I wrote this little ditty one afternoon after, for the 101st time, I became frustrated that I needed to add a form to my project just to support a timer. After passing it along to my friends at the Common Controls Replacement Project, they convinced me to release it as part of their (totally free) toolset.

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The ccrpTimers library is an axDLL that currently exposes Timer, Countdown, and Stopwatch objects. You can sink fired events, using either the classic WithEvents method or via (non-blocking) implemented interfaces, into any form or class module. All objects use the multimedia timer, thus enabling true 1 millisecond resolution and intervals. Swing on over to the CCRP site for all the latest details.

I've now fully converted over to HtmlHelp. If you'd like to try this online documentation, or download it, I'd be most interested in your feedback! Note that the downloaded version (124K) requires IE4 to be installed. The online version works best with IE4, but will work with IE3 if you allow a small OCX from Microsoft to be installed. The VB6 build of this library uses CHM exclusively for help, since all VB6 developers have IE4 installed.

Download

Download ccrpTmr6.zip, Version 2.00 for VB6, 197Kb, Last Updated: 23-Nov-1998
Download ccrpTmr.zip, Version 1.23 for VB5, 153Kb, Last Updated: 24-Nov-1998

From the CCRP Website:

CCRP High Performance Timer Objects, created by CCRP member Karl E. Peterson, provide much more robust options than Visual Basic's intrinsic Timer control ever has. For years, the only option available to VB developers was to add a form to their project if they wanted to use a timer. This had the effect of totally destroying any hope of encapsulation if, for example, a class module needed periodic timer events.

No more superfluous forms!

This library provides ccrpTimer, ccrpStopWatch, and ccrpCountdown objects that may be instantiated anywhere, at any time. All three objects use the multimedia timer, thus providing true 1ms resolution (if supported by the hardware). Taking advantage of the WithEvents method of declaring an object instance, Timer and Tick events may be sunk in either forms or class modules. Alternatively, use Implements for more efficient notification and non-blocking event notification.

Release Updates

November 24, 1998
Version 2.00 (build 171)

Important Note: An initial VB6 build of the CCRP High Performance Timer Objects (version 2.0 Build 167) was mistakenly made available prematurely. Issues affecting the ability to install (and even use from the same project) both VB5 and VB6 builds of the library hadn't been thoroughly worked out at the time this archive was placed on the web site.

If you have already downloaded Build 167 -- Please unregister this build immediately, and replace it with build 171 which was made available late yesterday. I urge you to download the new library from the CCRP download page at your earliest convenience. Build 167 is incompatible with the current, and all future, VB6 versions of this library.

November 23, 1998
Version 2.00 (build 171)

Upgraded the library to VB6. This build uses Service Pack 1 to avoid a terribly nasty issue with the initial drop (Q192653 ,'FIX: Eight or More ActiveX DLLs in Compiled Project Cause Error'). See Service Pack Issues for more details.

Binary compatibility was broken, thus allowing either or both VB5 and VB6 libraries to be present on a single machine. To update existing projects just open the References dialog, uncheck the old VB5 reference, and check the new VB6 reference.

New ProgIDs were employed to allow both VB5 and VB6 libraries to be present on a single machine. This means that if you do have References to both libraries within a single project, you must fully qualify all object references with the library name. Use 'ccrpTimers6' to specify a VB6 library object.

The default value for the .Stats.Frequency property was changed to accomodate slower hardware that choked on the performance enhancements made in build 163. The default for this property is now 20 milliseconds. Please update any projects which rely on the former defaults. ***

The old-style HLP file was abandoned for good! Since all VB6 developers have IE4 (or better) installed, there was no need to hang onto the old ways when this new-fangled HtmlHelp offers the developer (me, in this case <g>) so much more.

The underlying behavior of the library was altered so that no multimedia system timer is started until the first ccrpTimer or ccrpCountdown object is enabled. Previously, the system callbacks were initiated during the Initialization event of the first instantiated object. ***

*** These fixes were also applied to Version 1.23 for VB5.

Past Release History

October 26, 1998

Patched an extremely nasty bug that caused a GPF when the timers were used from an ActiveX EXE with specific Threading Model settings (either Thread Per Object or a Thread Pool set to a value greater than 1). In the process of hunting down this bug, it was determined that the very design of Visual Basic itself was responsible. If you build a DLL that makes use of system callbacks, and the client is an ActiveX EXE, expect big trouble (speaking nicely).

Patched another bug that presented when the code within a Timer event lasted for a measureable period. In those cases, the next Timer event would be delayed by that length of time that the previous Timer event consumed. This has been fixed and will no longer be an issue.

August 19, 1998

Added a build of the Timer Objects library specifically for the Alpha platform, in addition to the original i386 Intel version.

August 6, 1998

Msdn Library Vb6 Zip Codes

Fixed a bug that caused a 'Runtime Error 6 -- Overflow' in very unique situations. Not likely to have wide ranging impact, but update is encouraged.

April 30, 1998

Added the ccrpTimer.NotifyEx and ccrpCountdown.NotifyEx properties. These properties have been declared As Object, in anticipation of accommodating both two new secondary interfaces as well as any new interfaces added in the future. Currently supported are two new additions -- ICcrpTimerNotifyEx and ICcrpCountdownNotifyEx. These interfaces vary from the original in that they also pass references to the object firing their methods. With this identification available, it is easy to simulate control arrays with class objects.

A new demo, ObjArray.vbp, was added to illustrate simulated control array syntax via the new NotifyEx property and secondary interface event notification.

Msdn Library Vb6 Zip File

Fixed a limitation on the maximum value accepted for Interval properties. Previously, the Interval was restricted to the maximum supported by the operating system (typically 1,000,000ms in NT and 65,535ms in Win95/98). This restriction is no longer enforced, and you may set an Interval to any positive value within the range of a Long (1 to 2,147,483,647ms).

April 11, 1998

Version 1.11.130 adds Tag properties to all three timer objects, and updates the help file to include documentation on this and the previous release. Previous downloaders of the Timer Objects should update to this file.

March 29, 1998

Version 1.10.113 added a Notify property to the ccrpTimer and ccrpCountdown objects. This addition provides significant new functionality by exposing two new interfaces, ICcrpTimerNotify and ICcrpCountdownNotify. Client programs may choose to use Implements to add this secondary interface to th