Having trouble with CountDownTimer for whackamole game

Question

I'm trying to do a whackamole type game. I have enabled ImageViews hole1 >hole 9. Calling swapFace() swaps the ImageView for a random period as I want to happen.

I want to start by calling start() which will, on onTick, call newPopup(). After a random interval of up to five seconds, newpopup() should call swapface().

Calling swapface on its own works exactly as it should, however calling start() results in no swapping. I have a feeling I'm missing something obvious and would appreciate a pointer.

private void start(){

    CountDownTimer myCount = new CountDownTimer(60000, 800){

        @Override
        public void onTick(long millisUntilFinished) {

            newPopup();
        }

        @Override
        public void onFinish(){}
    }; myCount.start();
}

private void newPopup(){

    Random rand = new Random();

    int w = rand.nextInt(5000);

    CountDownTimer myCount3 = new CountDownTimer(w, 100) {
        @Override
        public void onTick(long millisUntilFinished) {

        }

        @Override
        public void onFinish() {

            swapFace();

        }
    };
}

private void swapFace(){

    Random rand = new Random();
    int holeNo = rand.nextInt(9);

    final ImageView x;

    if (holeNo ==0){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole1);}
    else if (holeNo ==1){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole2);}
    else if (holeNo ==2){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole3);}
    else if (holeNo ==3){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole4);}
    else if (holeNo ==4){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole5);}
    else if (holeNo ==5){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole6);}
    else if (holeNo ==6){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole7);}
    else if (holeNo ==7){ x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole8);}
    else { x = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.hole9);}

    x.setImageResource(R.drawable.sad);

    int timeUp = rand.nextInt(3000) + 500;

    CountDownTimer myCount = new CountDownTimer(timeUp, 100){

        @Override
        public void onTick(long millisUntilFinished) {

        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I guess you want to prevent newPopup() being called before its previous CountTimer instance finished. You can do it by using synchronized , or making the tick in myCount bigger than w (5000) :

CountDownTimer myCount = new CountDownTimer(60000, 6000)

Or introduce a field

private newPopupRunning = false; 

And use it :

private void newPopup(){

    if(newPopupRunning) return; 
    newPopupRunning=true; 

    Random rand = new Random();
    int w = rand.nextInt(5000);

    CountDownTimer myCount3 = new CountDownTimer(w, 100) {
        @Override
        public void onTick(long millisUntilFinished) {

        }

        @Override
        public void onFinish() {

            newPopupRunning=false;
            swapFace();

        }
    };
}