Visual Basic

8-May-09 4:50

I was attempting to build an analog clock for my computer. I've got the program just about finished, but I'm having a problem with the form's Invalidate() Function. When I run the program everything works fine for 5-6 seconds, but after that the form won't paint itself anymore. I've checked in debug mode and the loop is still running but the form doesn't paint. So I went a step further and forced the paint event under the mouse_doubleclick(). It is keeping time and the loop is running, but the form won't paint by itself.
I have a feeling that the problem is with something that XP is doing behind the scenes. Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

Diego Moita8-May-09 4:54

Diego Moita

8-May-09 4:54

Adam Loudermilk wrote:
Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

Looks like an hardware problem; in the device between the chair and the keyboard.

BTW what part of :

Please DO NOT POST PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS HERE. If you have a programming question please post it in the programming forums at forums.

you don't get?

Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.

Adam Loudermilk8-May-09 5:01

8-May-09 5:01

Thank you for straightening that out for me. I'm new to programming and the CodeProject. It's always nice to have a friendly person show you the way.

Thanks for your help Diego Moita,
Adam Suspicious | :suss:

Mycroft Holmes8-May-09 17:43

Mycroft Holmes

8-May-09 17:43

Oops and you thought you were in the Lounge Smile | :)

Unless of course the original post was in the Lounge and it was moved!

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH

Luc Pattyn8-May-09 5:11

8-May-09 5:11

Hi, you'd better show some code, regarding the timer (initialization and tick handler) and possibly the paint handler (the essence of it, not all the graphic details).

Smile | :)

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Adam Loudermilk11-May-09 9:38

11-May-09 9:38

I don't know how much you need (honestly I didn't think that any would be required to understand the problem). I've copied the timer tick() routine.

Private Sub ClockTimer_Tick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ClockTimer.Tick
        Me.Invalidate()
        HourHand.Position = System.DateTime.Now.Hour
        MinuteHand.Position = System.DateTime.Now.Minute
        SecondHand.Position = System.DateTime.Now.Second
        Application.DoEvents()
    End Sub

When the program first starts to run the clock will tick about five times. Then it will pause for about 3 seconds, tick one more time and then it stops. I know that it is something that XP is doing, but I'm unsure of how to force it. I've also changed the styles of the form:

Me.SetStyle(ControlStyles.UserPaint Or ControlStyles.FixedHeight Or ControlStyles.FixedWidth Or _
                    ControlStyles.SupportsTransparentBackColor, True)

If someone has any idea what this might be I would appreciate you letting me know.

Thanks

Luc Pattyn11-May-09 9:54

11-May-09 9:54

Hi,

the DoEvents() does not belong there, just remove it.
and the Me.Invalidate() needs to come after you changed the parameters: first adjust the positions, then tell the Form it needs to be redrawn! I am assuming your Form itself is showing the hands.

If that does not solve it, something else is wrong too. One possibility is your system is overloaded and your app does not get a chance to process its message queue. Is Task Manager indicating a high CPU load?

Smile | :)

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Adam Loudermilk11-May-09 11:20

11-May-09 11:20

Thanks for responding so quick Luc. I would like to get this thing finished. I've been working on it entirely too long.

So, I took the DoEvents() out and switched the order of operations like you had said. Still no luck. Then I tried a couple of other things:

1. tried publishing the program to see if it would still act the same as a stand alone app. It compiled but when I try to install it an error comes up and won't install completely.

2. (very strange I know) If you press f5 and minimize the VB window really fast, then go over and double click on the system clock in the system tray the program will run perfectly until you close the "Date and Time Properties" window. After you close the D and T window the program will freeze again in about 4 seconds.

I know that the computer is not too busy because I can move the form around the desktop just fine. It doesn't hang up at all.

I'm really stumped! Not very sure what to do from here. If anyone has an idea please let me know.

There is probably too much code to insert it all in one of these replies. Is there anyway to attach the project folder somehow?

Thanks again for your help

Luc Pattyn11-May-09 11:39

11-May-09 11:39

OK,

tell us a lot more about your app.
what is its main goal? what special things does it include?
third-party stuff? P/Invoke? COM objects?
are you painting everything in the Paint handler?
are you using CreateGraphics?
do you call Dispose() on everything that you created and don't need any longer.
open up Task Manager, and watch your app's memory consumption; is it increasing all the time?

and what did you mean by "the loop is still running" in your original post?

BTW: you can run an app without creating an installer and everything; just open up the project's folder, dive into bin/debug/ (or bin/release) and double-click the exe file (the one without vshost in the name).

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]

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Adam Loudermilk11-May-09 12:14

11-May-09 12:14

No to everything except; Yes, I'm painting everything in the paint handler, and the program's memory is steady around 41,000K.

The application is just eye candy. It doesn't do anything special except look and act like an analog clock that sits on the desktop.

When I said "the loop is still running" I was referring to the timer. The timer was still ticking and the Me.Invalidate() function was still being called, but nothing was happening.

I've actually come up with a solution that seems to be working. Originally I was painting everything to the form. I inserted a picture box and am painting on that now. So now the paint handler has PicBox.Invalidate() instead of Me.Invalidate(). It's been running for about ten minutes without freezing up.

Adding the picture box seems to be the answer to the problem, but I'm still curious why it was not working before. Is there something that Microsoft built into the operating system that keeps the form from painting itself too many times?

