update a widget every second

Configuration FvwmScript
1

Hi,
I wanted to create an applet which updates every second. But what i noticed was, after starting the script, the widgets gets updated only every two seconds. is this a general bug, or do i miss something?

Here is an example with an FvwmScript-Clock:

WindowTitle	{Clock}
WindowSize	65 20
Colorset	5

Init
Begin
	Set $time = (GetOutput {date "+%R:%S"} 1 -1)
	ChangeTitle 1 $time
End

PeriodicTasks
Begin 
	Set $time = (GetOutput {date "+%R:%S"} 1 -1)
	ChangeTitle 1 $time
End

Widget			1
Property
	Type		ItemDraw
	Size		65 20
	Position	0 0
	Font		"xft:Bitstream Vera Sans:Bold:pixelsize=12"
	Flags		NoFocus NoReliefString
End
2

AFAIK, it’s deliberate so that the script doesn’t enter into a possible endless loop. I’d have to check the source to confirm this, though.

– Thomas Adam

3

well, this periodic task thingy is an endless loop, isn’t it? so why this limitation?

greetings

4

The PeriodicTask feature isn’t all that reliable.

I wrote a replacement QuitVerify box using FvwmScript and it would count down to -34 or so before it started counting seconds. I also have a panel button that cycles through a number sequence of applications, one every five seconds. The timing on that seems a little erratic as well.

It’s ok if you need fairly regular updates and the timing isn’t critical, but it may well be broken for any sort of precision work.

5

There were (IIRC) some patches to the CVS version that attempted to fix this issue, so go look there.

– Thomas Adam

6

Right now I’m not doing anything time critical, and I solved a lot of the problem by keeping the timestamp from the previous hit and making sure the counter had in fact advanced. I’ll wait for the patches to go mainstream, I think.

Nice to know, though. :slight_smile:

Do the patches address heller’s problem as well, or is that a separate issue?

7

I’d have to check the CVS changelogs, but I believe they do – I can’t anymore specific until I check them.

– Thomas Adam