Visual Basic

23-May-05 11:06

I want to make a program that can modify the display of a form and will have the code pause while it is waiting for the user to click the Next button.

I could easily have the Next button do the work, but I want this to work similar to the Form.ShowDialog function. What I'm looking for is a way that a main module will be able to display this form, show the user some data, and then decide what to show the user next depending upon what the user does.

What I'm looking for is a way to do this...
If Form.Prompt("First window") = "Something" Then
Form.Prompt("Second window")
Else
Form.Prompt("Something else")
End If
Each Form.Prompt function would be like InputBox or Form.ShowDialog, except that the form in question never disapears. The user clicks the Next button, which triggers the Prompt function to return a specific value.

But, finally, what I cannot figure out is how to pause the Prompt function to wait for the user to click the Next button. I'm using VB.Net 2003, and I'm hoping for something like Application.Pause, and I can have the OnClick function for the Next button run Application.UnPause... unforntunately, neither function exists. What can I do instead?

Reed

Christian Graus23-May-05 11:51

Christian Graus

23-May-05 11:51

Your code should move on in response to the event fired when the next button is pressed. Add an onclick handler for your next button, and move to the next window in there.

Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++

Reedmon2923-May-05 16:09

23-May-05 16:09

But is there a way to have the function not return a value until the user clicks a button? Like for the Msgbox function, nothing happens until the user presses a button. I want to mimick that feature, except that I do not want the window's closing to return the function... I want the button click to do that:

Function Prompt()<br />
   ' Do something<br />
   Application.Pause<br />
   ' Process return<br />
   Return something<br />
End function<br />
Sub btnNext_click()<br />
   Application.UnPause<br />
End Subz

Reedmon29

rudy.net23-May-05 18:47

rudy.net

23-May-05 18:47

You can create a new Form and call ShowDialog(). Calling ShowDialog() instead of Show() will pause the program until user closes the new form.

Reedmon2924-May-05 3:16

24-May-05 3:16

Exaclty. But, I don't want the form to close. I want the code to unpause when the user clicks the Next button.

I could have the form close, but I would then have to process everything again and display it immediately afterwards, and that seems to be a very bad idea.

Reedmon29

rudy.net24-May-05 3:39

rudy.net

24-May-05 3:39

I haven't tried doing what you need but here are some ideas that I hope they work.
You need to create custom events to pause and continue in one form and subscribe your main form to those events.
Example to create event:

<br />
    Public Event PauseCode()<br />
    Public Event ContinueCode()

You create this event in the form that will be controlling the pause/continue events.
Example to raise event:

<br />
   RaiseEvent PauseCode()

or RaiseEvent ContinueCode()
Let's call the form with events defined above ControlForm
Now in your main form you will create the ControlForm and you have to declare the methods that need to be called when events are raised.
Example to handle the PauseCode event:

<br />
    AddHandler _controlForm.PauseCode, AddressOf OnPauseCode<br />
    AddHandler _controlForm.ContinueCode, AddressOf OnContinueCode

Next thing you have to do is create the OnPauseCode and OnContinueCode subs in your main form. First you need to create a boolean variable such as _isPaused. Then the OnPauseCode should something like:

<br />
private Sub OnPauseCode<br />
  _isPaused=true<br />
  while _isPaused do nothing<br />
  end while<br />
end sub

And the only thing that the sub OnContinueCode does is to change the variable _isPaused to false.
Let me know if it works, I could use probably use it.

Reedmon2924-May-05 3:51

24-May-05 3:51

That works... I had the Do Nothing while loop run Application.DoEvents(), because otherwise the forms would not draw.

Thank you very much for your help.

Reedmon29

VB.Net Language Statement

Dave Kreskowiak24-May-05 3:51

Dave Kreskowiak

24-May-05 3:51

You'r code can't "pause" while waiting for the Next button to be clicked. If it did, there's no way it could respond to the button click.

If your code is supposed to modify the form layout between "Next" button clicks, like a PowerPoint presentation, you'll have to maintain state information about what "page" the user is looking at. Code in the click handler for the "Next" button would have to increment the counter to the next page and call a function to modify the controls according to what page should be viewed.

When you get to the last page, the "Finish" button click handler would set the forms return value, its .DialogResult property, to whatever you need. BTW, you'd show this form using .ShowDialog() so you can get a return value, just like MessageBox returns.

