Can a sprite become visible after a certain amount of user inactivity?

Question

Can a sprite become visible after a certain amount of user inactivity? like a timer triggering an event?

Answer 1

Hi Kevin,
You can look at the on timeOut event. (This is not to be confused with timeOut objects)
There are a number of related properties, which date back from the early days of Director, and which seem to have been omitted from recent versions of the documentation, even though they still function. I give them here with their original names (prior to Director 10):
the timeOutKeyDown
the timeOutLapsed
the timeOutLength
the timeOutMouse
the timeOutPlay
the timeOutScript
the lastClick
the lastEvent
the lastKey
the lastRoll
(You can also use the more recent DOM style for these last four properties: _player.lastXXX)
Here's a very simple script which will make sprite 1 disappear when the movie starts, and reappear if the user does nothing for 5 seconds:
on startMovie()
  sprite(1).visible = FALSE
  the timeOutLength = 300 -- = 5 seconds * 60 ticks / second
end startMovie
on timeOut()
  sprite(1).visible = TRUE
end timeOut
If you click the mouse at intervals of less than 5 seconds after starting the movie, then the sprite will remain invisible.
NOTE: Using sprite(x).visible = FALSE will make the entire sprite channel invisible everywhere in the Score. It's better to use sprite(x).blend = 0, unless the sprite must not react to the mouse while it is invisble, in which case it is better to move it off-stage.
Is this what you are looking for?
James