Anyone who’s downloaded the latest Mage/Fishink will see that Dennis is now saying things in response to events. For example: Turn on the light switch and he says, “Light goes on.” and likewise, turn it off, and he says, “Light goes off.” This is just another example of the Signal/Slot mechanism: When A occurs, B should occur.

It seemed about time that I started working more on the flexibility of Signal/Slot linkages. So first of all, I added two new Messenger methods:

signalSetFlag(Signal, Flag);
signalUnsetFlag(Signal, Flag);

These methods make it possible to link the occurance of a Signal to the setting of a flag. I then modifed Slot to introduce an (optional) required flag. Therefore, it’s possible to do this:

messenger.signalSetFlag(
    Signal(DIRTY_TISSUES,
           Signal_IsManipulated,
           true),
    HAS_DIRTY_TISSUES);

The above says that when DIRTY_TISSUES are manipulated (picked up), the flag HAS_DIRTY_TISSUES will be set.

messenger.link(
    Signal(TISSUE_BOX,
           Signal_IsManipulated,
           true),
    Slot   (HAS_DIRTY_TISSUES,
           DENNIS,
           Slot_Say,
           "No, need... I have dirty ones!");

This part says that when TISSUE_BOX is manipulated (clicked) and HAS_DIRTY_TISSUES has been set, DENNIS will say, “No, need… I have dirty ones!”

This feature, as always, is not without its limitations. For example, it’s not possible to say that a slot requires the absense of a flag. The following is an example of something that is not possible.

messenger.link(
    Signal(BEDSPREAD,
           Signal_IsManipulated,
           true),
    Slot   (! AWARE_OF_HOLE_UNDER_BED,
           DENNIS,
           Slot_Say,
           "Neato! There's a hole under my bed!");

There are ways around it however, and I’ve exercised these ways in the latest build. Another limitation is that a slot cannot rely on the presence (or absense) of several flags. I can see several places that this might come in handy, and I’ll begin work on it soon.