Help me make a timer that logs.

[bballervb]

Hi, I am new to vb and as a starter project, I want to make a timer that is activated/deactivated by pushing "F10" and as well as logs your time from the the time to activate to the time to deactivate and store it in a text document..

any help ?

[Killer42]

Hi, I am new to vb and as a starter project, I want to make a timer that is activated/deactivated by pushing "F10" and as well as logs your time from the the time to activate to the time to deactivate and store it in a text document.

Our members and experts will be glad to help with specific questions along the way, but you really need to try and tackle the problem yourself.

One thought... use the Form's KeyPress event to detect F10 and toggle the Timer's Enabled property.

[jamesd0142]

Firstly work out what you need to do in english...

1. Create timer function.
2. Detect F10 keypress.
3. Use global variable, this will detect if the timer is running or not.
4. On F10 keypress start timer function, on f10 keypress stop time and store value in variable.
5. Open/create text file, store details.
6. Etc.

You see the idea.

Thanks

[Ariharan]

1. Create timer function
...

The idea of James really works well but do you think F10 key can be detected easily? It is easy to detect the alphanumeric keys but I don't know how to detect the function keys. Can you tell how to detect the following keys?

All function keys
Tab
Caps Lock
Scroll Lock
Num Lock
Home
Page Up
Page Down
End
Insert
Delete
all Arrow Keys
Print Screen
Ctrl
Alt
Esc
Shift

[jamesd0142]

This gives the difference between start and stop of timer1.
The ASCII code 13 is the Enter button.

Imports System.IO
Public Class Form1
    Dim oFile As System.IO.File
    Dim oWrite As System.IO.StreamWriter
    Dim timer As Integer = 0
    Dim b As String
    Dim c As String
    Dim d As String
    Dim ee As String
    Dim ff As String
 
    Private Sub Form1_KeyPress(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyPress
        'Dim b As String = Keys.F10
        Dim a As String = Asc(e.KeyChar)
        If a = "13" Then
            If timer = 0 Then
                b = System.DateTime.Now
                MsgBox("Start " + b)
                timer = 1
 
                Exit Sub
            End If
 
            If timer = 1 Then
                c = System.DateTime.Now
                MsgBox("Stop " + c)
                timer = 0
                'work out difference
                d = Mid(c, 12)
                ee = Mid(b, 12)
 
 
                ' get all no's
                Dim i As Integer
                Dim q As String
                Dim w As String
                Dim dd As String
                Dim eee As String
                For i = 1 To Len(d)
                    q = Mid(d, i, 1)
                    If q <> ":" Then
                        dd = dd + q
                    End If
                Next
                For i = 1 To Len(ee)
                    w = Mid(ee, i, 1)
                    If w <> ":" Then
                        eee = eee + w
                    End If
                Next
 
                'store in d an ee
                MsgBox(dd)
                MsgBox(eee)
                ff = dd - eee
                MsgBox(ff) 'Gives the time between timer1 start and stop
                'write to file
                '--------------------
                Exit Sub
            End If
 
 
        End If
 
    End Sub
 
End Class

As for function keys, use the ASCII code for these eg... f10 = "121"

[Killer42]

...As for function keys, use the ASCII code for these eg... f10 = "121"

I think you'll find that there are named constants to represent the keys. In VB6 I think they're called things like vbKeyF10. Don't know about later versions.

[jamesd0142]

I think you'll find that there are named constants to represent the keys. In VB6 I think they're called things like vbKeyF10. Don't know about later versions.

yes ur correct but i ran into all types of problems with these cudn get them to work, its easier to use the ascii codes i found.

[Killer42]

yes ur correct but i ran into all types of problems with these cudn get them to work, its easier to use the ascii codes i found.

Fair enough, I suppose. If it works, that's more important than looking nice.