Richard Siddaway's Blog

In this post I showed how to set a count down timer

http://msmvps.com/blogs/richardsiddaway/archive/2011/08/02/a-count-down-timer.aspx

but what if you want to go the other way i.e. see how long something takes

The count down function can be modified

Import-Module ShowUI                        
            
function timegone {            
 $ts = (Get-Date) - $start            
 $time = $ts.ToString() -split "\."            
 if ($ts.Hours -eq 0) {            
   $time[0].Substring(3,5)            
 }            
 else {            
   $time             
 }              
}            
            
            
$start = Get-Date            
            
$windowAttributes = @{            
    WindowStartupLocation = "CenterScreen"            
    SizeToContent = "WidthAndHeight"            
    WindowStyle = "None"            
    Background = "Transparent "                        
            
    On_MouseRightButtonDown = { Close-Control}            
    On_MouseLeftButtonDown  = { $_.Handled = $true;$window.DragMove() }            
    On_Loaded = {            
        Register-PowerShellCommand -ScriptBlock {            
            $window.Content.Content = timegone            
        } -Run -In "0:0:0.5"            
    }            
}                        
            
$labelAttributes = @{            
    Content = timegone            
    FontFamily = "Impact, Arial"            
    FontWeight = 800            
    FontSize = 30            
}                        
            
New-Window @windowAttributes -AllowsTransparency -Show  {            
    Label @labelAttributes -Name Clock -Foreground (            
        LinearGradientBrush $(            
            GradientStop -Color Red    -Offset 1            
            GradientStop -Color Orange -Offset 0.85            
            GradientStop -Color Yellow -Offset 0.7            
            GradientStop -Color Green  -Offset 0.55            
            GradientStop -Color Blue   -Offset 0.4            
            GradientStop -Color Indigo -Offset 0.2            
            GradientStop -Color Violet -Offset 0            
        )            
    )            
}

The main change is that our starting point is now. We then get the current time, subtract our starting point and we have the elapsed time.

Display as before