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Hourglass Timer

one aspect of many games I've played is an actual timer (not a turn tracker).  In support of Roll20's generic nature (and because the game I wanna play requires it :) )  I'm suggesting an hourglass tool. Thanks!
1367703234
Pierre S.
Pro
Translator
What do you mean exactly?    (Spoken on Turn 8 of 393.18.54 Galactic Standard Time   --STAR FRONTIERS)
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Pat S.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
If I understand it, he wants an actually timer. The GM activates the timer and sets it for 15 minutes which starts to count down. When you make a chat post or something like a dice roll and you declare your turn over, it resets for the next person. If for some reason you don't make your post in the allowed time, it declares your time is up and probably asks for the next player which it starts to count down again.  That is if I understand what he is suggesting.
Yup, I mean the GM can activate a timer to simulate one of those hourglasses you find in board games.  It's a common generic piece of many games.  Not often used in roleplaying games to be sure, but in a lot of board games. An example... Pictionary.  Each team of players is given a set amount of time in their turn to draw and guess.  We have all the needed tools in Roll20 to facilitate such a game.. Except for a timer.
+1
1367975121
Pat S.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
so it is just a countdown timer. set it for so many minutes and let it fly. someone might make an api script for it or maybe the devs will look into it.
1367977737
Konrad J.
Pro
API Scripter
Metroknight said: so it is just a countdown timer. set it for so many minutes and let it fly. someone might make an api script for it or maybe the devs will look into it. Yes its actually very easy to do in the API.  Except we don't at the moment have any way to create popups, graphics, etc. I just wrote a really simple timer up right now, just a few lines of code.  Not sure how exactly accurate the timing is, but 15 seconds seemed to be about 15 seconds.  You type the command !t 15 into the chat command and 15 seconds later "Times Up!!!" appears in the chat window.  And while writing this post I just had an idea to make it even better.  You could have a big stop sign graphic on the gmlayer.  When the time is up the script changes the stop sign to the map layer and bingo everyone sees a big stop.  I've even got a few more ideas as I'm writing this. ;) If you have any ideas on features of the timer besides just a stopwatch please let me know and I'll add them.  I think the OP was not a mentor so you probably don't have access to the API so you couldn't use the script, but if you do become a mentor or anyone wants the script just let me know and I'll post it.  Need to do some work on it first, its not even in beta form. :)  its only a few ticks of the clock old. I just thought of a better way to do it.  You have a graphic of a stop watch.  the first bar is minutes the second is seconds. :)  you type them in and then perhaps set a condition?  When the times up it appears in the chat and sets the stop watch to the "X" condition?  Just some thoughts.  Not hard to do.
1367981217
Pat S.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
See someone tossed an api script together in a matter of minutes.
1368005343
Konrad J.
Pro
API Scripter
Someone was asking for a timer so they can play things like pictionary, etc. &nbsp;So I thought about it a bit and came up with some good ideas (I think) and made a stop watch script. &nbsp;It works great so far. &nbsp;The problem is there is something missing from the API right now and without it I can't stop the stop watch while its running and it must run through even if the user entered 5 minutes, they need to wait for 5 minutes to run down. Here is a video of the stop watch in action. &nbsp;No big deal, just a work in progress. &nbsp;You can set the minutes and seconds in the bars. &nbsp;You can disable it by putting an "x" in bar1. &nbsp;You can specify the max minutes the stop watch can run for in bar2_max, just in case someone enters a crazy number of minutes by mistake. &nbsp;You rotate the watch to start it. &nbsp;If you rotate it again it stops it (if they add something needed to the API). &nbsp;And it rotates or blinks the status dots when its running, but also need something to do this. :( <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIQp8jVhz3w&amp;feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIQp8jVhz3w&amp;feature=youtu.be</a>
While using the API certainly works, I'd almost say that the usage of a timer of some kind is setting neutral enough, and table important enough, to justify adding to Roll20 anyhow. After all, if the objective is, "Anything you could do on a table is in the core program; anything rules specific is for the API," well, a timer is definitely in the former category, not the latter.
that's great!&nbsp; and for any curious.&nbsp; I did go ahead and play Pictionary via Roll20 (I used my own timer off screen)&nbsp; It worked great and was a lot of fun :)
1368116774
Konrad J.
Pro
API Scripter
Here is the polished version. &nbsp;You can do commands via the chat or of course just go and make macros to do them quickly. Here is an example of a command. !t cu 1 30 00 This would count up to 1hr and 30mins. <a href="http://youtu.be/FS8r4EppSsM" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/FS8r4EppSsM</a> I'm really happy the way it turned out. &nbsp;Its as easy as getting the script into your campaign (need to be mentor though :() adding any token to be your clock and making the name of it clock.timer. &nbsp;Thats it. &nbsp;More options coming. &nbsp;Count down , etc. &nbsp;I'll post the actual script maybe this weekend when I've cleaned it up a bit more. &nbsp;No real error checking, that would probably get added last :). &nbsp;So you could break it by leaving arguments out, etc. probably. &nbsp;Haven;t tested all the possible problems yet.
Dude...Thats awesome....
1368405626
Konrad J.
Pro
API Scripter
OK, I've polished it a bit and now its published in the API forum if anyone is interested. &nbsp;The GM needs to be a mentor to install it though since only Mentors have access to the API engine I think. If anyone wants to see it in action I'v got a test campaign setup with macros created to show it. &nbsp;Just ask me and I'll send you a link. And here is a new video of it in action showing all the new visuals. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtfOj1HcpNA" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtfOj1HcpNA</a>
that's great :)&nbsp; alas, I'm not a subscriber so it is beyond my reach.