[RESOLVED] Multiple text boxes using one timer?

[phpman]

Is it possible to have multiple textbox use one timer. What I have is a tabcontrol that shows a datagrid. I have text boxes to filter the grid. so I use a timer control for the keyup on the textbox. Just wanted to clean up the code and maybe get rid of 10 timers. lol

 Private Sub TxtMachineSearchQuick_KeyUp(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles TxtMachineSearchQuick.KeyUp

        'Restart the filter delay.
        Me.Timer1.Stop()
        Me.Timer1.Start()
    End Sub

    Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick        
        Me.Timer1.Stop()
        LicensesBindingSource.Filter = "Machine Like '" & TxtMachineSearchQuick.Text & "%'"
    End Sub


    Private Sub TxtUserIDSearchQuick_KeyUp(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles TxtUserIDSearchQuick.KeyUp
        'Restart the filter delay.
        Me.Timer2.Stop()
        Me.Timer2.Start()
    End Sub

    Private Sub Timer2_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer2.Tick

        Me.Timer2.Stop()
        LicensesBindingSource.Filter = "UserID Like '" & TxtUserIDSearchQuick.Text & "%'"
    End Sub

That si for one tab that has two textboxes on it. can they use the same timer? of course each textbox would fire alone.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Generally, yes. The problem you may run into is if two of the textboxes were changed in short order. I'm not quite sure why you are using the timers in the first place, as they don't seem to do anything other than delay a reasonable response, but is the delay long enough that a person might trigger a second one before the first one has finished? If that's the case, then you will have trouble, as the second trigger will restart the first, and it will be a bit hard to figure out what to do when the timer ticks.

You will probably need an integer variable at form scope, or an enum. In each of the KeyUp event handlers, when you start the timer, also set that variable to a unique value. An enum would be good for this, but in this case you could also just say: 1 = UserID, 2=Machine, 3=Whatever,etc...

In the timer tick event, you'd have a select case statement that switched on that form level variable and did a different filter for each value. If the timer ticked too fast, you could OR together values (you'd have to use 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. rather than 1, 2, 3, 4) and set up the code in the timer tick to filter on both. That seems unlikely to be necessary, though.

[phpman]

Thanks Shaggy,

Yes, the timer is all for a slight delay in the datagrid view for each filter. And yes, each box can override what the last one did. it doesn't mess anything up, just changes the view as one would expect

I will look into the enum. Filtering on more than one is a good idea as it has a slight chance of happening, I will have to see about making that work, thanks for the thought, lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

Filtering on more than one wouldn't be too hard to implement. The key is that each value would have to be a power of 2 so that they could be ORed together. You can do that in an enum easily enough:

Public Enum Filters
UserID = 1
Machine = 2
SomeOther = 4
End Enum

What gets different is that in the timer tick you wouldn't be able to use a select case the same way. What you might do is a series of If statements:

If (myFilters And 1) > 0 Then
 'Filter on UserID
End If

If (myFilters And 2) > 0 Then
 'Filter on machine.
End If

If (myFilters And 4) > 0 Then
 'Filter on something else.
End If

The key difference is that if the value can only be one thing, then a select case would be the way to go, but if it was a bunch of things ORed together (or if you had a Boolean for each of the different values rather than ORing them into an integer, which is an option), then they aren't exclusive and you have to check each one individually.

[Shaggy Hiker]

By the way, why are you pausing?

[phpman]

Thanks shaggy, doing the enum worked like a charm.

without the pause it happens so fast it doesn't look like it is working, if there are a lot of results returned.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's a pretty amusing problem to have.