Using info("timers") with an open Help file

If you use info(“timers”) without the Panorama Help file open it will return “” if no timers are running or list the other timers if any are running. So far, so good. Now if you have a Panorama Help window open it will return something like “watch help topic 2020.01.14.17.26.19.067” as a timer name by itself if no other timers are running or mixed along with any other timers that are running.

Ok, looking further I see that this is actually a timer initiated by the Panorama Help file running the code of “call UpdateActiveHelpPage”. This was giving me fits because I was using info(“timers”) to check to see if any were running and this was messing things up kind of randomly until I traced it down. Now I can filter out any of these timers that begin with “watch help topic”. You will have one of these hidden timers running for every open Panorama Help window you have open at the time.

You shouldn’t rely on no one else running timers. Panorama itself uses timers extensively, and you’ll see more of that when Panorama X Server is released. If you want to check if one of your timers is running, you should filter for that explicitly. I wouldn’t recommend trying to filter out specific other timers, because that may change at any time.