counting buttonpresses, reacting slow?

Projects Programming
1

Hello. First off all I was wondering why the program is reacting to the buttonpushes slow, because I have to push the button many times before it "detects" it, like there is a delay before the UNO is doing a next reading.

The second problem is that I want the program to count the amount of buttonpresses, wait for maybe half a second, then do the case after how many buttonpresses that have been count within the half second period. Anyone that could help me programming that?

Here's my code:

  int led1 = 1;
  int switch1 = 2;
  int led3 = 3;
  int led4 = 4;
  int led5 = 5;
  int led6 = 6;
  int led7 = 7;
  int led8 = 8;
  int led9 = 9;
  int led10 = 10;
  int led11 = 11;
  int led12 = 12;
  int led13 = 13;

  int val = 0;                    // variable for reading the pin status
  int buttonState;                // variable to hold the button state
  int buttonPresses = 0;         // 10 presses to go!

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(switch1, INPUT);    // Set the switch pin as input
  pinMode(led1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led5, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led6, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led7, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led8, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led9, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led10, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led11, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led12, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led13, OUTPUT);
     
     buttonState = digitalRead(switch1);   // read the initial state



}

void loop() {
  
  buttonState = digitalRead(switch1);   // read the initial state
    val = digitalRead(switch1);    // read input value and store it in val
  if (val != buttonState) {        // the button state has changed!
    if (val == LOW) {                // check if the button is now pressed
      buttonPresses++;
      
      
        switch (buttonPresses) {
    case 1: 
     for(int fadeValue = 0 ; fadeValue <= 255; fadeValue +=5) { 
    // sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
    analogWrite(led10, fadeValue);         
    // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect    
    delay(50);                            
        }    
      break;
    
    case 2:    
      digitalWrite(led7, HIGH);
      break;
    
    case 3:    
      digitalWrite(led4, HIGH);
      break;
    
    case 4:    
      digitalWrite(led13, HIGH);
      break;
    
    default:
    buttonPresses = 0;
    digitalWrite(led4, LOW);
    digitalWrite(led7, LOW);
    digitalWrite(led10, LOW);
    digitalWrite(led13, LOW);
    
     }
   }
  }
}
2 
  buttonState = digitalRead(switch1);   // read the initial state
    val = digitalRead(switch1);    // read input value and store it in val
  if (val != buttonState) {        // the button state has changed!

Unless you have unbelievable reflexes, buttonState and val will ALWAYS be the same value.

Set up a simple sketch to light an LED when the switch is pressed, and turn it off when the switch is not pressed. Does the LED come on and go off in sync with the switch press and release? If not, it's a hardware issue.

To count button presses within a period of time:

unsigned long interval = 5000; // 5 seconds

void loop()
{
   unsigned long prevTime = millis();
   while(millis() - prevTime <= interval)
   {
      // Count the button presses
   }

   // Time's up. Do something
}