ERROR: Cannot convert string to float

Support
1

Hi Chris -

I noticed a somewhat annoying glitch today while training animals.

I wanted to change the position of the fixation point in the variables window and accidentally hit the space bar instead of a number. So the field for that parameter was “”

In this state, I get a repeating error and MWorks stop responding to any mouse clicks - and I have to force quite the program.

ERROR: Cannot convert string to float

Any way around this? Ideally MWorks would allow me to correct my mistake?

Finally - how do we save an animal’s starting eye calibration offsets/gains so that they’re automatically uploaded when we open our saved workspace?

Thanks,
Yasmine

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Hi Yasmine,

I wanted to change the position of the fixation point in the variables window and accidentally hit the space bar instead of a number. So the field for that parameter was “”. In this state, I get a repeating error and MWorks stop responding to any mouse clicks - and I have to force quite the program.

I’m not sure why the error would be repeating so often that it overwhelms MWClient. But, yeah, that’s a bad outcome.

I don’t think there’s a way to prevent this kind of issue in general. However, maybe the variables window should discard inputs that are empty or consist only of blank space. I can’t imagine a situation where someone would actually want to set a variable to such a value.

Finally - how do we save an animal’s starting eye calibration offsets/gains so that they’re automatically uploaded when we open our saved workspace?

You need to create a saved variable set. After you’ve established the offsets/gains, click the icon next to “Variable Set” in the main MWClient window. In the panel that appears, enter a name under “Create new variable set”, then click “Create”. Finally, save your workspace. The workspace file will include the name of the active variable set. When you open the workspace, the variable set will be loaded.

There’s a bit more info on variable sets in Saving and restoring client state.

Cheers,
Chris

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Hi Chris

Super. Two quick responses!

However, maybe the variables window should discard inputs that are empty
or consist only of blank space.

Probably a reasonable way forward - but I defer to you of course.

You need to create a saved variable set.

Will do - thanks!

Yasmine

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Hi Yasmine,

However, maybe the variables window should discard inputs that are empty or consist only of blank space.

This change is done and will be in Monday’s nightly build.

Cheers,
Chris

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Great. Thanks!
Yasmine