Ok, for seasoned (or maybe even not-so-seasoned) Unity developers, this is probably nothing. But I have been childishly happy about this TimerClass I’m trying to implement. It’s simplicity is what makes it exciting.<\/p>\n
The TimerClass that I’m coding is a self-contained timer whose only requirement is that it is updated per Time.deltaTime; thus it needs to be called at the top of every Update(). This works for me because it’s neat to see all the timers up in one area instead of spread out through the code.<\/p>\n
Before I get into the specific things that I like, this is how\u00a0 the code looks like (written in Unityscript\/Javascript):<\/p>\n
#pragma strict\r\n\r\n\/\/ This TimerClass keeps track of a timer\r\nclass TimerClass\r\n{\r\n\tvar timer_name:String;\r\n\tvar end_time:float = 0; \/\/ the end time before the timer sends a signal to say time is up\r\n\tvar counter: float = 0; \/\/ the counter for time\r\n\tvar switchname:String; \/\/ whether the timer should keep on adding delta time or not\r\n\tvar component:Component;\r\n\tvar expired:boolean = false; \/\/ this notes whether the Timer had been previously started and now has expired; needs StartTimer do make a clean start\r\n\t\/\/ this.GetType().GetField(attrname).SetValue(this,parseInt(str));\r\n\tfunction TimerClass()\r\n\t{\r\n\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction TimerClass(tn:String, sn:String, et:float, c:Component)\r\n\t{\r\n\t\ttimer_name = tn;\r\n\t\tswitchname = sn;\r\n\t\tend_time = et;\r\n\t\tcomponent = c;\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction UpdateTime(val:float)\r\n\t{\r\n\t\tvar timerswitch = component.GetType().GetField(switchname).GetValue(component);\r\n\t\tif(timerswitch == true) \/\/ if the switch is TRUE\r\n\t\t{\r\n\t\t\tif(TimeUp() == false) \/\/ if the time is not up, then keep on adding time to the counter\r\n\t\t\t\tcounter += val;\r\n\t\t\telse\r\n\t\t\t{\r\n\t\t\t\tcomponent.SendMessage(timer_name+\"_TimeUp\",SendMessageOptions.DontRequireReceiver);\r\n\t\t\t\tEndTimer(); \/\/ end timer itself\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction IsRunning()\r\n\t{\r\n\t\tvar timerswitch = component.GetType().GetField(switchname).GetValue(component);\r\n\t\treturn(timerswitch); \/\/ if the swtich is on, this means the timer is running\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction StartTimer()\r\n\t{\r\n\t\t\/\/ this makes the switchname turn on\r\n\t\tcomponent.GetType().GetField(switchname).SetValue(component,true);\r\n\t\tResetTimer();\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction StopTimer()\r\n\t{\r\n\t\tcomponent.GetType().GetField(switchname).SetValue(component,false);\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction EndTimer()\r\n\t{\r\n\t\tcomponent.GetType().GetField(switchname).SetValue(component,false);\r\n\t\texpired = true;\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction ResetTimer() \/\/ returns true if time is up\r\n\t{\r\n\t\tcounter = 0;\r\n\t\texpired = false;\r\n\t}\r\n\tfunction TimeUp() \/\/ returns true if time is up\r\n\t{\r\n\t\treturn(counter >= end_time);\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\nThe two things that I like about this TimerClass is its feature to query a conditional boolean variable directly from the source Component that instantiated it, and the SendMessage mechanism based on the timer’s name, which is mandatory.<\/p>\n
The class is instantiated in this way:<\/p>\n
Timer = TimerClass(\"WaitTimer\",\"is_waiting\",5,this);<\/code><\/p>\nThe first argument is the name of the timer, and this is concatenated with “_TimeUp” in order to form the SendMessage function. In the same script, a function is thus defined:<\/p>\n