Like many, I have trouble with making a timer using Processing. I have searched the forum, but could not find an answer that suited my question. (I am quite new to Processing)

I am making a kinect application, and I want to create a button that you can trigger by holding one of your hands over it for two seconds. I have made the following function that checks wether your hand overlaps a specified target area (this is not really important, but good for knowing the context):

2. boolean handOverlapCheck(float targetX, float targetY, float targetWidth, float targetHeight)
3. {
4.   // Check the position of the left hand    
5.   PVector leftHandPos = new PVector();
6.   kinect.getJointPositionSkeleton(userId, SimpleOpenNI.SKEL_LEFT_HAND, leftHandPos);
7.   PVector convertedLeftHandPos = new PVector();
8.   kinect.convertRealWorldToProjective(leftHandPos, convertedLeftHandPos);
9. 
   
10.   // Check the position of the right hand
11.   PVector rightHandPos = new PVector();
12.   kinect.getJointPositionSkeleton(userId, SimpleOpenNI.SKEL_RIGHT_HAND, rightHandPos);
13.   PVector convertedRightHandPos = new PVector();
14.   kinect.convertRealWorldToProjective(rightHandPos, convertedRightHandPos);
15. 
    
16.   if (targetX < convertedLeftHandPos.x && convertedLeftHandPos.x < (targetX + targetWidth) && targetY < convertedLeftHandPos.y && convertedLeftHandPos.y < (targetY + targetWidth))
17.   {
18.     return true;
19.   } else if (targetX < convertedRightHandPos.x && convertedRightHandPos.x < (targetX + targetWidth) && targetY < convertedRightHandPos.y && convertedRightHandPos.y < (targetY + targetWidth))
20.   {
21.     return true;
22.   } else
23.   {
24.     return false;
25.   }
26. }

Now I want to make a check wether the above function is triggered for two seconds without interruption. (Later, I want to accompany that with some visual feedback of this timer-event):

2. if (handOverlapCheck(menuButtonX, menuButtonY, menuButtonWidth, menuButtonHeight) == true)
3.   { 
4.       // magic check wether this event happens for 2 seconds
5.       backgroundLevel = 3;
6.   }  

All I can think of is something along the lines of the following:

2. if (handOverlapCheck(menuButtonX, menuButtonY, menuButtonWidth, menuButtonHeight) == true)
3.   {
4.       int newTimer = millis();
5.       if (mills() - newTimer = 2000)
6.       {
7.           backgroundLevel = 3;
8.       }
9.   }  

But, obviously this won't work, since this keeps updating the newTimer value to the current time. All the variations that I can think of do this. 

And now I find myself thinking in circles... Could someone please help me in a forward direction?

Kind regards,

hajraa