Cascade Panel

Cause/effect relationships are edited in the Cascade panel of the main screen.  When starting with a blank panel, clicking anywhere in the panel pops a dialog asking what arenas you want.  Select one or more.  They will always display in the order shown in the dialog box, which is the same as their order on the Arenas tab.  

Important: The sequence of arenas is critical.  Effects flow to the right (A to Z) and down (arena to arena), so an arena listed first affects only arenas listed later.  The user defines arena sequence using the Arenas tab moveUp/moveDown buttons.  There is no "undo" function for this panel.  

To copy, move or delete Acts (also called "Events"), see the Mover instructions.  For summary lists of Acts and their effects, see the Explore functions.

(In the following, note that all colors are user-controllable.  When I say something is visible or not, that means the item is using the Active or Idle color.  If you alter those colors on the color palette, you alter the visibility.)

A labelling block is shown on the left side of each arena display.



On the left edge, the scrollers let you scroll within the list of Arenas that can fit where this one is.  The arenas above and below this one define boundaries, or boundaries are the top and bottom of the arena list, whichever is most restrictive.  For example, the sample data includes the following sequence of arenas: Geology, Waterways, Infrastructure, Broadcasters, Repeaters.  If you are displaying Geology, Infrastructure and Repeaters, the slot occupied by Infrastructure can be scrolled up as far as Waterways and down as far as Broadcasters.

In this figure, the display slot occupied by the "Infrastructure" arena can be changed to any of the other arenas inside boundaries defined by whatever you are displaying above and below it.  The up/down arrow lets you scroll, the up-arrow goes up, the down arrow goes down.  The right-pointing arrow lets you insert any other arena that is between this arena and a boundary; the right-arrow at the top inserts an arena between this one and its upper bound, the right-arrow at the bottom inserts an arena between this one and its lower bound.  All these highlight when working, and go dull when nothing can be done (no more intervening arenas to scroll through or insert).

The second column is more brutal.  "First" says remove every display-slot above this one (but does not delete arenas themselves). "Last" removes those below this one.  "Hide" removes this slot, "Keep" removes everything EXCEPT this slot, and "Clear" wipes the whole display.  "Any" pops a dialog so you can choose any arenas, and they will be displayed in their correct location regardless where you pop it up.

The third column identifies the display slot.  In addition to the arena name, it gives the processing mode of the arena, the number of attributes, and the number of teams that have reserved this arena as a Playroom.  Buttons bordering this label let you display arenas that affect or are affected by the one being displayed.  For each arena, there are "Ins", "Any" and "Only" boxes above and below the arena name. "Ins" pops a dialog of those arenas (within the previously mentioned boundaries above or below the displayed one) which affect or are affected by the displayed arena.  "Any" pops a dialog of ALL arenas above or below the displayed one, where those arenas affect or are affected by this one.  "Only" removes all other display slots above or below this one, and replaces them with all those that affect or are affected by this one.  Each of these is highlighted only if there are arenas that are eligible for that selection.

Event Indicators

The remainder of the arena block contains 5 rows of Event indicators from A to Z, and two rows for current status displays.



The "Current" row indicates whether one of the events in this arena is "current".  Of all the arenas displayed at one time, only one arena is "current" and in that arena only one event is "current".  All other events and arenas show their status with respect to that current event.  If a given arena contains the current event, the "Current" row contains the summary text for that event.  If a given arena does not contain the current event, the "Current" row is blank.  The "MouseOn" row is blank except when the cursur is positioned over one of the events in the displayed arena, and it shows the summary text for the mouse location.  In the above, E is the current event ("The generator fails..."), and the mouse is over H ("This repeater is running...").  You move the mouse to an event to see what it does.

Cause and effect flow from left to right.  Event letters to the right of the current event show how the current event will affect them.  Event letters to its left show how they will affect the current event.  In the above figure, Infrastucture/E is the current event.  If triggered, it will arm H and I, it will disable F and G, and will leave J, K and L unchanged.  E is enabled by A, while B or C will disable E if B or C are triggered.

To change effects, right-click the desired effect.  To make Infrastructure/E disable H instead of arming it, right-click the "disable" row of column H.  To make Infrastructure/A disarm E instead of enabling it, right-click the "disarm" row of column A.

The box outlining one state under each column is the default state for that event.  All the events shown here have a default state of "disable".  This means each of them starts as disabled for every drill instance.  If you are generating 20 drill instances, and one of these becomes enabled in the first drill generation, that has no effect on the starting state for the second and subsequent drill instances.

The default-box indicates additional detail by notches in the box sides or corners.  Generally, data that filters an event or otherwise flows into it is marked at the top of the box, and effects that flow out of it are marked at the bottom.  Passive features are marked at the left, and active features are on the right.  More specifically, if an event has attributes (which filter its execution) the box has a top-left notch.  If the event establishes data values (which then might be referenced by other events) it has a bottom-left notch.  If the event alters the enable or disable state of other events or of arenas, it has a bottom-right notch.

In this example, E has a top-left notch, because the GeneratorAvail attribute prevents this event from being triggered unless there is a generator.  It has a bottom-right notch because it affects other events.



The default state indicator works for arenas, too.  "WhatReallyHappens" is enabled by default, but it has attributes which make it invisible to most participants.  "Earthquake" and "Geology" are disabled by default, but can be turned on by any event.  The current act's effect on an arena is indicated by the big triangular notch in the arena's state label.  In this case, Earthquake/B says that we have an earthquake, and if Earthquake/B is triggered it will enable the Geology arena.  In addition to enabling the arena (a prerequisite for scanning an arena to detect eligible events), it specifically arms E and H in that arena.

To change the effect of an event on an arena, right-click the state-label.  To make Earthquake/B disable Geology instead of enabling it, when Earthquake/B is current just right-click Geology's "disable" label.

To change the default state of an arena or an event, do Alt-RightClick.  The default state of an event can be Armed, Enabled, Disabled or Disarmed, not LeaveBe.  The default state of an arena can be Enabled or Disabled, nothing else.  LeaveBe is the absence of any effect, but it is not a state that an arena or event can be in.

Effects flow to the right and down, so the event states in WhatReallyHappens (in this example) are showing how they affect Earthquake/B.  WhatReallyHappens arms Earthquake/B, and the other preceding events leave Earthquake/B alone.  Arenas themselves do not have any effect (only their events can have effects), so the arena-state label for WhatReallyHappens/LeaveBe simply means that WhatReallyHappens does not (at the arena level) affect Earthquake/B.