help!

[relentless32]

I'm pretty new to all this stuff, i've created some pretty basic forms in
VB.net and when i build and then deploy smartdeviceapplication all i seem to
get is the emulator with a default display - NO SIGN OF MY FORMS!???? Whats
am i doing wrong????

[Shaggy Hiker]

Don't use the emulator unless you have no other choice.

I don't think that has anything to do with your issue here, but it is generally good advice.

As to your problem, it seems like there could be several things, the easiest being that you are not waiting long enough. Deployment has a serious lag time, especially if you are talking about forms (plural). I don't use the emulator, but when deploying to a device for testing, it is not unusual to wait 5-10 seconds after deployment is said to be successfult before seeing anything on the screen. 5-10 seconds doesn't sound like much time, but in this day and age, that is pretty long.

If delay isn't it, I would tend to suspect the emulator itself. When I did use that, I found it to be really quirky. I generally had to run it twice to get it to work, and then it was a bit unreliable as to what would show. You might try hitting F5 once to deploy the emulator, then when the program fails to deploy, stop debugging, but don't close the emulator, then hit F5 again to redeploy.

Also, since you are new to this, forms take a long time to load, so using only one form will get you MUCH better performance. Now, you might think that one form is not enough, but you just have to be clever. By making one really big form (I make them at the maximum size allowed), you can put several panels on the form, and use each panel as if they were separate forms. Swapping panels into and out of view takes almost no time compared to loading forms.