Digital Workshop

Hi

I'm trying to calculate and display the average of 5 variables. Each var is the time taken for a user to tap on a graphic (a reflex speed timer) the clock starts when the graphic appears and stops when it's tapped. This happens 5 times producing five results. I want to sum the results and produce an average, to be displayed in a text box.

The problem is finding out how to script the calculation and assign the function to a button. I wont go through the ways I've tried but rest assured I've tried a few. Hell, I've even tried reading the manual.

Any ideas?

Pretty please?

Peter

Peter --

IF you have already created the five Variables you need, this should be very simple.

Create a Text Object (or in your case a Button Object). If you want to type verbage to describe what comes next, go ahead (example "Here is the average of all five scores "). Don't forget to leave a space after the last character, otherwise things will run together.

While still inside the Text Object (Button), do a right mouse click. In the middle of the window which opens, left click "Insert Variable or Expression." The default is to insert a Variable. You want a Constant Expression, so click that option. Remember how to find an AVERAGE? Add each item together, then divide by the number of items. You want to group the "adding" function THEN do the division, so here's how it would look:

(Var_1 + Var_2 + Var_3 + Var_4 + Var_5) / 5

The "(" and ")" group that calculation together. The "/" means to divide, and the "5" is the number of variables you have. Sorry if you already know all this. You MUST have your variables already created BEFORE you get to this step. When you are finished, the words "Expression OK" should be at the bottom of the window. If not, you've got something incorrect.

Click OK, and run in Preview to check your answer. You obviously want your Variables populated with numbers to verify everything.

This is what I did:



Where var1-var5 contain your times. Depending upon how you've set up your variables you may need to convert them to a number by eval(varx), and then do the average math.

Hope this helps.

Darn Fred! You beat me to it.

Brian --

It must be my "high speed cable modem" (LOL)!

In your solution, you have to create additional Variables to collect the sum. Being "lazy", I prefer to just use math symbols, then let OPUS do the number crunching. I'd use your method IF I needed the sum of the five Variables multiple times elsewhere in the Pub.

Which ever solution makes the most sense to Peter will be the one he uses. Now back to taking a "nap". All this math makes my brain tired.

I went with Freds as my first choice but ended up wtih a problem. Rather than sum the variables it appended them to create a string of numbers.

as an example. 4 variables, populating themselves sequentially.

var1 input 4 average was 1 so far so good.
var2 input 4 average was 11 here it goes oops!
var3 input 4 average was 111
var4 input 4 average was 1111

thats using (var1 + var2 + var3 + var4)/4 as the display variable.

It seems pretty simple mathematically and the averages are being calculated correctly but the display goes tits-up. The clocks are set to count [ss]

Actually I need millisecs but one step at a time!

Any ideas?

Cheers guys and girls.

Peter,

have a look at the attached zip file.

rather than::

(var1 + var2 + var3 + var4)/4

you can force a numerical output with::

(Number(var1)+Number(var2)+Number(var3)+Number(var4))/4

Otherwise the '+' operator can treats the variables as strings and
concatenates them.

You often don't need to use "Number(variable)", but if Opus thinks any part of an addition calculation is a string, you will get a string as output, and 1 + 1 + 1 will be given as 111.

Paul

Peter --

My first quess as to why you are having a problem goes to when you created your Variables. You can choose to have a Variable be a number or text. Text can have numbers in them, but you can't ADD "Fred" and "Peter". It would come out "FredPeter" at best.

Go back and re-create your Variables and make sure you tick where it shows Numbers.

A note to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who lent me a hand with this. It's working just fine now.

I'm amazed at the amount of people who are willing to help out and spend their time contributing to other peoples problems, if you see what I mean!

Quite a community.