Help with Time-Out

[Tom Patten]

Hi,

I want to have a form return to the mainmenu if not used for 30 seconds - a confidentiality requirement.

I went to form Properties, set the timer for 30 seconds. Then went to the Ontimer Event and entered a script to goto to MainMenu.

I opened the form, and YES it worked as designed!

One Problem. I now have only 30 secondds to work with the form since it times-out in 30 seconds regardless of whether or not it is in use.

Where do I put the code to open MainMenu that will count seconds from the last input?

Thanks

Tom

[martinwcole]

RE: Help with Time-Out

I'll be interested to see how responses to this are - my first thought is to use a variable that is reset to zero at the form's onkey event - thus any key would start the timing over again

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Martin,
Your idea works. Create a layout variable that is numeric. (I called it counter). On the OnKey event put this line first.

counter = 0

Set the timer for 1 sec. On the Ontimer event place the following

counter = counter + 1
if counter = 30
parentform.close() 'or whatever
end if

If the user uses any key, counter returns to 0. But if there is no key activity for 30 seconds, the Ontimer action will fire. Neat idea!

Jerry

[Tom Patten]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Jerry and Martin,

Thank you very much. I really appreciate the help.

Tom

[Tom Patten]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Well, let look at this again.

Upon further exam, I find that on entering a form for the first time this works fine, but upon re-entering it doesn't work dependably. It seems that if a field has focus, it also doesn't fire.

But we are close. Any other ideas?

Tom

[martinwcole]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Tom, I haven't had a chance to try this myself, but try the form [onactivate] or [oninitialize] to set and start the process, or see if you have the focus land some place other than at a field[with blinking cursor] - like at a button or something if that gets it started.

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Thomas,
My test form works reliably even on re-entry and regardless if a field has focus. Be sure the form variable is entered as a layout variable and assign a default value of 0. Every time the form is closed and reopened, the variable resets to 0. If you are just hiding the form, the place

counter = 0

on the on activate event.

Jerry

[Tom Patten]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Jerry,

I think your suggestion takes me back to where I started. Won't this time-out regardless of any form activity?

I'd like to have the event NOT occur unless no activity occured on the form - no keystrokes - for XXXseconds.

Placing the script on the OnKey event seems to make sense, but didn't work dependably when closing and reopening the form. I'm having the script return the user to the MainMenu.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Tom

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Perhaps an example might be easier to understand. Attached is a little app with a mainmenu form and a form that opens with a timer that closes the form after a period of inactivity. Currently, it is set at 10 seconds for quicker action. (I hate to wait). If you leave the menu form running, closing the timer form will send focus back to the menu. I normally leave the main menu running in the background.

Jerry

[Tom Patten]

RE: Help with Time-Out

EXCELLENT! Just what I was looking for.

Thank You.

Tom

[CharlesK]

RE: Help with Time-Out

What if the user uses only the mouse? How do you reset the counter when the mouse is clicked?

Charles

[Tom Patten]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Hi,

I guess instead of activating another form when the time-out is reached, you could show a message (again for a time limited period) which would permit resetting the time, or continuing to the time-out form.

Is there not a MouseClick event?

Tom

[CharlesK]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Only the USER has an OnMouse event. After thinking about my question, I came up with a few solutions:

A lot of the controls and objects have an OnArrive event that could be used to reset the counter, but this is only fired if the control/object is acutally given focus. (This would watch to make sure the focus is changing).

An OnFetch event could reset the counter if the object is a browse table.

In other words, as long as the user clicks the mouse, it can be used to reset the counter. It's a lot easier watching the keyboard than the mouse!

[whanigsberg]

RE: Help with Time-Out

Hi everybody,

As usual a couple of articles by Dr. Wayne bear on this issue. In a November 1998 Alpha Forum article entitled "Locking Up After Careless Users", he suggests attaching the code to reset the counter to the forms' OnEnter, OnFetch, OnSave, and OnKey events. I might consider adding the form's OnActivate to the list in order to capture the activity of users navigating among an application's forms.

This last measure might obviate the need to use another of Dr. Wayne's techniques. In the "Mouse Rollover" article at Learnalpha.com he demonstrates how to put a user object on top of a button. This blocks you from pushing the button but you can program the user object to push the button. And since the user object has the on_mouse event it can also be programmed to reset the counter.

I've wondered why we needed the ability to program a control to press a button but it is worth remembering. Just
last week I solved a nasty little context problem by having a toolbar item press a form's button which was hidden--yes you can use it even if it is hidden. The toolbar item didn't have any events to program but the button did!

So obvious in retrospect.

Bill
Bill