AgentPriority

Allows agent to run less frequently than normal, or be turned off.

A pop-up menu in the agent's Action Inspector ▸ Query sub-tab, or Get Info ▸ agent2 tab, allows manual change of agent priority. Regardless of the setting, every agent is updated before export and when updating manually, except for agents that have been turned off.

Unless an agent is turned off before creating a query, an agent query will always run at least once as soon as the agent is first created.

The mapping of number values to the text names used in the Priority pop-up menu on the Get Info agent tab and the Action Inspector Query sub-tab is as follows:

• Highest = 0. Runs every few seconds.
• Normal = 1 (default). Runs roughly every ten seconds.
• Low = 4. Runs roughly every minute.
• Lowest = 10. Runs roughly every five minutes'
• Occasional = 20. Runs roughly every thirty minutes.
• Off = -1. Does not run (retains any existing aliases)

The $AgentPriority can only be set as a number. Do not use text values or you get an error. Any other number value than those listed above causes the dialog pop-up to show 'highest'. Whether this is the true result, i.e. that setting '9' results in the same as setting '0' is not clear.

The default value of $AgentPriority is 1, which will cause the agent to be checked at roughly ten second intervals. Higher values of $AgentPriority cause the agent to be checked less frequently.

Setting $AgentPriority to 0 asks Tinderbox to check the agent as frequently as possible.

Setting $AgentPriority to -1 asks Tinderbox to retain existing matches but never update, effectively turning the agent off whilst retaining the last set of data and is excluded from Export and 'manual' update agent updates. Thus the current results can be 'frozen' and persist between sessions. However, if an agent is being turned off just to drop it out of regular cycles it will need to manually be set to a value or zero or greater before it can be used/updated and manually reset to 'off' after use if it desired to 'freeze' it again. When an agent is off:

• Query does not run
• Agent actions ($AgentAction, $OnRemove) do not run.
• Agent rules and edicts still run
• Child aliases' rules and edicts still run.