vb.nettimerconsole-applicationvb.net-2010readkey

VB.NET 2010 Console Application Wait for a key for 5 seconds, carry on if not


Ok, so I've tried looking up on several Google sites and cannot find an answer for this.

Its in VB.Net as a Console Application, the way I want to set this up is almost like BIOS entry, when you turn your computer on you have several seconds to press a key, if its not pressed it will skip on, this is easy enough in a Windows Forms application with a timer, but I'm struggling to do it in Console application.

code so far:

   Console.WriteLine("Welcome to console, press F2 for advanced options.")
    ''Console.ReadKey(keys.f2)
    ''Make it pause for 5 seconds, tried obvious threading,thread.sleep(5000) - that halts the application :/

So yeah, if you understand what I mean and are able to help out, anything is appreciated. There doesn't seem to be any obvious timer function. I was thinking of having a variable that slowly increments to 100, and uses thread.sleep, but I think its chance of picking up the key is low because .sleep halts the application. Was also thinking of console.readkey, but unsure how to read a specific key during the wait process.


Solution

  • Using a Do loop, Console.KeyAvailable, and a stopwatch

        Console.WriteLine("Welcome to console, press F2 for advanced options.")
        Dim stpw As Stopwatch = Stopwatch.StartNew
        Dim waitfor As New TimeSpan(0, 0, 5)
        Dim kp As ConsoleKeyInfo
    
        Do
            If Console.KeyAvailable Then
                kp = Console.ReadKey(True)
                If kp.Key = ConsoleKey.F2 Then
                    Exit Do
                End If
            End If
            Threading.Thread.Sleep(100)
        Loop While stpw.Elapsed < waitfor
    
        If kp.Key = ConsoleKey.F2 Then
            Console.WriteLine("F2 press")
        Else
            Console.WriteLine("NO F2")
        End If