Rule Machine doesn’t load anything by default. Read about it here: Rule Machine™ Introduction
Mode Manager is a relatively simple app. It is entirely event driven. It makes no effort to establish context of the time in which it is installed. Certainly, it could do that had the designer implemented that feature. That’s not to say it is not important, it’s just that you install it, and it starts doing it’s thing as events unfold.
Before Mode Manager existed, Rule Machine could be used to create rules or triggers to set modes. What is the difference? A rule tests some conditions under a logical rule to determine if an action should happen. A trigger fires upon an event and an action happens. One could set modes with a trigger: At sunset set the mode to evening. If that trigger were installed ten minutes after sunset, nothing would happen, because it would only do its action at the sunset event. A rule could set modes also, as I posted above. If that rule were installed ten minutes after sunset, it would set the mode to evening because Rule Machine evaluates the logic of a rule when it is installed. The rule would have been true at ten minutes after sunset, so it would have set the mode to evening when installed. From then on, going forward, that rule would be event driven just like the trigger. The next time sunset happens, it would evaluate the rule, which would be true (having become false at then end of the time period specified), and it would again set the mode to evening. Since both the trigger and the rule are effectively just being fired by the event, it’s simpler to just use the trigger. Mode Manager is simple an aggregation of several types of triggers into one UI.
