Member Avatar for atrusmre

Anyone know where I can find a good tutorial on windows forms timer? All I need is a sample of something that is similar to a count down timer. Any suggestions?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by majestic0110

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's CodeProject pointer was a good find and, as reported, often those samples are enough to get a working countdown quickly. Below are compact, practical notes and a small WinForms pattern that avoids common timing pitfalls and is safe for UI updates.

A robust approach is to compute an absolute end time and derive the remaining time on each Tick rather than simply decrementing a counter. That makes the countdown resilient to delayed ticks (UI thread stalls, GC pauses, etc.). In WinForms use System.Windows.Forms.Timer for UI-driven updates (its Tick runs on the UI thread so controls can be updated directly). If using a background timer (for greater accuracy), marshal UI changes with Invoke.

Example pattern:

private System.Windows.Forms.Timer uiTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer();
private DateTime endTime;

public Form1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    uiTimer.Interval = 1000;
    uiTimer.Tick += UiTimer_Tick;
}

private void StartCountdown(TimeSpan duration)
{
    endTime = DateTime.UtcNow + duration;
    uiTimer.Start();
}

private void UiTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var remaining = endTime - DateTime.UtcNow;
    if (remaining <= TimeSpan.Zero)
    {
        uiTimer.Stop();
        lblTime.Text = "00:00";
        // finished logic
    }
    else
    {
        lblTime.Text = remaining.ToString(@"mm\:ss");
    }
}

Practical tips and cautions:

  • Use DateTime.UtcNow (or Stopwatch for elapsed time) to avoid DST or clock-change issues.
  • System.Windows.Forms.Timer is fine for second-level updates; it is not high-precision and is affected by UI thread load.
  • For sub-second precision use a higher-frequency timer and Stopwatch for measurement, or a background timer class and BeginInvoke/Invoke when updating controls.
  • Support pause/resume by stopping the timer and storing the remaining TimeSpan, then restarting with a recalculated endTime.
  • Stop and dispose timers on form close to avoid leaks.

This complements the CodeProject sample by focusing on reliability and UI-thread behavior — handy when turning a demo into production code.

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Member Avatar for majestic0110

Hi there, this link might be useful to you:

hope that helps!

Member Avatar for atrusmre

Thank you. That sample program helped my find exactly what I needed. Thank you!

Member Avatar for majestic0110

glad to help!

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