My values

My Values are like variables in programming - but you don't need to know what that means, because the everyday version is simpler.

A My Value is a labelled box. You write a name on the outside, and you put a piece of information inside. Later, whenever you write that name, you get back whatever's in the box.

Or think of it as a sticky note: the label is the name, what's written on it is the value.

You give your value a name, put something in it, and use it later in your expressions.

Why bother

Three reasons, and they're all about saving yourself pain.

You work something out once and reuse it. If you need the same piece of information in four different actions, build it once into a My Value and point all four at that. No copying.

You change it in one place. Later you decide the greeting should use nicknames instead of usernames. With a My Value, you edit one box. Without one, you hunt through every action and hope you got them all.

Creating one

My Values live inside a condition collection - the My Values section at the top of it.

Each one needs three things:

Field	What it is
Name	The label on the box. How you'll refer to it later
Type	What kind of thing it holds. Usually text Nighty can usually detect it automatically
Value	What goes in the box

The value isn't limited to fixed text you type. It can be built from the current event - the sender's name, the message's content, the server's name - the same way action details can. That's the point: you're capturing something about this particular event and giving it a name.

When it gets filled in

A collection's My Values are worked out before that collection's conditions are checked - and they're worked out whether or not the conditions end up passing.

That means the same value is available everywhere downstream:

• The collection's own conditions

• Its If met actions

• Its Otherwise actions

• Every later collection

• The feature's final actions

So a My Value created in the first collection is still there at the very end of the run.

Using one

You use a My Value in an expression by its name, written as my→your_name.

Anywhere you can drop in a live value - message text, a condition's comparison, a channel name - you can drop in a My Value.

Changing one

If you don't have the value to store yet, you can keep it empty and assign a value later, using the Edit My Value action.

Use the Change one of My Values action.

It takes the name of an existing value and gives it a new one.

1

The value has to already exist

This action can only change a value, not create one.

Create it in a condition collection first - even if you just start it off empty.

2

Only the contents change

The name and type stay exactly as you declared them. You're swapping what's in the box, not relabelling it.

3

The new value is worked out fresh every time

If the new value is built from something live, it's recalculated at the moment the action runs - not reused from earlier.

How long they last

One run. That's it.

Every time your feature is triggered, its My Values start over from scratch. A value you set while handling one message is gone by the time the next message arrives.

That surprises people who expect a counter to keep counting. It won't.

You want to…	Use
Hold onto something during one run	My Values
Remember something between runs	Add ID Record Action