Basically, I've got multiple button in my Form, and I want for it show a Stopwatch in the button.Text when the button is pressed. (Button is modified to be a toggle button.) and to stop and reset the timmer when the button is toggled off. Simple enough it seemed but because I have multiple buttons that could be pressed in any order, and I don't know anything about threading, this seems to be much more difficult that I presumed.
My origional intent was to have a function that constantly runs every second and interates a interager only if the button is pressed using this code:
public void Jogger()//purpose is to step up time[0] every second only when a button is on.
{
while (true)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++)
{
if (btnstat[i])
time[i]++;
}
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
}
Problem is, I don't know threading so when I call the function, its stuck doing this and only this.
Either way, once this is called, all i do us call my update function that updates all the buttons including the button.Text which displays the time[0]; (array built around buttons)
Is their a better way of doing this that doesn't cause so much CPU use and/or simply works?
Thanks for all the help!
-John Ivey
Assuming you using checkbox with property Button = Appearence, in event handler for CheckedChanged:
private void CheckBoxCheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
CheckBox checkBox = (CheckBox) sender;
if (checkBox.Checked)
{
Timer timer = new Timer {Interval = 1000};
timer.Tick += Jogger;
timer.Start();
timer.Tag = new CheckboxCounter {CheckBox = checkBox, Time = 0};
checkBox.Tag = timer;
}
else
{
Timer timer = checkBox.Tag as Timer;
if (timer != null)
{
timer.Tag = null;
timer.Stop();
timer.Dispose();
checkBox.Tag = null;
}
}
}
Change your Jogger function:
private void Jogger(object a_sender, EventArgs a_eventArgs)
{
Timer timer = (Timer) a_sender;
CheckboxCounter data = (CheckboxCounter)timer.Tag;
data.Time++;
data.CheckBox.Text = data.Time.ToString();
}
You also need some simple class to store checkbox and current time:
class CheckboxCounter
{
public CheckBox CheckBox;
public int Time;
}
Then you can add any number of checkboxes and just set event CheckedChanged to CheckBoxCheckedChanged.
Try this out. After re-building or running, you should have the new "ButtonTimer" at the top of your ToolBox. Drop a couple on your Form, run it, and see what happens when you click them. Right click them to "Reset" them:
public class ButtonTimer : CheckBox
{
private System.Windows.Forms.Timer Tmr = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer();
private System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch SW = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();
public ButtonTimer()
{
this.Tmr.Interval = 500;
this.Tmr.Tick += new EventHandler(tmr_Tick);
this.Appearance = System.Windows.Forms.Appearance.Button;
this.CheckedChanged += new EventHandler(ButtonTimer_CheckedChanged);
ContextMenuStrip cms = new ContextMenuStrip();
ToolStripItem tsi = cms.Items.Add("Reset");
tsi.Click += new EventHandler(tsi_Click);
this.ContextMenuStrip = cms;
}
protected override void OnLayout(LayoutEventArgs levent)
{
base.OnLayout(levent);
this.Text = TimeSpan.Zero.ToString(@"hh\:mm\:ss");
}
private void ButtonTimer_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (this.Checked)
{
this.SW.Start();
this.Tmr.Start();
}
else
{
this.SW.Stop();
this.Tmr.Stop();
}
}
private void tmr_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.UpdateTime();
}
private void UpdateTime()
{
this.Text = this.SW.Elapsed.ToString(@"hh\:mm\:ss");
}
private void tsi_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (this.SW.IsRunning)
{
SW.Restart();
}
else
{
SW.Reset();
}
this.UpdateTime();
}
}
Application.DoEvents() for simplicity put inside loop . . but it is advisable to start to lean threading . you will just learn how to start thread and how make cross thread safe call
Next simple will be to use backgroundworker . look this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.backgroundworker.aspx
ok here is thread solution also as you wanted . Tested too . as a stop variable i used Tag. But u can inherit button to make state button.it be more clear way . And below code will use one thread per button . So u should make it in one thread to make it better solution . You can modify this code to do all checkings inside one thread . For this you start thread once can make delegate for attaching dinamically count function for each button or you can pass buttons before . With one word there are more than one way to do it. Good luck
this.button1.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.button_Click);
this.button2.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.button_Click);
...and so on
private void button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Thread x= new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(Jogger2));
x.Start(sender);
}
private void button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Button mybtn=sender as Button;
if((string)mybtn.Tag=="start"){
mybtn.Tag ="";
return;
}
mybtn.Tag = "start";
Thread x= new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(Jogger2));
x.Start(sender);
}
private bool setResult(object obj,string text)
{
if (this.textBox1.InvokeRequired)
{
Func<Button,string, bool > d = new Func<Button,string,bool >(setResult);
return (bool)this.Invoke(d,obj,text);
}
else
{
Button btn=obj as Button;
if (btn != null)
{
btn.Text = text;
if ((string)btn.Tag !="start") return false;
}
return true;
}
}
private void Jogger2(object mybtn)
{
int ii = 0;
while (true)
{
Thread.Sleep(1000);
//replace with your code
ii += 1;
if (!setResult(mybtn, ii.ToString())) break;
}
}
