Report Number of Key Clicks During Timer

Processing Beginners
1

I am currently trying to get my program to print how many times ‘a’ is pressed while the timer counts to 2000ms. So far, all I can get printed is some wildly larger number than how many times I pressed ‘a’.
It says anywhere from 90 to 120 even when I only click 3 or 4 times.

Is there a problem in my draw function?

<// The duration of the time
int timerDuration = 2000;

//The time at which we start the timer
int startTime = 0;

// Whether or not the timer was started
boolean timerState = false;

int aVal;

void setup() {
size(200, 200);
aVal = 0;
}

void draw(){
background(255);

if (timerState) {
//We subtract the current time and the time when we startedt he timer
int currentDuration = millis() - startTime;

fill (0);
textAlign(CENTER, CENTER);
text(currentDuration, width /2, height /2);

if (key == ‘a’) {
aVal++;
}

//If the event is over
if (currentDuration > timerDuration) {
timerState = false;
println("‘a’ pressed “, aVal, " times”);
aVal = 0;
}
}
}

void mousePressed() {
startTime = millis();
timerState = true;
}

2

Hi,
Yes your count goes up every time the draw loops and the a key was pressed.
Maybe even if it was the last key that was pressed.
You need to look into the keyPressed()/keyReleased() functions.
These only get triggered once and are independent of the draw loop.

Please use the code button when you post code, it makes it easier to read.

3

So the chunk of code currently located in draw() would function normally in the keyPressed() function? I’ll give that a try.

Thanks

4

move this into a function


void keyPressed() {


}
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