VB Timer

[wicked_weasel]

Hey, ive got this VB project and im trying to put in a timer.
So when u click a button a timer will start from zero and count up by 1 second. When the button is clicked again the timer will stop and a msg box will display how many seconds and milliseconds it took.
I also understand that you need a label for the time to be displayed in.
If anyone can help me out with this thatd be great, cheers

[jmcilhinney]

It would be appreciated if you could specify which version of VB you're using in future. If it's VB 2005 then you already have a Stopwatch class available to you. If its earlier then I have posted a Stopwatch class in the CodeBank. You don't actually need a Timer to calculate elapsed time at all. If you want to display the elapsed time as it increases then you would need a Timer for that. Both the .NET 2.0 Stopwatch class and my Stopwatch class have Elapsed properties. If you add a Timer to your form with an Interval of 1000 (milliseconds), you can then call Start on the Timer and the Stopwatch at the same time. In the Timer's Tick event handler you would then do something like this:

Public Class Form1
 
    Dim myStopwatch As New Stopwatch
 
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Me.Timer1.Start()
        myStopwatch.Start()
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
        Dim elapsedTime As TimeSpan = Me.myStopwatch.Elapsed
 
        Me.Label1.Text = String.Format("{0:d2}:{1:d2}:{2:d2}", _
                                       Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor(elapsedTime.TotalHours)), _
                                       elapsedTime.Minutes, _
                                       elapsedTime.Seconds)
    End Sub
 
End Class

The time displayed will not be perfect though. Because of the nature of Windows applications and the Timer class there will be times where the same time will be displayed for two seconds and then skip a second. You will get a slightly more accurate result with this:

Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
    Dim elapsedTime As TimeSpan = Me.myStopwatch.Elapsed
 
    Me.Label1.Text = String.Format("{0:d2}:{1:d2}:{2:d2}", _
                                   Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor(elapsedTime.TotalHours)), _
                                   elapsedTime.Minutes, _
                                   elapsedTime.Seconds + Convert.ToInt32(Math.Round(elapsedTime.Milliseconds / 1000)))
End Sub

[Timmy_J]

Hey, yeah i had this same problem to, and this code really helped,
however is it possible to have just seconds and milliseconds, and be able to view the milliseconds counting upwards as well.
I use visual basic express, so any help would be cool

[jmcilhinney]

Hey, yeah i had this same problem to, and this code really helped,
however is it possible to have just seconds and milliseconds, and be able to view the milliseconds counting upwards as well.
I use visual basic express, so any help would be cool

You're unlikely to get a very acceptable result if you want to update a Label every millisecond because there will almost certainly be pauses in it, but you can give it a go. The principle is exactly the same. You just have to change the Timer Interval and the way you format the output string.

[Timmy_J]

okay, yeah i tried but it didnt work out, lol
thanks for your help anyway.
It has really helped out in my program

[jmcilhinney]

okay, yeah i tried but it didnt work out, lol
thanks for your help anyway.
It has really helped out in my program

Actually I just tried it myself and it worked better than I expected. You couldn't hope to actually read the display as it's running anyway. If you were perfroming some other processor intensive tasks you may find that it became jerky but I guess we are used to that anyway. The new format would look like this:

Me.Label1.Text = String.Format("{0}.{1:d3}", _
                               Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor(elapsedTime.TotalSeconds)), _
                               elapsedTime.Milliseconds)

[Timmy_J]

Okay yeah, thats seems to work, thanks heaps

[maged]

this looks like a homework assignment

[Timmy_J]

lol yeah it sorta is, but this is my first time ive used visual basic and actually had to make a prgram, lol so im a bit stumped lol

[jmcilhinney]

this looks like a homework assignment

Good point. Broke my own rules.