Thanks for all your help Luc,
Adam

Luc Pattyn11-May-09 12:40

11-May-09 12:40

Hi Adam,

You're welcome.

I don't know about anything special when painting to a Form, but then I tend to always paint to a Panel, I don't want to a Form most of the time, since the drawing to me is an object that I want to be able to move, resize, whatever, independent of the Form. Of course there could be reasons to do it differently.

I don't like PictureBoxes that much, they don't do much, and often work against you, when things become somewhat involved.

FWIW: you could anchor the Panel or PictureBox, or set its Dock to Fill, so it grows/shrinks with the Form (but yours was fixed, wasn't it?).

Smile | :)

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Zaegra9-May-09 3:57

Zaegra

9-May-09 3:57

Doesn't Me.Refresh() work?

Motivation is the key to software development.

Adam Loudermilk11-May-09 9:41

VB.net DirectShowLib -> capture still image

11-May-09 9:41

I tried replacing Me.Invalidate() with Me.Refresh and unfortunately I got the same results. It didn't affect it at all.

VBA, Excel and Charts

zaccari58-May-09 4:40

zaccari5

8-May-09 4:40

HI,

I'm using VBA to dynamically change the value rannge of several charts. All works as designed until the 78 pass throught the loop. Then the macro starts ignoring code that up until monents ago worked fine? I've run debug and everything works upuntil line 10.

What's up with this??? Is this a memory issue???

Here is my code:

Function Top_Charts(I, Title1, YAxisLable)

Data_Address_String = "R" & CStr(I) & "C4:R" & CStr(I) & "C65"
Data_Address_String1 = "R" & CStr(I) & "C2"
ActiveSheet.ChartObjects(1).Activate
ActiveChart.PlotArea.Select
Data_Address_String2 = "='Month to Date'!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Values = Data_Address_String2
Data_Address_String2 = "='Month to Date'!" & Data_Address_String1
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(1).Name = Data_Address_String2
ActiveChart.ChartTitle.Select
10 Selection.Characters.Text = Title1

ActiveChart.PlotArea.Select
Data_Address_String2 = "=UCL!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(2).Values = Data_Address_String2

Data_Address_String2 = "='+2 sigma'!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(3).Values = Data_Address_String2

Data_Address_String2 = "='X Bar'!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(4).Values = Data_Address_String2

Data_Address_String2 = "='-2 sigma'!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(5).Values = Data_Address_String2

Data_Address_String2 = "=LCL!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(6).Values = Data_Address_String2

Data_Address_String2 = "='+1 sigma'!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(7).Values = Data_Address_String2

Data_Address_String2 = "='-1 sigma'!" & Data_Address_String
ActiveChart.SeriesCollection(8).Values = Data_Address_String2

Neil

Member 45001778-May-09 1:50

Member 4500177

8-May-09 1:50

Hi,
i have searched for a code which shows me the actual webcam-image. so i have found the DirectShowLib, all fine with it.

Now i want to capture a singe Bitmap from this "stream". In the Code there is something like that:

hr = Me.CaptureGraphBuilder.RenderStream(PinCategory.Preview, MediaType.Video, sourceFilter, Nothing, Nothing)<br />
Debug.WriteLine("Render the preview pin on the video capture filter : " & DsError.GetErrorText(hr))<br />
DsError.ThrowExceptionForHR(hr)

There i also can say, that the Stream should be saved into an .avi-File. But How can I Capture a single Image and display it in a picturebox?

I always found examples for c, c++ or c#, but no vb.net examples.

Can anyone help me??

thanks
milschkuh

Re: VB.net DirectShowLib -> capture still image

Dave Kreskowiak8-May-09 4:16

Dave Kreskowiak

8-May-09 4:16

It always amazes me that people think C# and VB.NET are so different. Look at the C# example and you can figure out what the VB.NET code is quite easily. Or you can copy and the code into an one of the online C# to VB.NET conversion tools. To find those, all you need to do is Google for "C# to VB.NET conversion".

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

Re: VB.net DirectShowLib -> capture still image

vungocvinh9-Jan-11 15:09

vungocvinh

9-Jan-11 15:09

Hi milschkuh,

Have you had the solution for This Post ?
Can you please share to us ?
Thanks alot,
VuVinh

connection string for Oracle8 database

parkash_C8-May-09 1:31

parkash_C

8-May-09 1:31

I am Using Oracle8i with Vb.net 2003
I am trying to connect to Oracle database...
but it is giving me TNS errror: Unable to connect to designation

myConnection = New OleDbConnection("Provider= MSDAORA.1; UserID=scott;password=tiger; datasource; database=demo1)
i want to know ,should datasource be empty in this
i am using oledb connection,
can anyone specify the corrrect format

Re: connection string for Oracle8 database

Luc Pattyn8-May-09 2:35

Re: connection string for Oracle8 database

8-May-09 2:35

parkash_C wrote:
should datasource be empty

parkash_C wrote:
can anyone specify the corrrect format

Look here[^]

Smile | :)

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parkash_C8-May-09 2:53

parkash_C

8-May-09 2:53

thanks for your time,
i ve visited this, but can you explain me
what is datasource ,
iN MS access , i write pathname to file,

Google

Luc Pattyn8-May-09 3:16