LongTimer OCX
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The LongTimerIntervals OCX ActiveX control provides timer intervals much longer
than the standard VB Timer. It has a significant additional advantage
over the standard Timer. The standard VB Timer depends on standard
Windows’ timers. Windows queues only a
single timer message to an application.
If a previous message has not been processed when the next timer message
would have been added to the message queue, no additional message is
generated. Thus, the standard Timer
often runs “slow.” The
LongTimerIntervals OCX corrects this operation by calculating the actual
expired time between timer messages using the Windows multimedia timer, and
correcting subsequent events based on this actual time.
Its properties and events are as follows:
Properties
Interval (Single) – Intervals are specified in seconds. Thus, 1-hour = 3600, while 1-day = 86400. The absolute limit on Interval is about 24 days (2,073,600 seconds). The correction algorithm mentioned above causes this limitation. However, even in these days of ever increasing reliability of Windows, an Interval that exceeds 1-day should use other techniques (see the Scheduler OCX that is/will be posted on this site).
The LongTimerIntervals OCX timer resolution is approximately 110 mS. However,
because of limitations in the standard Windows Timer, accurate timing intervals
are generated only when the Interval property exceeds 200 mS. I recommend
Intervals of 300 mS or more for best accuracy.
Enabled (Boolean) – Change this property to
enable/disable the timer.
Events
OnTimer- This event is generated when the
specified interval has expired.
Disclaimer
This ActiveX control is provided free, without
warranty of any kind. You are free to use it for any purpose that you deem
reasonable, but the author is not responsible for any such use (or misuse), or
for any damage that might result from its use. Treat this software like you
would any beta software. It may work as described, but if it does not, you got
what you paid for.
Feel free to contact me if you have problems. However, I cannot guarantee
that I will be able to respond in a timely way. Please let me know about any
successes.
Source Code (VB6) is available. Click here (about 11K, Zipped). Naturally, since I don’t charge for this
source code, I invite you to purchase a copy of my book;
I do receive a small royalty from that!