Auto refresh splash screen

[alag20]

Hi Guys,
I have made an application which has a splash screen. This has one of the delegates to update a string which works fine.

My issue is that I want to automatically refresh this splash every 2 secs. I have tried with Timer & thread but havent been able to implement it properly [I have used threads and timer before but still]. The splash screen is pretty dumb with only to show text while the app works in the back ground. The splash object is created and just splashObj.Visib le = true; this allows me to continue with the current process.

Please help!

[jamesd0142]

Im not sure what version your using but,

form.refresh is an option in some versions of vb

example:
me.refresh
Or
textbox1.refres h

[alag20]

Im not sure what version your using but,

form.refresh is an option in some versions of vb

example:
me.refresh
Or
textbox1.refres h

Sorry I forgot. I am using c# - .Net 2. I know you can do this.Refresh() which works fine in most cases but if I start a timer and on timer tick, if i do this.Refresh() then this doesnt work!

[Plater]

you have to make sure you are refreshing the correct object(s). "me" or "this" might not be refering to the correct object in all cases.

And it's .Update() that you should be using to force a redrew of a control. It's available on all controls I believe.

[jamesd0142]

you have to make sure you are refreshing the correct object(s). "me" or "this" might not be refering to the correct object in all cases.

And it's .Update() that you should be using to force a redrew of a control. It's available on all controls I believe.

Is this the case in vb also?
Whats the difference between refresh and update?

James

[Plater]

Hmm, now I'm not sure.
Refresh says it invalidates then redraws
Update says it redraws the already invalid region

I think refresh just takes more time because it has to do multiple windows messages (or at least more then update should take)

[alag20]

Here is the sample code I use. As you can see I am using Timer and hopefully on every tick it should refresh [I am using refresh coz I need it to invalidate the whole screen and redraw it]

I am calling it as below:
SplashScreen test = new SplashScreen();


and then whenever I need to display it test.Visible = true / false;


I hope this explains my issue!

[HTML]
.......
using Timer = System.Windows. Forms.Timer;

public partial class SplashScreen : Form
{

Timer myTimer = new Timer();

public Splash()
{
InitializeCompo nent();
}

private void Splash_Load(obj ect sender, EventArgs e)
{
myTimer.Interva l = 1000;
myTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(my Timer_Tick);
myTimer.Start() ;
}

void myTimer_Tick(ob ject sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (this.Visible) this.Refresh();
}}
}[/HTML]

[Plater]

Assuming that .Start() is a valid function on timer (never used it) that all looks right.
Once every second the form should update. But you say it's not?

I do something rather similar. I have a form that performs an in-depth search on things. So I popup a little window that says "Searching. .." in big letters then below it I give a more detailed message "Searching item 124 / 409876" and it gets incrementend on each change of the number. The numbers move very fast, but they do appear to be updating correctly.

EDIT: I should point out that a timer_tick relies entirely on the sending of a windows message. If that thread is busy, the message will never get through.
If you are doing something in a loop, try throwing in an Application.DoE vents()

[alag20]

Well I have something similar in my app. But my only issue is sometimes when there is a big file to copy then this screen seems like hanged / crashed!


I cant even send Application.DoE vents during big file copy as suggested by you but I am also thinking that this could be the issue!

Any other idea's?

Ps : Timer is a thread, and you can start any Thread by thread.Start() - It works on its own!

[Plater]

System.Threadin g.Timer is a thread
System.Windows. Forms.Timer is NOT a thread.

.Start() is available on both, for the Forms.Timer that you are using, it's the same as saying .Enabled=true