Random PictureBox

[Flavor Flav]

How would I make it so that out of my 170 HIDDEN picture boxes, every 1 second a random one will SHOW and then HIDE?

So basically this will happen.

BLANK SCREEN!

RANDOM PICTURE BOX POPS UP!

HIDES!

RANDOM PICTURE BOX POPS UP!

[dday9]

Well, store you picturebox's in a list(of <t>). Then use the random class to generate a random integer from 0 to that list's count in a timer's tick event with the interval set to 1000. Finally toggle that item's visibility. Here is an example, not tested, free handed:

Option Strict On
Option Explicit On

Public Class Form1
   Private pb_List As New List(Of PictureBox)
   Private r As New Random
   Private shown As Boolean = False

   Private Sub Form_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles Form1.Load
      'Loop through each picturebox on the form
      For Each pb As PictureBox In Me.Controls.OfType(Of PictureBox)()
         pb_List.Add(pb)
      Next

      Dim tmr As New Timer
      tmr.Interval = 1000 '1 Second

      'Event Handler
      AddHandler tmr.Tick, AddressOf Timer_Tick

   End Sub


   Private Sub Timer_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
      'Static, not dimmed
      Static i As Integer
      If Not (shown) Then
         i = r.Next(0, pb_List.Count)
      End If
      
      'shown is now what it wasn't then
      shown = Not (shown)

      'If shown then the pb is visible, and vise versa
      pb_List.Item(i).Visible = shown
      
   End Sub

End Class

Like I said, I free typed this and didn't test it, but it gives you an idea.

[Flavor Flav]

What do you mean store my picture boxes in a list of <t>???

[dday9]

What do you mean store my picture boxes in a list of <t>???

Well in my code, at the form level I declared a new instance of a general list(of <t>) in this particular case it was a list(of picturebox). In the form_load event, I add all the controls that are pictureboxs on the form to that list, I did so by calling List(Of <t>).Add, optionally if you could have used .AddRange and something along these lines:

pb_List.AddRange(Me.Controls.OfType(Of PictureBox)().ToArray)

and get rid of the for/each loop. An additional option you could do by getting rid of add and addrange is to just call the .ToList, assuming you're using .Net Framework 3.5 or higher. That would look something like this:

    Private pb_List As List(Of PictureBox)
    Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        pb_List = Me.Controls.OfType(Of PictureBox)().ToList
    End Sub

[Flavor Flav]

That code doesn't work for me, I changed the base of my game now though. I have 80 picture boxes and I want to make it so that it will show 4 random picture boxes every second and they will disappear every .4 seconds or if clicked.

I have NO idea how to even start this code, can someone please help me?

[dday9]

You know what, I think that it's a little discourteous for you to say 'it doesn't work' and 'NO idea where to start'. Have you tried tinkering with the code I provided? Does the code give any errors? Does it just not preform as desired? What is it? Also, you haven't once mentioned what framework you're targeting, which I think might be the issue. Either way, I'm unsubscribing from this thread. Good luck to you.

[Niya]

That code doesn't work for me, I changed the base of my game now though. I have 80 picture boxes and I want to make it so that it will show 4 random picture boxes every second and they will disappear every .4 seconds or if clicked.

I have NO idea how to even start this code, can someone please help me?

Ok lets takes this a step at a time. Where are these PictureBoxes ? Are they on a Form ? Are they inside a Panel ? Did you generate them by using code or by actually dragging them from the toolbox onto a Form/Panel/GroupBox ?

[Flavor Flav]

All of my picture boxes are on the form.

[Shaggy Hiker]

What dday wrote should work or be really close. If it didn't work for you, then what did happen? If you got an error, it will probably be easy to fix if we know what it is. If the behavior was wrong, in what way was it not what you wanted?