Adding additional time to main timer from movieclip?

Question

Hi so yeah in the main timeline I have the timer

 var count:Number = 300;//Count down from 300
 var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(1000,count);
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, sayHello);
function sayHello(e:TimerEvent):void
{
trace("Current Count: " + myTimer.currentCount);
}

And when you go into the movieclip reimoi_mcand click the useplush button I want to be able to add additional seconds onto the timer. The following is the code in the reimoi_mc clip but yeah I really have no idea how to make this work, please help ;0; (I have to use MovieClip(root) to access the running timer from the main timeline within the movieclip)

import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.utils.Timer;
import flash.utils.getTimer;

stop();
useplush.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, addtime);
function addtime(e:MouseEvent):void
{
            MovieClip(root).count += 2;
            MovieClip(root).myTimer.repeatCount += MovieClip(root).count; //add time to the timer

            trace("new time " + myTimer.currentCount);
}

Answer 1

I think what you are trying to do is add 2 seconds to the timer in the click handler, and then show how much time is left? If so, just a couple tweaks will do:

function sayHello(e:TimerEvent):void {
    trace("Time Left: " + myTimer.repeatCount - myTimer.currentCount);  //time left is the repeat count - the current count
}

---

function addtime(e:MouseEvent):void {
    MovieClip(root).myTimer.repeatCount += 2 //add 2 more ticks to the timer (currentCount will always remain the same unless the timer is reset)
    trace("new time remaining: " + MovieClip(root).myTimer.repeatCount - MovieClip(root).myTimer.currentCount);
}

---

BONUS CODE!

If you wanted to make it agnostic of the timer delay (let's say you want it to update quicker than 1 second for instance), you could do this:

var startingTime:Number = 20; //the initial time in seconds
var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(200); //your timer and how often to have it tick (let's say 5 times a second)

myTimer.repeatCount = startingTime * Math.ceil(1000 / myTimer.delay); //set the initial repeat count
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, sayHello);
myTimer.start();

function sayHello(e:Event):void {
     trace("Time Left: " + ((((myTimer.repeatCount - myTimer.currentCount) * myTimer.delay) / 1000)) + "seconds");
}

And in your other object:

stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(e:Event){
    myTimer.repeatCount += Math.ceil(2000 / myTimer.delay); //add 2000 milliseconds to the timer
});

Answer 2

You'd better use an external counter to count the time, instead of stuffing it into a Timer object. You would then need timers to measure delays, and listeners to count them.

var myTimer:Timer=new Timer(1000); // no second parameter
public var secondsLeft:int=300; // former "count"
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, sayHello);
function sayHello(e:TimerEvent):void {
    secondsLeft--;
    trace("Seconds left:", secondsLeft);
    if (secondsLeft<=0) {
        myTimer.stop();
        myTimer.reset();
        // whatever else to trigger when time runs out
    }
}

And then you just add to secondsLeft and update the scoreboard.