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From: risto@tuura.UUCP (Risto Lankinen)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms.programmer
Subject: Re: detecting user inactivity
Message-ID: <1201@tuura.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jun 91 08:59:35 GMT
References: <17190004@hpsciz.sc.hp.com>
Organization: Nokia Data Systems Oy
Lines: 45

bruceh@hpsciz.sc.hp.com (Bruce Haines) writes:

>	Any ideas on how to sense user "inactivity".  I'd like to set a
>	timer that would go off if a user hasn't generated any keyboard/mouse
>	input. Like whatever a screen saver app must do...?

Hi!

The 'idle-detecting' message loop may suit your case.  That is, replace the
standard 'while( GetMessage() ) ... ' in the WinMain() with the following:

   while(TRUE)
      if( PeekMessage(&msg) )
      {
         // The queue contains messages - process them
         // GetMessage() would automatically detect WM_QUIT, but here we
         // must explicitly check for it.
         if( msg.message==WM_QUIT ) break;
         if( TranslateAccelerator(hWnd,hAcc,&msg) ) continue;
         TranslateMessage( &msg );
         DispatchMessage( &msg );
         // You might want to save the last time a message was processed
         dwLastMsgTime = GetTickCount();
      }
      else
      {
         // The queue is empty - user is doing nothing with *this* app
         if( GetTickCount()-dwLastMsgTime > MSGTIMEDELTA )
         {
            // Do something funny
         }
      }
   return msg.wParam;

Note, that the user might be doing something with *other* apps, so some
caution is necessary, if this will be used for a screen saver.  Also
note, that the GetTickCount() eventually wraps around, if the computer
is kept powered for a long period of time.

Terveisin: Risto Lankinen
-- 
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