Java Timers and actionlisteners

Question

Baiscilly, I'm making this game for a project, and I can't fiure out how to get timers to work whatsoever, here is my code attempting.

import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.Timer;

public class Timers {
    private int timeLeft = 60;
    private void timer() {
        while(timeLeft > 0){
             int delay = 1000;
              ActionListener taskPerformer = new ActionListener() {
                  public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                      timeLeft--;
                  }{
              new Timer(delay, taskPerformer).start();
              };
    };
}
}
}

I don't know what I'm doing wrong or what to do next. As well as this i need to make an Actionlistener see if the users answer is the same as the preset answer.

import javax.swing.*;

import java.awt.event.*;

...

    JTextField Janswer = new JTextField();
    Janswer.setBounds(110, 70, 150, 25);
    newFrame.add(Janswer);
    if Janswer = equations.getanswer(){
        score++;

And I guess if i'm giving this much I may as well give you where it is getting the answers from

public class Equations {
    private static String equation;
    private int answer;
    Problems problem = new Problems();

    public Equations() {
        equation = problem.getFirstNumber() + " " + problem.getSign() + " " + problem.getSecondNumber();
        String sign = problem.getSign();
        if (sign.equals("+"))
            answer = problem.getFirstNumber() + problem.getSecondNumber();
        else if (sign.equals("-"))
            answer = problem.getFirstNumber() - problem.getSecondNumber();
        else if (sign.equals("*"))
            answer = problem.getFirstNumber() * problem.getSecondNumber();
    }

    public static String getEquations() {
        return equation;
    }
    public int getAnswer() {
        return answer;
    }
}

Thank you all for any help you're able to give me, and just let me know if I need to change my post in any way, I'm new to this!

Answer 1

The main problem is you are using a while-loop , which is creating a bunch of new Timer s on each iteration, which are all decrementing the timeLeft value. You only need a single Timer .

Depending on what you want to do, you could do something like...

ActionListener taskPerformer = new ActionListener() {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
        System.out.println("Time's up!");
    }
};
new Timer(60 * 1000, taskPerformer).start();

This will establish a call back in 1 minutes time, which can allow you to define a timeout...

Know, if you want a count down timer, you could do something like...

ActionListener taskPerformer = new ActionListener() {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
        count++;
        if (count >= 59) {
            ((Timer)evt.getSource()).stop();
            System.out.println("Time's up!");
        }
    }
};
new Timer(1000, taskPerformer).start();

Which basically counts to 60 (from 0) and is updated every second (you'd have to use 60 - count to get the count down value)...

See How to use Swing Timers for more details