What is the purpose of "Container" type vars ?

[id4]

All,

Any information on "Container" type vars and its usage scenarios would be greatly appreciated.

Please attach the code snippet, showing how you are using it.

Thanks advance.

[neil12011]

bump.

I'd post this in the general section. That way it gets more traffic from people who are in the know...honestly because I've never used these types of variables.

[RyanE]

Containers are not variables.

Containers hold variables, and if you have two or more variables in a container, and one of them changes, the other one gets changed.

Basically.

RyanE

[jbs]

I'm sure there are terrific ways that containers have been used, but I'll always remember it for the only truly catastrophic experience I ever had with Control4.

Basically, it was a couple of days after we'd moved into our house, I was trying to set up some lighting schedules and thought that container variables would be an easy way of changing a bunch of things at once. I don't actually recall the details, but the gist of it was that putting a bunch of lights in a container caused the most bizarre behavior one could imagine. It was as if all the lights in the house were trying to get in synch with one another, but rather than say, OK, light number 1 is at 50%, let's all go to 50%, it was more like light number 2 tried to do what light #1 was doing, but before it could light #1 tried to do what light #8 was doing, when all the while light #64 was trying to meet up with light #2 . . . well, you get the picture.

I still laugh when I think about what the neighbors must have thought about that strange young couple that moved into the house at the end of the street. They spent an hour one night turning on and off all of the lights in their house every couple of seconds and in totally random fashions. And yes, the light show included all of our outdoor lights as well!!

Worst of all, it included the lights in my 3-year-old's room. It was about 11pm and it was as confused as I think she's ever been. Stopping it from Composer was actually quite complicated so I ended up running down to the circuit breaker and just killing all of the lights until I found the one that was her room. Poor kid.

Anyhow, that event scarred me enough that I've never gone back to Container variables again!

--Jason

[rsmout]

JBS - that's a great story. I hope you're laughing now because it's pretty funny.

[jbs]

JBS - that's a great story. I hope you're laughing now because it's pretty funny.

Once I got my kid back to sleep (and my wife forgave me) I laughed long and hard over it. My wife is very tolerant of my inner-geek tendencies and has actually totally embraced the coolness of having such a "wired" home. But that night I definitely saw the strong hint of a "You know, this never happens with NORMAL light switches" conversation just over the horizon.

Fortunately, once I showed her that she could start a high-def TV program in the gym and finish it in the shower, she was won over.

[id4]

JBS,

Thanks for sharing your experience in using containers.

Now we all know that containers can cause undesirable effects when used to control a bunch of lights with a single container var.

I am sure, this race/sync problem will be there with any type of controls.

So, anybody has, any other experiences ?

Thanks