Maptool needs an emergency Macro Abort function

[Ltheb]

Is your feature request related to a problem? After losing another 3 hours of time writing a macro to a probably badly written While() loop, I feel Maptool needs a Keyboard command with the ability to end all currently running macros. During an endlessly processing while loop, I could not save, execute any command, or do anything except helplessly watch my ram use slowly climb and knew I should have saved hours ago, and that there was nothing I could do. The life of a programmer, eh? Having had similar issues in the past (such as with a player, in the older versions of maptool, putting a "[Token_Property]" entry in another Token Property (Prompting endless popups on token mouseover), I feel these problems need some sort of fix.

Describe the solution you'd like My proposal is to keep maptool responsive to a specific keyboard command during macro processing. The command should be definable by the user. By default, something like Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T (Chosen to reduce likelihood of it being hit at random) but any key combo that make sense is fine.

• If the server host (or a GM user) hits this keyboard command, all macros abort running, no matter what state this leaves them in. If they run some sort of internal loop or process, those stop. All results and output are discarded. Additionally, this function should also grind token auto-calculation to a halt as well, forcing tokens to interperate properties and functions of those properties as text, and abort any such previous functions. Any and all Prompt windows are killed, further ones cease generating, and any queued up are also killed (to prevent the user from having to click a million close buttons, or hold the enter key for several minutes).

• Additionally, when this key combination is pressed, a pop-up window explaining what is happening and how this function works, should appear.

• After this key combination is hit, no further macros will run, at all, and at the top of the screen, in a map View, an orange bubble with text similar to "Macros Halted!" should appear (Similar to the "Map not visible to Players" for hidden maps) to keep the user aware macros are OFF. (If it can be made to flash colors at a slow rate, like alternating red-yellow-orange once/second to draw the user's attention, that would be better, but is unnecessary; I suggest this only to make it obvious to an unfamiliar user that maptools is not in a standard operating mode, and that they should consult the documentation, or google)

• To Re-enable macros, the key(s) bound to this function must be pressed again by the server host or a GM user, which will bring up a pop-up asking the host or user if they are sure they want to do this. Hitting OK or Confirm returns maptool to it's regular operation. Hitting Cancel or exiting out does nothing.

• Once macros are re-enabled, they will not resume from where they left off. (Good luck coding that anyway)

The above proposal is designed to aid programmers, both amateur and experienced, from losing hours of time coding due to the wrong > or < symbol in a while loop, or any of the other ill-advised stupid things people do while writing code at odd hours of the night. :P With this function, a user could abort their bad coding mistake, look for what may have caused the problem, debug it, and resume operation without having to task-kill maptool and lose unsaved work.

Describe alternatives you've considered Other options might just include maptool warning if it is locked up for a length of time (1+ Minute) and auto-aborting, or prompting for an auto abort, but that might be messy for someone attempting a large batch function macro that they understand may take a some time, nor would that help if they get stuck in one of those endless "please define this variable" window spam situations.

This feature would likely require hooks into the maptool macro and token function to allow it to catch those functions and kill them, and a function with a high priority for keypress reception, which requires a special case, since maptool, while locked up running some endless macro or spitting out infinite error messages, is basically dead. It may as well just kill it's own process, since that is the action the user must take.

[Phergus]

You do know there is autosave of campaigns? The default is every 5 minutes.

[Ltheb]

I am. I have it disabled. I am aware that my decision there is stupid, and 100% my fault, but I have a very large campaign that takes several minutes to save. (@ 128 MB campaign file as of right now, which has not been its largest size) Autosaves (last I checked) grind the server to a halt and were significantly distracting during play. However, I don't think I've run auto save in literal years, so perhaps it runs better. Also, I am not sure about autosaves saving while you have the Edit Macro window open, since I don't think that progress is saved until you hit OK, Apply, or Run Macro. I was going to comment about this in my above write up, but I felt personal use information would have muddied the description.

I appreciate the reminder, and will probably consider testing re-enabling Autosave in the near future.

[selquest]

The built-in recursion/loop limit should prevent actual infinite loops anyway, right? The default limits are 10,000 loops or 150 recursions.

[Azhrei]

The built-in recursion/loop limit should prevent actual infinite loops anyway, right? The default limits are 10,000 loops or 150 recursions.

Yeah, but if it includes those variable pop ups, 10000 loops is a LONG time. Or if macro A loops 10000 times and calls macro b (which also loops 10000 times), it can also take forever.

One option would be a "progress bar" function that has a Cancel button so the user can cancel the macro execution, but that wouldn't help for situations where the infinite loop is the result of a coding error...

I do tend to agree that some way to stop the execution is needed.

[selquest]

Makes sense. I think Craig has said something about macro execution coming off the GUI thread at some point in his plans? That will make this doable.

[Ltheb]

I left my errant While() loop going for a good 5 minutes; it was only processing 2 variables changes; decrementing itself, and adding +1d4 to another variable (Since I needed to test that the code would do the while loop.; Maptool's memory use balloned to ~5 gigs or so before I had to kill it, and the whole window was frozen; even if there was a limit on loops, its set quite high. (Maybe it could be configurable? Perhaps even on a per-macro basis, so as not to mess with preexisting frameworks, etc.)

As for a progress bar with a Stop button? That could become intrusive if it was a popup window. (Multiple called macros could get messy) What if it were in the GUI header bar, by the audio mute and volume slider, or down at the bottom by the status bar? Or it's own window pane, like the player connections window "Currently executing Macros" or some such?

[Phergus]

@Ltheb check the functions for controlling recursion and loop limits.

http://www.lmwcs.com/rptools/wiki/Category:Loop_and_Recursion_limits

[Ltheb]

@Phergus The documentation of those are a little unclear, as while it sets the limits per session, I assume the limit, when set, is server-side (and is a trusted function). Also, with it's limit being minimum 10k loops, I could only set it to higher numbers. Perhaps if it were allowed to be set to lower values, It could have saved me. If that number could be changed and lowered, that might be helpful. Its not like someone is going to accidentally type this, if it is indeed a trusted function; I might set it to something low like 10-100 for a test environment if that were possible, to prevent the very issue that befell me earlier.

[bubblobill]

Ability to interrupt macro execution #1464

[Phergus]

@Ltheb you mentioned wanting to be able to set the limits, I was just pointing out that there are functions for that already. Never used them however nor have I looked at the code for them.

[Ltheb]

@Phergus Yeah, I had no idea those existed, but as mentioned, they seem very limited in their usefulness. My initial suggestion though still feels relevant, IMO; the ability to go "oops, I done goofed" rather than lose hard work seems like a good Quality of Life feature for maptool, making it more user friendly, especially for the amateur coders just trying get a specific function for their game automated or optimized; Many times when doing so, I know I would not do all the proper preparations that I should (pre-opening the wiki; closing other programs, enabling autosave, etc) since "Oh, this will only take like 1 hour" (4 Hours later) "Oh, this might be hard".

That said, I don't know all the hooks and functions that might need to be rewritten to make something like this happen, and if it would take a rewrite of some of those core functions, like rendering and macro processing, it might be better saved for implementation when many other features or QoL updates pile up necessitating them.