how do timers work???????

[Johnny23]

Hello everyone im new to vb first timer and well as soon as im a first timer i would like someone to help me out with timers in vb how do they trigger and how do they work, could someone please send me some sample code so i can see how they trigger and how they trigger events

thankyou in advance

[Gimpster]

The way a timer works is this. The only properties you really need to worry about (at least to begin with) are: Name, Enabled, and Interval. The Name property is obvious what it does. It's just the same as on every other control in VB and so is the Enabled property. However, the Interval is where you set how long you want the timer to wait before firing the code. You set the time in milliseconds, meaning that if you want it to fire every second, you would put 1000 in this box because a millisecond is 1/1000 of a second. Now as far as how it executes code, you just put the code into the timer that you want it to execute. As soon as the timer is activated it begins timing. Once it has reached the length of time that you specified in the Interval property. It then executes the code, and continues counting, and once it reaches the specified time again, it will fire the code again. It will continue this process until it is disabled. Additionaly, the Timer is considered activated once it is loaded on a form when you run a program (that is assuming the timer is enabled when the form is loaded). But if you disable the timer at design time and then enable at run-time then that is when it becomes activated and it counts from the moment that it is enabled. Hope that helps. Just put one on a form and try some things with it, that's the best way to figure out things in VB is to just try them. But, we are always here to help. Especially Newbies, because we were all newbies at one time.

[DrewDog_21]

Gimpster, that was an explanation if I have ever read one here! Johnny, in my current project I am using a timer to show the time and date, and here is the code so that you have an example.

Form1 has controls Label1 and Timer1 with Timer1's interval property set to 1 (1 second)

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()

Label1.Caption = Now

End Sub

That code will make the label's caption show the system time, updated once per second.

Edited by DrewDog_21 on 02-23-2000 at 08:39 PM

[Serge]

I think the Timer's interval should be 1000 (1 sec) to be fired every second.

[Gimpster]

Yes, Serge is correct. The interval needs to be set to 1000 if you want it to fire every second. However, you wouldn't notice that in this example, becaue the time only changes every second, so even though the label is changing a thousand times per second, you only notice the change every second, because that's when the time changes.

Form1 has controls Label1 and Timer1 with Timer1's interval property set to 1 (1 second)

[Juan Carlos Rey]

You never notice it changed a thousand times a second, but your processor sure will, and so other apps if you are multitasking. So it is useless to set time intervals shorter than needed. (No want to polemize, just to clear)