Question

Anyone can point the direction of implementing the time out function on windows platform (.NET, C#)?

Asked by: chuang4630

Anyone can point the direction of implementing the time out function on windows platform (.NET, C#)?

There are multiple instances of the application I am working on. The user wants to implement a "Auto Save/Time out" function, so that the app will auto save the data (or popup the dialog box) if the instance is idled for certain period of time (say 30 minutes).

I need some solid direction of implementation. If there is any more issue come up, I will create a new thread of question.

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Asked On
2005-08-24 at 13:14:47ID21538961
Tags

function

Topic

C# Programming Language

Participating Experts
3
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: mandalorian4Posted on 2005-08-24 at 14:00:05ID: 14747104

chuang4630,



Try something like this.


System.Threading.Timer tm;



Private bool Activity;


//Somewhere in the form Load
tm = new System.Threading.Timer(new TimerCallback(AutoSave),null,30000);

Capture activity by subscribing to all the controls click/changed/etc event
Activity = true;

Private void AutoSave(Object state)
{

      If(!Activity)
      //Do your autosave here.
}


This timer will fire every 30 seconds if there has not been activity it will autosave

 

by: chuang4630Posted on 2005-08-24 at 15:57:47ID: 14747829

There are over one hundred od user controls. Most of them are loaded dynamically. Does your design work in this case?

 

by: mandalorian4Posted on 2005-08-24 at 17:38:07ID: 14748248

hmmm,  yes -  but not very elegantly.  How are you currently tracking activity?  How do you define Activity?  Somehow you must be able to set the bool value of Activity to true or False.  This way, every 30 seconds when the timer fires you know if you should execute the autosave.


Mandalorian

 

by: steelheart38Posted on 2005-08-25 at 03:26:33ID: 14750464

In addition to mandalorian4's solution, you can create a function say

private void IsDirty( ) // -- some changes were made
{
    Activity = true; // -- or update the flag that determines whether you should save or not
}

private void IsClean( ) // -- you can call this if your autosave is finished
{
     Activity = false;
}

since function are more easily associated with events. Such that you can easily attach this function to events

in that way, even if controls are created dynamically, you could assign certain events of that control to the function

ie.

button.Click += new EventHandler(IsDirty);
textbox.KeyPress += new EventHandler(IsDirty);

or to any other event of your control that will mean changes are made

 

by: ChipZeroPosted on 2005-08-25 at 11:06:45ID: 14754701

I recommend you bind an eventhandler to all your form's controls (by using a recursive foreach), that resets a timer each time the user performs some action. If you use some boolean value and then have a timer check that every 30 minutes, there's no way to guarantee that the user was really inactive for 30 minutes (maybe he was inactive for 59 minutes but only the second time the timer fired in that time the program would save).

Anyway, try this:

private static System.Timers.Timer inactiveTimer = new System.Timers.Timer(30*60*1000);

public InitInactiveSave() {
      // Make it threadsafe by keeping the timer callback in the same thread
      // a System.Windows.Forms timer could do the same, but
      // a System.Threading.Timer cannot!
      inactiveTimer.SynchronizingObject = this;
      inactiveTimer. Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(OnInactiveElapsed);
      inactiveTimer.Start();

      AddActivateEventHandlers(this);
}

private void AddActivateEventHandlers(Control control) {
      foreach(Control contained in control.Controls) {
            // There are a lot of other events for control you could bind this to,
            // but Click will do in this example
            contained.Click += new EventHandler(OnControlActivated);
            AddActivateEventHandlers(contained);
      }
}            

private void OnControlActivated(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
      // Reset the timer
      inactiveTimer.Stop();
      inactiveTimer.Start();
}

private void OnInactiveElapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e) {
      // TODO: Save stuff
}

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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