Time Context
A Time Context specifies a particular range, or one (or more) points in time. There are three major components, at least one of which must be selected (by enabling its checkbox on the left):
- From Time: the starting time of the range. If it's not specified, 00:00 is assumed.
- To Time: the end time of the range, inclusive. The context will deactivate
after the end of the specified minute.
If To Time is not specified then 23:59 is assumed i.e. the context deactivates at midnight. - Repeat: if no repeat is selected, the context is assumed to be a continuous range which starts at From Time and ends at To Time. If a repeat is specified, the first occurrence is at From Time and then every X hours or minutes until End Time.
When not in Beginner Mode, it's possible to specify a global user variable as the source of the From Time or To Time by
clicking on one of the rotating-arrow icons.
The variable contents must specify the hours and minutes in 24-hour format and separated by a period (dot) or colon e.g. 13.45. Leading 0s can be ommited e.g. 9.7 for seven-minutes-past-nine-in-the-morning.
Alternatively, the time can be specified in seconds-since-the-epoch format, in which case only the hour and minute part of the specification are used.
When the variable value changes, the time context is reevaluated which may result in it activating or deactivating. If the variable value does not specify a valid time then the profile will deactivate (if it's already activated).
Note: in some cases it may be wise to disable the profile (via the Profile Status action) before changing the associated variable values. For example, if your time context is from 16.00 to 16.00 (i.e. acting as an event) and it should be changed to 17.00,17.00, if you don't disable it first then as soon as you change the first value the time context will become a 23 hour range (17.00-16.00) and probably activate.
Notes:
- to specify a precise time, set From and To times the same. In that case, the context is treated as an instant event, it it only active for a fraction of a second, so no setting restoration is done.
- each repeat (if Repeat is set) is also treated like an instant event.