

Edited November 10, 2012 by jonny65

[Ranger Fox]

In what way does the iPhone Wherigo Player's timer not work? Is it with the countdown, interval, or both timers? Could you please provide a test cartridge to run that clearly demonstrates your problem? I can still add this to the list for Groundspeak if I know how to write it up and have a test case.

[+jonny65]

Hello Rangerfox, a file who demonstrates this i've posted in another thread some weeks ago.

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=301045&view=findpost&p=5115774

 

On iphone the phone rings only once a time. Now I think ALL events which periodically should fire an action doesn't work, but i need this for decreasing the living energy of the player after he was bitten by zombies

On all other devices this works...the phone ringing too (every 4 seconds)

[+jonny65]

No one in the world, who has an iphone with a Wherigo app ? If it's so, I can develope regardless of the peculiarity of an iphone

[Ranger Fox]

Oh. I need to remember to test this for you, don't I?

 

ZoMBieS wANt yoUR BRaIn...

[Ranger Fox]

I ran some tests. I had to rip the image and mp3 from the GWC in your zip file. I'm not familiar with FDL file header signatures, so I didn't do so well ripping that file. Please upload a zip containing all your cartridge's media. In the meantime, I need to set up a test cartridge of my own to figure out if I can make my iPhone's Wherigo Player make any sound at all.

 

Here's a fun little log about what I did:

• I noticed the zip was missing the media, but had the GWC.
  
• I reaffirmed the iPhone Wherigo Player will not download a GWC from any site but Wherigo.com. That's annoying. I should add it to the list of things for Groundspeak to fix.
  
• I had to rip the mp3, image, and FDL from the GWC. I know I did it properly for the mp3 and image, but have no clue if the FDL worked. The mp3 worked in the emulator, at least.
  
• After uploading it to the site, I was able to download the cartridge to the iPhone (I did not want to mess with iTunes). No, the sounds would not play.
  
• For kicks and giggles, I downloaded it to the Colorado I have. Nothing would work there, either. I loaded the original GWC and it would not play a sound. And that's when I realized that the muting I put on the profile I use for geocaching will prevent the Wherigo Player from making a sound, too. So, anyway, the original GWC's sounds worked and the FDL I tried extracting only made one sound and that's all (considering I'm not familiar with the FDL's file header, that's understandable I failed on the first try).
  

[Ranger Fox]

I began constructing my own cartridge to test. Anyone interested in checking over my work can download it from the cartridge listing. You can import it into Urwigo if you'd like; I created it with Groundspeak's Builder because I'm more comfortable with its lua output when I have to edit the code directly.

 

For this cartridge, I created several phones as an experiment. First off, I used a different mp3 because I didn't want to trust an mp3 I ripped out of the other cartridge. For some reason, I have the batphone mp3 in my sound archives... So that's the sound I used.

 

Batphone - This phone simply plays the sound once. It works on the iPhone.

Telefon 1 - This is what jonny65 wants. It will show a message to the player, then start the timer. This does not work on the iPhone.

Telefon 2 - This will start the ringing timer and a one second timer to display a message. No matter if I display the message on the second timeer's tick or start event, the sound will not play. I also tried reversing the order the timers were started, but didn't have any luck.

Telefon 3 - This one starts the ring timer and that's it. The sound does play.

Telefon 4 - This one only displays a message. I was wondering if the iPhone won't play a sound if a message box is displayed, so I created this one to call after I called telefon 3. The sound does play.

Telefon 5 - This uses a timer that plays the sound on start instead of on tick. It first starts the message timer, then the on start sound timer. It plays the sound one time and stops. I do not know if the interval timer stops as well.

Telefon 6 - This uses a countdown timer to start the ringing. When the timer ticks, it plays the sound and starts itself again. I am also using the timer to display the message. Once again, the iPhone does not play a sound.

Telefon 7 - Instead of using a timer to display a message box, I display it after starting telefon 6's countdown timer. This does not work as well.

 

At the moment, I still can't come up with a workaround for you. It is clearly a bug with the iPhone Wherigo Player. Looks like something else to report to Groundspeak on Friday.

 

By the way, the cartridge I was using for testing is here, if anyone else with an iPhone wants to give it a try.

[+jonny65]

Thanks Ranger Fox, it seems we need more iphone tester

Here a link to an extended version with all files included.

 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80251747/iphone2.zip (feel free to change it, its opensource )

 

There are some other things built in :

LocSystem : When approaching the reference point, the 2 cones should move and finally touch together.

 

3 Bombs : Here is the problem, whether the sound synchronizes to the countdown and changing the picture. This may demonstrate that 1 timer tick on an iphone is 2 seconds long.

This would mean, you must differ, if you plan a competition such as "if device=iphone then timer.duration=30 else timer.duration=60"

 

Energy : Thats the thing I want to realize in my cartridge. This works on all devices, on iphone I think not.

Player enters a zone and a zombie bites him As long he stays in the zone he will be bitten every 10 seconds. When he leave the timer stopps, if he enters again, the timer starts again.

And : The lost energy will be shown in a message and in the item description.

 

You can change the coordinates of the zone and reference point (in front of your house) so that it fits.

 

Because the interval timer (ringing) on an iphone does not work correctly, i think no event will work correctly.

[+MightyReek]

Well, since my last post I bought an iPhone for myself so that I can test the cartridges on my own, instead of asking my ill-humoured sister...

As soon as I finish some projects I'm involved right now, I'll try to return on this issue (at least to learn something more and get new ideas from you guys).

[+MightyReek]

Energy : Thats the thing I want to realize in my cartridge. This works on all devices, on iphone I think not.

Player enters a zone and a zombie bites him As long he stays in the zone he will be bitten every 10 seconds. When he leave the timer stopps, if he enters again, the timer starts again.

And : The lost energy will be shown in a message and in the item description.

 

I've recently learned that a timer I have in a cartridge is working on iPhones.

It's a 10 seconds interval timer. On elapse adds +1 to a variable.

[+spstanley]

Timers don't work? That's odd. I'll try the test cartridges and see what's up.