Auto-advance

[patikoija]

Hi! I have read through the wiki and can't seem to determine if there's an auto-advance feature for speeches. Essentially, a modification of this line:
<bell time="finish" number="2" next-period="normal"/>
I can't determine if there's a type of "next-period" that will send the program on to the next speech without manual intervention by the user instead of having it stay on the current speech and sit in an additional time queue. Is this possible?

[czlee]

Hi! There's no way to automatically advance to the next speech. I was assuming you'll never want to start a new speech immediately when time for a previous speech expires—assuming it's a different speaker, you'll always want to stop the timer when the speaker finishes, and then wait for the next speaker to get up to the podium ready to begin their speech, and then start the timer when they start speaking. What did you have in mind?

[patikoija]

Maybe this is a bit unorthodox for a debate style, but I essentially want to do "lightning round" debate where each team gets 90 seconds or so to provide their thoughts. There is no flexibility for going over the timer. As such, I want the next team's time to start immediately and without manual intervention. So I like the functionality that enables me to write my own debate format (number of speeches, names for them, etc), but would like to end up having that format followed without any deviation.

[czlee]

Would it work just to have a single "speech" and to use "periods" (and if necessary period types) to differentiate between speeches? You can't change the speech name with different periods, but you can change the "subtitle" that appears below the speech name.

(This "subtitle" isn't often used—it's currently used in the New Zealand Easters and Open Parliamentary formats, if you want an example. Look for <period-type><display>...</display></period-type>.)