How do you open another form with out creating another instance

[Harm]

i'm using hide and close events from form. but what i found out is it creates every time another instance
this is the code i used

Dim AFormInstance As New form1()
AFormInstance.Show()
Me.Hide()

How to get 1 instance instead of many?

[Hu Flung Dung]

Declare a class-level variable instead of a procedure-level one.

Public Class MyForm
     Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

     Public FRM as new Form()

     Public Sub ShowFRM()
     
          FRM.Show()

     End Sub

End Class

Something like this should work just fine.

Originally posted by Edneeis:

I think you have to track the forms at a module level or pass references of the instances back and forth to the different forms.

I disagree. Passing references like that would only lead to spaghetti code. It can be done, but your code would be a bit harder to read, and harder to debug if you have a lot of forms.

[Edneeis]

I think you have to track the forms at a module level or pass references of the instances back and forth to the different forms.

[hellswraith]

If you want to pass data back and forth, you will need a reference to do so or another class that acts as an intermediatery (spell) between the two. Edneeis is right.

[Hu Flung Dung]

Originally posted by hellswraith
If you want to pass data back and forth, you will need a reference to do so or another class that acts as an intermediatery (spell) between the two. Edneeis is right.

Hmm. With an application that has a lot of forms, it might get difficult to keep track of all those form references.

I like the idea of a shared class acting like an intermediatery though. It would help to keep things centralized and simple.