Need help! making my Arduino code work - c

Question

I'm having some trouble with my arduino code and I need help making it work, it is going to be used to control some LED lights. Brighten, darken, blink, and make them run.
I have added comments all over the script so you can read the problems and so on.
/*This script is supposed to make a arduino board control the lights on a lego creation for a school project.
Button1 should make lights brighter
Button2 should make ligts shine less
Button3 should make the light blink
Button4 is supposed to make the light run after each other.
*/
//Setting up all the lights and buttons
const int lights[] = {9, 8, 7};
int light = 0;
const int button1 = 24;
int buttonstate1 = 0;
const int button2 = 25;
int buttonstate2 = 0;
const int button3 = 26;
int buttonstate3 = 0;
const int button4 = 27;
int buttonstate4 = 0;
int lightStrength = 50;
int blinkToggle = 0;
//Setting up the input's and output's
void setup() {
pinMode(button1, INPUT);
pinMode(button2, INPUT);
pinMode(button3, INPUT);
pinMode(button4, INPUT);
pinMode(lights[0], OUTPUT);
pinMode(lights[1], OUTPUT);
pinMode(lights[2], OUTPUT);
//Here i have a problem with make the list take all in one line of code.
analogWrite(lights[0], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[1], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[2], lightStrength);
}
void loop() {
//checking if the buttons are being pressed
buttonstate1 = digitalRead(button1);
buttonstate2 = digitalRead(button2);
buttonstate3 = digitalRead(button3);
buttonstate1 = digitalRead(button4);
//Make the lights brighter
while (lightStrength <= 235){
if (buttonstate1 == HIGH){
delay(10);
lightStrength = lightStrength + 1;
delay(10);
analogWrite(lights[0], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[1], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[2], lightStrength);
}
}
//make the lights darker
while (lightStrength >= 45){
if (buttonstate2 == HIGH){
delay(5);
lightStrength = lightStrength - 1;
delay(5);
analogWrite(lights[0], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[1], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[2], lightStrength);
}
}
//Blink the lights
while(blinkToggle == 1){
if (buttonstate3 == HIGH){
delay(100);
blinkToggle = 0;
}
}
while(blinkToggle == 0){
if (buttonstate3 == HIGH){
delay(100);
blinkToggle = 1;
}
}
while(blinkToggle == 1){
delay(150);
analogWrite(lights[0], 0);
analogWrite(lights[1], 0);
analogWrite(lights[2], 0);
delay(150);
analogWrite(lights[0], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[1], lightStrength);
analogWrite(lights[2], lightStrength);
}
//make the lights run (Not completed because the other code didn't work)
if (buttonstate4 == HIGH){
delay(100);
}
}

Answer 1

First of all, asking "need help" is kind of general.. You should definitely ask a better question. For instance I could not understand fully what you meant, what the problems are and what is the expected behavior in some cases (for instance, what happens if I press more buttons?).
Anyway this is not a comment but an answer, because there are a few general mistakes in your code, and maybe these are enough to make your code worl.
for instance, you wrote all your tests as
while (lightStrength <= 235){
if (buttonstate1 == HIGH){
Well, if your button is low then lightStrength will not be incremented, the loop will never reach its ending and so the program will be stuck in there. I suggest you to change your code into
if (buttonstate1 == HIGH){
while (lightStrength <= 235){
This will not halt your code.
Then the tests for blinkToggle are wrong. You should not test them in a while, but with an if (e.g. if(blinkToggle == 1){).
The button 4 is not implemented, and I don't understand what is its behavior, so I cannot tell you how to implement it.
I did not understand the //Here i have a problem with make the list take all in one line of code. comment. If you want to write the same value without repeating it use a for loop:
byte i;
for (i = 0; i < 3; i++)
analogWrite(lights[i], lightStrength);
And now, some advices for your program.
First of all, debouncing. If you don't know what bouncing is, look on wikipedia or search on google. Anyway I found that the Bounce2 library is very useful whenever you have to deal with buttons. Search for its examples or simply ask to see some more examples.
And.. I suggest you to change your approach in this program. A FSM (Finite State Machine) approach is more suitable for this. Even without using complicated libraries, just plain C, you can make a very solid program