Flow dots count

[alminljajic]

adding the functionality to draw multiple dots for the flow, giving a slightly better feedback to the user. Reminds me of power flow visualizations in EV's or Hybrids.

Funny idea would be also to have the number of dots scaled accordingly by the flowrate computeIndividualFlowRate(), I might look into that as well in the future.

Let me know if you see any issues or anything else I should change, test whatever. I tested it roughly for the default obects like gid, home, solar. Not yet for batterry or individual etc.

[alminljajic]

Dont merge yet, it is causing some rendering issues which I cannot sort out. In sudden changes it scatters the dots even though duration and distance time between the dots is computed correctly and written correctly into the .

Any hints are welcome here.

[arbusam]

If the PR isn’t ready yet you should probably make it a draft so it doesn’t appear as open.

[wtadler]

Relatedly, in the main version of the card, when I look at the number of dots emitted, it's not actually proportional to the wattage. And I don't think there's any way to get the settings to make that be the case. I think that's because it sets the duration of travel to be proportional to wattage, not the speed or number of dots emitted.

Maybe if you get this multiple dot thing working you could also figure out a way to make it so the number of dots emitted per second is actually proportional to the wattage. This way each dot would represent a constant amount of energy.

[alminljajic]

If the PR isn’t ready yet you should probably make it a draft so it doesn’t appear as open.

Sorry now it's finished and can be merged if the maintainer likes it. It is now properly showing multiple dots and animating them, no glitches or anything.

Relatedly, in the main version of the card, when I look at the number of dots emitted, it's not actually proportional to the wattage. And I don't think there's any way to get the settings to make that be the case. I think that's because it sets the duration of travel to be proportional to wattage, not the speed or number of dots emitted.

Technically it is possible, it was just never intended by my feature. I intended to simply show more dots on the path but speed is still proportional to the power which means I got a proper dots per second metric on how much power is transmitted. You could technically do the opposite of what I believe you mean: static speed for all of them but then number of dots increasing to have only the number of dots proportional to the power. In total you still have a proportional dots/second but it would change way too much on the flowrate calculation stuff etc, did not want to touch this (at least in this branch)

Maybe if you get this multiple dot thing working you could also figure out a way to make it so the number of dots emitted per second is actually proportional to the wattage. This way each dot would represent a constant amount of energy.

As described above, done now.

FYI: I am currently working on allowing custom polygons instead of circles to be defined.
Furthermore, I wanna have a look on improving symmetry: The paths for invidual top and buttom are way shorter, even in the standard version, dots are rendered much smaller. Overall it looks uneven. I will see if I can improve this but it is independent from this "flow dots count" feature, a general issue I noticed.