Bar Counters

[Dynasoft]

I think I know what he means, and he's right:
Create a new bar counter:
The min value is -999999999
and the max value is 999999999
The initial value is 0
then run the app and the bar doesn't show (should be about half-full)

change it to:
The min value is -999999999
and the max value is 999999999
The initial value is 999999999
Still blank

remove a 9 from each setting:
The min value is -99999999
and the max value is 99999999
The initial value is 99999999
And it shows a very thin bar at the side, like value was really low?
Take off another 9 from all the settings and the filled area is larger, but still not 100%. Removing another seems to sort it out.

Any ideas?

[Bovril]

So what would you set the default range to? Whatever it's set to it will need changing each time it's used. Setting it to have a range of 0 to 100 (or anything else) would confuse beginners even more, as they would think that they cannot change that range at all.

A solution that I see is forcing the max/min selector to show if the counter is changed to a bar style, but maybe that can't be done for other restrictions.

I don't really see why everyone is suddenly complaining about this though; it was exactly the same in MMF 1.5 and TGF.

[Ross]

The point of this thread is to do nearly exactly what you said Jeff,
'The min value is -999999999
and the max value is 999999999
The initial value is 0'
But... then change the inital value to the max value (in the counter's properties) ie. the initial value would now be 999999999. Then run the thing. You'd expect the bar counter to be full. But it isn't.

WOOOOO Dynasoft knows what i mean <img src="/center/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Jeff]

Could it just be the fact bar counters do not show negative values?
Its been like that forever as far as I remember.

The bar begins at 1

Its a good idea for an extension a scale type of counter

[Ross]

[]Could it just be the fact bar counters do not show negative values?
Its been like that forever as far as I know. [/]
If i set the min value to 0, it still behaves weirdly

[Bovril]

Ah, well that's a different issue and I agree that it's a bug.

It's a problem because of the way the computer handles such large values: it can't
When the counter is displayed, I imagine it calculates the size of the bar like this:

Size = (value * width) / (max - min)

But that means that value * width is done first, making the value much higher than 999999999, taking it into the range where it can't cope. Just my idea though. Maybe I'm wrong.
If that is the problem, I can't see any way of fixing it.

But remember that numerical counters should still be allowed to go that high. So the max should not be lowered.

Edit:

In fact, the calculation would be:
Size = ((value - min) * width) / (max - min)

which makes it even worse if the min value is -999999999

[Jeff]

Can you make an example file? I still don't understand.

Doesn't this work
http://www.flyin.com/counter.mfa

Darn my server is serving it as a document LOL!

[Ross]

It was the original issue bovril, someone misunderstood it somewhere <img src="/center/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />...
Maybe the default max values could be lowered when changing to a bar counter

[Jeff]

Ok that makes sense but so to go around the issue you have to type a number in yourself? It seems kinda minor and well I would rather have Yves and Francois spend time on other things.

I am sure they will just look and fix whatever the problem is for people who want bar counters with 999999999 as the max value.

Even if I can't see anyone doing that <img src="/center/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Ross]

It's just that it took me, who is not a beginner, quite a while to figure out why my bar counters weren't appearing...
Jeff, should i upload an example of what i mean, or do you understand now?
Edit: I have anyway, for good measure