MFC Countdown Timer

[atrusmre]

I am writing a MFC application and need to have the program pause for a few seconds. I am trying to use the OnTimer event and am having troubles. The following code causes the program to freeze and stop responding

m_iCount = 0;
	SetTimer(ID_TEST_TIMER, 1000, NULL);
	while(m_iCount <= 5)
	{
         }

However if I add the following it works fine.

m_iCount = 0;
	SetTimer(ID_TEST_TIMER, 1000, NULL);
	while(m_iCount <= 5)
	{
		CString x;
		x.Format("%d",m_iCount);
		MessageBox(x);
	}

In both of these examples the program is suppose to wait 5 seconds before continuing. Also note that m_iCount is suppose to incrament everytime the ID_TEST_TIMER event is called. Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong and can do to fix it?

[Ancient Dragon]

while(m_iCount <= 5)
	{
         }

How many ways can you say infinite loop ? and it is consuming nearly all CPU time?

why are you making it so difficult ? If you goal is for the program to pause for 5 second, just call Sleep() function. No need for that timer.

[atrusmre]

Why? Becasue I am a noob who forgot about Sleep();
Thanx for the help!!:o

[atrusmre]

Ok, so here's a spin off of the previous. If I wanted the user to only have say 20 seconds to enter text in an edit box before it grayed out, how would I go about that?

Sleep()

causes the program to pause, so what would I use?

[WolfPack]

Why don't you read the documentation for Sleep() ????

[Ancient Dragon]

Ok, so here's a spin off of the previous. If I wanted the user to only have say 20 seconds to enter text in an edit box before it grayed out, how would I go about that?

Sleep()

causes the program to pause, so what would I use?

You can't use Sleep() in that situation because Sleep will not allow the user to do anything during that time. I have not tried it but I think you can use sometime like this example which is implements a timeout for MessageBox. In a nutshell, you set a timer to kick off in 20 seconds. In the timer event check of the user has typed anything in the edit control and if not then send the control a WM_CLOSE message.