I M New, Sorry for this silly question !

[amer]

I have to make more than 30 forms in an application with different contents but the form properties eg size, color, startup postion etc. are same.

is there any way that i make one form and then use the copies of same form with some link to master form (original) ie if i make any change to master form like color or any thing else, that will apply automaticaly to copies of that form.

please note that the contents of all these forms are entirely different.

thanx in advance for any help from VB MASTERS !

You can load different instances each time.

Dim frm As New frmMaster
frm.Show

[Joacim Andersson]

I think the only way to do this is during run-time. Add a BAS module to the project and copy this code to it:

Public Sub ShowForm(frmToShow As Form, frmTemplate As Form)
    With frmTemplate
        frmToShow.BackColor = .BackColor
        frmToShow.Move .Left, .Top, .Width, .Height
        frmToShow.WindowState = .WindowState
    End With
    frmToShow.Show
End Sub

When you want to load a form call ShowForm and pass the form you want to load as the first argument and the template form as the second.

Good luck!

[Joacim Andersson]

Originally posted by Megatron
You can load different instances each time.

Dim frm As New frmMaster
frm.Show

That won't work since...

Originally posted by amer
please note that the contents of all these forms are entirely different.

[amer]

i guess that Joacim is right!

Joacim, i heard a lot about classes, can i handle it by using classes, if YES how can i creat class.

thanx n regards

[Mih_Flyer]

i don't think using classis is the best way to do this, what Joacim Andersson said is the best way, just add a new form and make it as template, u don't use it for any thing, but when u want to change the colors of your forms or size, just change them in the template form,,,

[Joacim Andersson]

The template form doesn't necassaraly have to be a new form. You could pass your main form as the template argument to the procedure.

[Joacim Andersson]

Originally posted by amer
Joacim, i heard a lot about classes, can i handle it by using classes, if YES how can i creat class.

Sure you can do this by creating a class! But as Mih_Flyer already noted; it might not be the best way of doing it.
That's because you can't set properties of classes during design time but for a form you can. So it would be easier to use a template form.
A form also acts very much like classes.
Now that I've mentioned that let us see how you can implement it like a class.

You could do this by either adding a private class to your project or by adding an ActiveX DLL project so that you make a project group.

I think the earlier is a little bit simplier though so lets start out that way.

On the Project menu click on Add Class Module.
A new Class Module window named Class1 will then appear. They look very much like a standard module but acts differently.
Rename the class to CFormTemplate by changing the Name property in the Property List Window.

Now you want to add properties to this class. The properties you are interested in is:[*]BackColor[*]Top[*]Left[*]Width[*]Height[*]WindowState

You might come up with other properties that you want to add to the Form Template but I leave that as an exercise for you

There are two ways of creating properties either like property procedures or as public variables. Property procedures is to prefer though since you don't know when a public variable is changed. With property procedures you can validate if the new property value is valid or not which you can't do with a public variable.

A property procedure is actually two procedures; a Property Let (or Property Set if the property value actually is an object instead of a simple value; Font and Picture is examples of Object properties) and a Property Get procedure.

The Property Let is called when you assign a new value to the property and the Property Get is called when you want to retrieve the value.

So add the following code to the class module:

Option Explicit

'These are private variables to hold the
'property values.
Private m_BackColor As OLE_COLOR
Private m_Left As Integer
Private m_Top As Integer
Private m_Width As Integer
Private m_Height As Integer
Private m_WindowState As FormWindowStateConstants

Public Property Let BackColor(NewValue As OLE_COLOR)
    m_BackColor = NewValue
End Property

Public Property Get BackColor() As OLE_COLOR
    BackColor = m_BackColor
End Property

Public Property Let Left(NewValue As Integer)
    m_Left = NewValue
End Property

Public Property Get Left() As Integer
    Left = m_Left
End Property

Public Property Let Top(NewValue As Integer)
    m_Top = NewValue
End Property

Public Property Get Top() As Integer
    Top = m_Top
End Property

Public Property Let Width(NewValue As Integer)
    m_Width = NewValue
End Property

Public Property Get Width() As Integer
    Width = m_Width
End Property

Public Property Let Height(NewValue As Integer)
    m_Height = NewValue
End Property

Public Property Get Height() As Integer
    Height = m_Height
End Property

Public Property Let WindowState(NewValue As FormWindowStateConstants)
    m_WindowState = NewValue
End Property

Public Property Get WindowState() As FormWindowStateConstants
    WindowState = m_WindowState
End Property

Now you probably want these properties to have default values from the beginning so that if you don't set one value the default is returned.
A class module have two events; Initialize and Terminate. The Class_Initialize event is raised when you first create an object from the class. This is a perfect place to add the default values to the properties.
So add the following code to that event:

Private Sub Class_Initialize()
    m_Height = 3600
    m_Width = 4800
    m_WindowState = vbNormal
    m_BackColor = vbButtonFace
    m_Top = 0
    m_Left = 0
End Sub

Now it's time to add a Method that you call when you want to load a form. This Method is very simular to the procedure I gave you in my first post. The difference is that you only have to pass the form name of the form that you want to load and not a template form since the class it self is the template. I also added two optional arguments that you can use if you want the form to be modal and to state the owner form. These are the same as the arguments as the Show method of a Form has.
Copy and paste the following code to the class module:

Public Sub ShowForm(frmToShow As Form, _
                    Optional Modal As FormShowConstants = vbModeless, _
                    Optional OwnerForm As Form)
    With frmToShow
        .Move m_Left, m_Top, m_Width, m_Height
        .WindowState = m_WindowState
        .BackColor = m_BackColor
        If OwnerForm Is Nothing Then
            frmToShow.Show Modal
        Else
            frmToShow.Show Modal, OwnerForm
        End If
    End With
End Sub

Now the class is all done! The only thing to do now is to create an object from the class.
Since you have to be able to use this object through out the project it have to be declared as Public.
If you don't already have a BAS module in your project add one now and declare the object in it in the following manner:

Public objTemplate As CFormTemplate

Since you now going to use this object to load your forms you must change the Startup object of your project.
Click on ProjectName Properties on the Project menu and change the Startup Object to Sub Main.
Now that you have change that you have to add the Main sub. You write that in the BAS module like this:

Public Sub Main()
    'initialize the object
    Set objTemplate = New CFormTemplate
    'set the property values of the template object
    'change this to whatever you want to have
    With objTemplate
        .BackColor = vbRed
        .Height = 8000
        .Width = 10000
        'center all forms
        .Top = (Screen.Height - .Height) \ 2
        .Left = (Screen.Width - .Width) \ 2
        'this call isn't really necassary because
        'vbNormal is the default value
        .WindowState = vbNormal
        .ShowForm Form1 'Change this to the name of your main form
    End With
End Sub

Now every time you want to load a new form simply call the ShowForm method of the CFormTemplate class. Here's an example:

objTemplate.ShowForm Form2, vbModal, Form1

Best regards and good luck!

[Mih_Flyer]

you don't even have to make a template form, you can just define public variables as:
BKColor, TxtColor,,,,etc.
and in the event load of every form change the properties according to those variables..i think this is easier.

[da_silvy]

i think joacim's first form example is easier

then there is not as much code also!