c# countdown using a timer

Question

Hello everyone,
I hope I put it in the right section, but I'm rather sure I did.

I have a few problems with my timer.

- It will not go in to the "if (timer1.Interval == 1)"-loop.
- I have no clue how to convert an integer to time, but in a way where I can easily substract 1 second, and go from :00 to :59. (I am assuming I' m going to have to do this converting an integer to a different standard).
- Either the timer, or the progress bar which I use to check the timer with, is awfully "chunky" when it comes to short countings, it seems really unaccurate. (Adjusting the MarqueeAnimationSpeed does not help, I have tried(not sure if this was stupid or not, but I'd like to hear what this actually does, then)).
- Also the .Interval seems NOT to be in milliseconds in my program for some odd reason.

You can see the code below, thanks in advance.

private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (timer1.Interval == 1)
{
timer1.Stop();
buttonStart.Text = "Start";
buttonStop.Enabled = false;
progressBar1.Value = progressBar1.Minimum;
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("The timer has run out of time");
}
if (progressBar1.Value < 100)
{
progressBar1.Value++;
//labelShowTime.Text = ();
labelShowProgressBarValue.Text = (Convert.ToString(progressBar1.Value) + "%");
}
}

Guest User · Answer

All of your answers were helpful, just not what I was looking for. ;) So I'd rather pick no one, else the others would complain. ;p

Danatas Gervi · Answer

Mark my post as "accepted answer" if it was helpfull. ;-)

Guest User · Answer

Ah, I have found the problem, thanks though. ;) How do I close this thread?

Danatas Gervi · Answer

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE HE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:right; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} The Timer from tools is only way to make something clock-like in winforms. namespace TimeCounter { public partial class Form1 : Form { DateTime m_CurrentDate; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); timer1.Interval = 20; timer1.Enabled = false ; } private void timer1_Tick( object sender, EventArgs e) { m_CurrentDate = m_CurrentDate.AddMilliseconds(timer1.Interval); this .Text = m_CurrentDate.Second.ToString(); if (progressBar1.Value { progressBar1.Value += timer1.Interval / 10; labelShowProgressBarValue.Text = (Convert.ToString(progressBar1.Value) + "%" ); } else { progressBar1.Value = 0; } if (m_CurrentDate.Second == 59) { timer1.Enabled = false ; } } private void buttonStart_Click( object sender, EventArgs e) { timer1.Enabled = true ; m_CurrentDate = new DateTime(); } } } If you will use something else – you will make same thing, and you should be using Invoke, threading timer… why you should do it?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

What I mean by the timer is not critical is that nothing will be destroyed except your confidence if the timer is not accurate. A timer should not be used to do things such as control a car or a drill or a heart pacemaker; those are time-critical applications that Windows was not designed to do, except maybe the embedded Windows. Updating the progress bar once every millisecond means it will try to update 1,000 times per second, which is about ten times faster than people can see and too fast for the computer to keep up with. Probably 10 times per second, or 100 miliseconds per interval, is fast enough for people.

Guest User · Answer

I thought I could use the _tick, but apperantly not. So at the moment, yes, I am. Although it seems rather sloppy.

Danatas Gervi · Answer

Do you want to use progerss bar as milisecond indicator?

Guest User · Answer

Hello everyone, @ Danatas Gervi: Thanks! I've been looking for that, but I didn't know how to operate it. @ Sam Hobbs : What do you mean, not critical? Im writing a timer. :P At low value's it counts extremely fast, and goes from 1~60 in like 30S and at high values it takes 10 actual seconds to raise 1 second. @ niki d : I do not want it to stop after 1 second, I want it to when the value reaches 1. I'd pick 0, but 0 is invalid. I now made an if() which works w/ my progress bar _______________________________________________________________________________________ It works now, but the _tick isn't doing what I want it to do, it's extremely unstable at low and high values(such as 5 or 9999) Also, can I reset the " m_CurrentDate.Minute / .Second" ? It says I can only get the value, but not set any. Best regards, Kasper

Nilanka Dharmadasa · Answer

Hi friend, It seems you want to stop your timer after 1 second is passed. Using my code you will be able to do that. public partial class Form1 : Form { private DateTime starttime; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void buttonStart_Click( object sender, EventArgs e) { //You code timer1.Start(); starttime = DateTime.Now; //Make sure to put this line just after starting the timer. //Your code } private void timer1_Tick( object sender, EventArgs e) { DateTime currenttime = DateTime.Now; if (starttime.AddSeconds(1) { timer1.Stop(); buttonStart.Text = "Start" ; buttonStop.Enabled = false ; progressBar1.Value = progressBar1.Minimum; System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show( "The timer has run out of time" ); } if (progressBar1.Value { progressBar1.Value++; //labelShowTime.Text = (); labelShowProgressBarValue.Text = (Convert.ToString(progressBar1.Value) + "%" ); } } } If this helps, do not forget to mark this as accepted.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Relevant to the problem of innacuracy of the timer, note that timers for Windows applications are not guaranteed to be accurate. For your application, it seems that accuracy is not critical but there are things you can do to improve the accuracy. What I would do is to re-calculate how much time is needed for the next interval. Instead of setting the timer for 1-second intervasl, I would calculate in each timer event how much time is needed until the next event. I would also calculate how much time has elapsed and set the progress in terms of over-all elapsed time instead of assuming that a specific amount of time has elapsed for each timer event. Then if your application gets delayed by other things in the system, it can automatically adjust.

Danatas Gervi · Answer

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE HE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:right; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Interval of timer = 1 – mean that timer will rise the tik event every 1 milisecond, and it will not be so, bacause the time quant in windows is 15 ms. Try this. public partial class Form1 : Form { DateTime m_CurrentDate; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); m_CurrentDate = DateTime.Now; } private void timer1_Tick( object sender, EventArgs e) { //if (timer1.Interval == 1) //{ // timer1.Stop(); // buttonStart.Text = "Start"; // //buttonStop.Enabled = false; // progressBar1.Value = progressBar1.Minimum; // System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("The timer has run out of time"); //} m_CurrentDate = m_CurrentDate.AddSeconds(1); this .Text = m_CurrentDate.Second.ToString(); if (progressBar1.Value { progressBar1.Value++; //labelShowTime.Text = (); labelShowProgressBarValue.Text = (Convert.ToString(progressBar1.Value) + "%" ); } } } DateTime struct already know how to convert integer to second. :-)