Schedule User Interface


Repast Py is a tool for producing Repast simulations. A Repast simulation proceeds by pulling actions off a list and executing them. These actions are such things as "every agent play a game with its neighbor", "update the display," and so on. More importantly, these actions are ordered relative to each other by scheduling them to occur at a particular "tick" count. So, you can schedule actions to execute at tick 1 and then every tick there after. The schedule itself then is a list of actions together with information about how they should be executed. The schedule editor allows you to add and delete actions from this schedule list. The schedule editor is shown below.




You use the schedule editor to edit when you want your actions to occur. The schedule editor has two parts.

  • The Edit Action Execution Pane. You use the edit action execution pane to schedule your action for execution. You choose the name of the action you want to schedule, assign it a type of execution and the tick at which to start execution. The Execute Last check box is only available for certain types of execution. When this is checked, the specified action will execute after any other actions scheduled for that tick. When you are finished defining the action, the type of execution and so forth, click "Add" to add the action to the schedule of actions to be executed.

  • The Action Executions Table. The actions execution table lists all the actions you have scheduled for execution, together with their type of execution and so on. You can delete an item from the table by selecting that row and then clicking the delete button.

Usage

Adding an Action to the Schedule

You add an action to the schedule of actions to be executed by filling in the fields in the edit action execution pane. First you choose the action you wish to execute from the Actions combobox. Then you choose the type of execution for that action. The types are
  • Every Tick. The specified action will execute every tick (every iteration) of the simulation beginning at the tick specified in the tick field.
  • At A Single Tick. The specified action will execute once at the tick specified in the tick field.
  • At Interval. The specified action will execute at the interval specified by the value in the tick field (e.g. every 3 ticks).
  • At End. The specified action will execute at the end of a simulation run.
  • At Pause. The specified action will execute whenever a simulation run is paused.
The meaning of the value in the tick field is determined by the execution type (as described directly above). Lastly, if you choose an execution type of At A Single Tick or At Interval then, you can also decide whether or not you want the specified action to be executed after the other actions scheduled for that tick by using the Execute Last check box. Once you have finished selecting the action and defining how it is to be scheduled, you can add it to the schedule by clicking the Add button.

Editing an Action

Currently there is no way to edit the scheduling information for an action. The alternative is to delete that scheduled action and re-add it.

Deleting a Scheduled Action
You can delete a scheduled action by clicking on it in the table and then clicking the delete button.