This is what I've gathered your trying to get at. I really can't tell for sure because you haven't been very descriptive about what your trying to do with this form besides "pause" code and handle a "Next" button.

RageInTheMachine9532
"...a pungent, ghastly, stinky piece of cheese!" -- The Roaming Gnome

Automatic Numbering

macca2423-May-05 10:33

macca24

23-May-05 10:33

I have an ASP.net Form with a record number field in it. I want to create the number automatically in sequence each time a user creates a new record, the user does not want to have to add the number manually.
The record number is of the format 2005/001 and the next record will be 2005/002 and so on, 2005 is the year so next year this must change to 2006. The records are held in a Sqlserver 2000 database table. I want to ensure that if the last record inserted to the database was 2005/004 then when the user opens the form to create a new record the Record number field will be populated with 2005/005 which is the next Record number in sequence.

I am using VB.net to code the ASP.net.

Anyone any ideas on this?

Thanks.

Re: Automatic Numbering

Christian Graus23-May-05 11:56

Christian Graus

23-May-05 11:56

Place a column for the year and a column for the /xxx part in your table. Write the stored procedure to do the insert to accept the year, and to work out the next index to put in the xxx part based on what's in the table already. An identity column won't help, because you want to go back to 1 for the next year, right ? Then create a view that joins these two values, and do all queries on that view.

Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++

Fernando Soto23-May-05 10:18

Fernando Soto

23-May-05 10:18

Hi All;

What is the difference between these two statements with uses [String} or just using String

Dim myStr As [String]() = {"One", "Two", "", "Three", "Four"}

And

Dim myStr As String() = {"One", "Two", "", "Three", "Four"}

Thanks

Re: VB.Net Language Statement

Dave Kreskowiak23-May-05 10:41

Dave Kreskowiak

23-May-05 10:41

They're identical statements. There is no difference. The square brackets around the term String just mean that this is an escaped name. Normally, you can't use a name that is the same as a VB reserved word, like Case or Friend. The square brackets allow you to use the name as a type name, but only if you reffer to it using the square brackets around the name. Docs on it are here[^].

RageInTheMachine9532
"...a pungent, ghastly, stinky piece of cheese!" -- The Roaming Gnome

Re: VB.Net Language Statement

Fernando Soto23-May-05 13:13

Fernando Soto

23-May-05 13:13

Thanks for the info. Smile | :)

ADODC Control

ems18p23-May-05 8:40

ems18p

23-May-05 8:40

hello! i just want to ask how to use the ADODC control? its like a navigator control with the following commands: go top rec, next, previous and go last button. how do i set the datasource or table. i used the database access. please help!

thanks in advance.

Saving in VB

siskomike23-May-05 6:51

23-May-05 6:51

How are variables saved in VB, after a user has closed the program. For example:
increment a variable everytime the program/exe is used, to show how many times the program has been used.
thnx, mike

Brian Van Beek23-May-05 7:24

Brian Van Beek

23-May-05 7:24

You will need to use some sort of a settings file (like a .dat file) and write to this file each time the application loads/exits.

Brian Van Beek
My Blog is Awesome, ok maybe not, but is still fun!!

siskomike23-May-05 7:50

23-May-05 7:50

how/where do I make a "settings file", and how do i write to it? and load information from it?
thnx, mike

Brian Van Beek23-May-05 7:58

Brian Van Beek

23-May-05 7:58

this should help you get started. link[^]

Does this help? or are you looking for a different solution?

Brian Van Beek
My Blog is Awesome, ok maybe not, but is still fun!!

siskomike23-May-05 8:19

23-May-05 8:19

Im using visual basic, I think thats VB.net? It didnt recognize some of the commands on that source code.
thnx, mike

Brian Van Beek23-May-05 8:50

Brian Van Beek

23-May-05 8:50

'read
Dim l_string As String
Dim i As Integer
FileOpen(1, "doc.txt", OpenMode.Input)
For i = 1 To 3
Input(1, l_string)
Next i
'you will only need to do the input once so the for loop could be left out

'write the file
FileOpen(1, "doc.txt", OpenMode.Output)
Write(1, "# of times opened")
FileClose(1)

this should work, it's been a long time since i did vb6 programming. (this is vb6 btw)

I got the "memory jolt" from here[^]

Brian Van Beek
My Blog is Awesome, ok maybe not, but is still fun!!

siskomike23-May-05 9:05