ProgressBar with a countdowntimer - Android

Matt picture Matt · Feb 11, 2013 · Viewed 10.5k times · Source

I have a 20 second countdown timer successfully working on my trivia game. I want to add a ProgressBar (not a ProgressDialog) to the screen. I found the developer guide for Android confusing. I googled lots of examples and tried to combine them into my code. Right now all that displays when I run a game is an empty bar with no "progress" made during each question of the game.

QuestionView.java

public class QuestionView extends Activity  {

    int correctAnswers = 0;
    int wrongAnswers = 0;
    int answer = 0;
    int i = 0;

    long score = 0;

    long startTime = 20000;
    long interval = 1000;
    long points;

    boolean timerHasStarted = false;

    String category;

    Button answer1, answer2, answer3, answer4;
    TextView question, pointCounter, questionNumber, timeCounter;

    ArrayList<Question> queries;
    Timer cdTimer;

    ProgressBar bar;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.questionviewmain);

        answer1 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.answer1);
        answer2 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.answer2);
        answer3 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.answer3);
        answer4 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.answer4);

        question = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.question);

        category = getIntent().getStringExtra("category");
        queries = getIntent().getParcelableArrayListExtra("queries");

        pointCounter = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.timer);
        questionNumber = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.timeElapsedView);
        timeCounter = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.timeCounter);

        cdTimer = new Timer(startTime, interval);

        bar = (ProgressBar)findViewById(R.id.progressbar);
        bar.setIndeterminate(false);
        bar.setMax(9);

        loadQuestion();
    }

    public void loadQuestion() {

            bar.setProgress(i);

        if(i == 10) {

            endQuiz();

        } else {

            if(!timerHasStarted) {
                cdTimer.start();
                timerHasStarted = true;
            } else {
                cdTimer.start();
                timerHasStarted = false;
            }

            answer = queries.get(i).getCorrectAnswer();

            question.setText(queries.get(i).getQuery());

            answer1.setText(queries.get(i).getA1());
            answer2.setText(queries.get(i).getA2());
            answer3.setText(queries.get(i).getA3());
            answer4.setText(queries.get(i).getA4());

            answer1.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(View arg0) {
                    queries.get(i).setSelectedAnswer(0);
                    if(answer == 0) {
                        correctAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    } else {
                        wrongAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    }
                }
            });

            answer2.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(View arg0) {
                    queries.get(i).setSelectedAnswer(1);
                    if(answer == 1) {
                        correctAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    } else {
                        wrongAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    }
                }
            });

            answer3.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(View arg0) {
                    queries.get(i).setSelectedAnswer(2);
                    if(answer == 2) {
                        correctAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    } else {
                        wrongAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    }
                }
            });

            answer4.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(View arg0) {
                    queries.get(i).setSelectedAnswer(3);
                    if(answer == 3) {
                        correctAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    } else {
                        wrongAnswers++;
                        nextQuestion();
                    }
                }
            });
        } 
    }

    public ArrayList<Question> getQueries() {
        return queries;
    }

    public void nextQuestion() {
        score = score + points;
        i++;
        loadQuestion();
    }

    public class Timer extends CountDownTimer {

        public void startCountdownTimer() {  
        }

        public Timer(long startTime, long interval) {
            super(startTime, interval);
        }

        @Override
        public void onFinish() {
            if(i >= 9) {
                cdTimer.cancel();
                endQuiz();
            } else {
                wrongAnswers++;
                nextQuestion();
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void onTick(long millisUntilFinished) {
            timeCounter.setText("Time remaining: " + (millisUntilFinished / 100));
            points = (millisUntilFinished / 100) / 2;
            pointCounter.setText("Points remaining: " + points);
            if(i < 10) {
                questionNumber.setText("Question " + (i + 1) + " of 10");
            }
        }
    }

    public void endQuiz() {
        Intent intent = new Intent(QuestionView.this, Results.class);
        intent.putExtra("correctAnswers", correctAnswers);
        intent.putExtra("wrongAnswers", wrongAnswers);
        intent.putExtra("score", score);
        intent.putParcelableArrayListExtra("queries", queries);
        intent.putExtra("category", category);
        startActivity(intent);
    }
}

XML code

<ProgressBar 
                android:id="@+id/progressbar"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:visibility="visible" 
                style="@android:style/Widget.ProgressBar.Horizontal" />

Answer

Sam picture Sam · Feb 11, 2013

What I am looking for is for the ProgressBar to slowly tick down until the 20 seconds the user is allotted for each question is gone.

New Answer
To do this let's add a new line to onTick():

bar.setProgress((int) Math.round(millisUntilFinished / 1000.0));

(You may need to tweak the data types, I am away from my compiler... Also I don't like the CountDownTimer class, it is inaccurate and often skips the second to last number. I wrote an alternate class here: android CountDownTimer - additional milliseconds delay between ticks)


Original Answer
I have a couple pointers:

  • Have you defined a maximum value for your ProgressBar?

    bar.setMax(9);
    
  • I suggest loading i as the progress instead of the constant value of 10:

    bar.setProgress(i);
    
  • If you still do not see any progress ensure that you are not in indeterminate mode:

    bar.setIndeterminate(false);
    

    (This assume that you are using a ProgressBar that can depict progress.)


Addition
Move this code into onCreate():

bar = (ProgressBar)findViewById(R.id.progressbar);
bar.setIndeterminate(false); // May not be necessary
bar.setMax(9);

Then move this line to loadQuestion():

bar.setProgress(i);

Otherwise the progress will never be updated since you only create one CountDownTimer and you never actually call startCountdownTimer().