About timer

[rachelism]

I'm using VB 2008 and i'm a newby.

Anyone out there know how to get the time between keystrokes?

For example, i type 'happy' and i want to calculate the time gap between the key i stroked, h-a, a-p, p-p, p-y .

is it we need to use timer?how?

thanks!

[RobDog888]

Welcome to the Forums.

You can use the Stopwatch class to measure elapsed time in miliseconds.

Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Dim st As Stopwatch = Stopwatch.StartNew()
        'Do something
        Threading.Thread.Sleep(500)
        MessageBox.Show(st.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString)
    End Sub

End Class

[rachelism]

thankyou so much!

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

I have to ask.. If the stopwatch is on the same thread as your application, and you sleep the thread in your example, won't the value shown be pretty much 0?

[gnaver]

nope

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Hmm.. that is interesting.. But I suppose if the stopwatch simply stores its first value and then checks the system clock and calculates the difference to get the timeelapsed, it makes sense. heh.

[Atheist]

Hmm.. that is interesting.. But I suppose if the stopwatch simply stores its first value and then checks the system clock and calculates the difference to get the timeelapsed, it makes sense. heh.

Thats exactly what it does

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

I'm still a major newb haha.

[rachelism]

Urmm, the code given is for the stopwatch to run right?

Anyone know how we can start/stop the stopwatch by typing a single key in somewhere like a textbox?

[gnaver]

maybe in the, keydown/keypress/keyup or textchange event of the textbox...

you could declare a list of string and the stopwatch

Dim test As New Stopwatch
    Dim times As New List(Of String)

then in the textbox1_textchange event put this

If times.Count = 0 Then
            test.Start()
            times.Add(test.ElapsedMilliseconds & " (" & TextBox1.Text & ")")
        Else
            times.Add(test.ElapsedMilliseconds & " (" & TextBox1.Text.Substring(TextBox1.Text.Length - 2, 2) & ")")
            test.Reset()
            test.Start()
        End If

to view the result do something like this..

For Each item As String In times
            result += item & Environment.NewLine
        Next
        MessageBox.Show(result)

this is some fast and ugly code, but maybe you get the idea

[RobDog888]

@rachelism, Read the documentation on the Stopwatch class.

It also states that if you use StartNew it initializes it and resets all values whereas .Start will attempt to restart any already initialized instances and if none found it will start it.

There are alot more features to read about and will help you take advantage of the calss as you need.

[rachelism]

thanks for the help..

so i used key-down and key-up method to determine the time of a key being pressed. it was successful

now, i wish to determine the time interval between two key press.

i guess we have to use 'keypress'. i had read the keypress event but still not sure how to do it. anyone have idea how to do it?