Question

So, I want to write a bash script that are a sequence of steps and ill identify it as “task#”. However, each step is only completed and can run as long as the user wants.

Do task1
if keypressed stop task1 and move on #this is the part I need help with. There can be up to 10 of these move on steps. 
Do task2
...

kina like top; it keeps doing stuff until you hit q to quite, however, i want to move on to the next thing

Answer 1

you can use read builtin command with option -t and -n

while :
do
    # TASK 1
    date
    read -t 1 -n 1 key

    if [[ $key = q ]]
    then
        break
    fi
done

# TASK 2
date +%s