notification in case missing answer

hi everyone, i have an other question on interaction between time and user: i want my code to give a message to user if he takes too much time to answer the question. ps.: this message has to be sent even if the user dosn't answer the question.

[Walter Roberson]

What method are you using to interact with the user?

[Nicolò]

something like this

%EXAMPLE
%request name
Name = input('insert your name','s');
%if the answer not arrive in 10sec 
fprintf ('sorry you had took much time');
end

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/28881-waitinput

Answer 2

[Jan]

initial = now;
Name = input('insert your name','s');
if now - initial > 10  % seconds
  fprintf('sorry you had took much time\n');
end

Perhaps a native speaker could give an advice: "Sorry, you have taken too much time" ???

[EDITED] Oh, perhaps you are looking for a time-out, which stops the waiting for the user input? This is not possible in the Matlab-level with the INPUT command. Even with a GUI like INPUTDLG this is not easy, because writing a message to an UICONTROL will collide with deleteing the message by a TIMER.

With using Java you can create a TIMER object, which emulates pressing the RETURN key after a certain time using the "Java robot" (use this term to search on undocumentedmatlab.com). This can stop INPUT automatically, but you need an additional flag to distinguish this pseudo-keypress from the real return key.

This method would have a dangerous side-effect: When a dialog window is opened e.g. from a long copy process from the operating system, pressing RETURN automatically could cause a desaster. Therefore I will not post the corresponding code.