"next even at ..." as output

[vtacquet]

following up on my original request (which was perfectly executed by the way !), is it in any way possible to retrieve the "next event" text as an optional output so I could put this on my dashboard for all users (and not only in the editor only for me) ? now it is kind of unknown for users when the next event will occur.

[jensrossbach]

Hi,
this should be possible as the event times are anyway calculated in the runtime and then just passed over to the editor. I could make the time available as a property for the JSONata based output types.

But please be aware that the time is available earliest with triggering of the first event as before there won't be any output produced.

[jensrossbach]

I had some more thoughts about this request and I came to the conclusion that an output message is not really appropriate for providing the time value. Firstly because of what I already mentioned above, i.e. that you won't receive the time before the first event triggers (so for instance, directly after a flow deploy, the time would not be available). And secondly, the calculation of the next trigger time takes place after the output message has been sent. This means at the time when the output message is produced, the next trigger time is still the time of the current event (which doesn't help much).

Alternatively, the scheduler node could write the next trigger time to a context variable every time it is calculated. But then the name of the variable and the type of the context store either has to be configurable through the editor UI or the context store would need be hard-coded and the name would need to be a cryptic one based on the node's ID (in order to have it unique). While a hard-coded name is definitely not very nice, the other approach requires adding another setting to the UI. How important is such feature for you?

[vtacquet]

The current problems is that I have no idea when the flow will start because sun time events change every day, so currently I would have to go to the editor to see what the next event would be. But I understand the issue with redeploying and only seeing the next event when at least 1 event has triggered. Would it be a better way to add an additional output that sends info when a "query" input payload (next to toggle, reload, trigger) is sent ?

For now I have created another flow with offset events 5 minutes before the real action and delay it 4 minutes (because I can't select on 1 minute intervals) to notify us an event will be triggered, otherwise it scares the crap out of us when all shutters open/close without warning.

BTW is there a reason why the offset fields are rounded to 5 minutes ?

[jensrossbach]

Would it be a better way to add an additional output that sends info when a "query" input payload (next to toggle, reload, trigger) is sent ?

This is something I would definitely like to avoid as it makes the node more complex and harder to understand (people would need to know that some ports are for the events and another one is for the time). In this case I would prefer the way through a context variable because it keeps the output ports "clean".

BTW is there a reason why the offset fields are rounded to 5 minutes ?

The fields are not rounded to 5 minutes, you can enter any arbitrary integer number within the allowed range. Only the up/down buttons use a step of 5 minutes in order to be able to faster scroll up or down.

[vtacquet]

Hey Jens, I don't get any output to the dedicated output port anymore, not when changing the schedule and not with the "reload" input payload

[jensrossbach]

Hi, can you please describe the exact steps to reproduce? Maybe I missed some use cases during testing, sorry.

[jensrossbach]

The problem with "reload" especially is that it does not change the schedule times, so with my new implementation, this prevents the message from being sent. So I must invalidate the last message upon reload so that sending of it forced even though it does not contain new content.

[jensrossbach]

Hi @vtacquet, please try out release 1.17.2.

[vtacquet]

very nice @jensrossbach, output works fine again !

[vtacquet]

Hi Jens,

When you set it to your own value and you click Done, after reopening the node, it is changed to the nearest value from the list. See video below.

CleanShot.2022-01-23.at.13.56.19.mp4

Vince

[jensrossbach]

ok, in this case it is a bug, can you please enter an issue in the bug tracker?