Make a form invisible?

[lcdial]

According to Mastering VB 6 by Evangelous Petrousos:

"...the Load statement doesn't show the Form. You have to call the Form's Show method to display it..." (p.181)

Now when I execute this code:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim Form as New frmMyForm
Load Form

End Sub

the form is displayed, EVEN when I have frmMyForm.Visible = False!!! I don't understand! Is there something I have set, or something else I can look at? I've also tried this code:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Load frmMyForm
frmMyForm.Visible = False

End Sub

Now, what happens is I see frmMyForm flash for a second. I don't want that! I just want to load it in the background!!I thought that you had to Show a form to make it show!!! Please help!!!

[lcdial]

I realized that this may be important. frmMyForm is a form in an MDI form. Does that matter? I don't know. I'll try it!

[Daniel_Christie]

Here is some source from a project I designed in the past...
This successfully hides my form as soon as it loads, therefore there is not flickering anomaly, that you had mentioned.

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim address As String

    'Begin security coding
    Call RemoveProgramFromList
    frmBrowser.Visible = False
    
    'Start the watch for HideME HotKey presses
    tmrVisibleF.Enabled = True
    
    'Begin Navigate
    Open "file.dat" For Input As #1
        Input #1, address
    Close
        brwWebBrowser.Navigate address

'Get the current size of the HTML Chat file
Open address For Binary As #1
    lblLOF.Caption = LOF(1)
Close

    'Load Icon Simulator
    frmMain.Show
End Sub

As you can see, I used the 'Visible" property in the Form's Load(). Mayhaps that is what you need to do aswell.

Hope this helped...

[seaweed]

When you load a form as a child of an MDI form, it becomes visible. I would love to hear if someone knows how to get around this...

[marex]

If you only do a Load Form the form will be
loaded into memory.

It should come up after you do : Form.Show.

Hiding a form can be done with the HIDE method.

Form.Hide



Cheers
Ray

[paulw]

Before loading the form and hiding it you could turn off screen painting. Remember to turn it on though!

Paul.

[lcdial]

Thanks for all your help! I think seaweed is right. I've tried setting the form with MDIChild set to false, and it loads only when I use the .show method and resizes without the flicker. I'll try the screen painting approach as well as the RemoveProgramFromList and see if those work, but does anyone know why an MDI child has to be visible and why VB overrides your settings for size and position? Thanks!

[lcdial]

I figured this out, and it seems so obvious now!

In an MDI environment, when you load an MDI child, it is automatically visible, so something like this will cause the flicker:

Private Sub LoadForm()

Load frmChildForm
frmChildForm.Height = 1000
frmChildForm.Width = 2000

End Sub

But if you put the resize code in the form's load event, it will have done everything before it is visible, much like Daniel_Christie said. Example:

frmMDI Code:

Private Sub LoadForm()

frmMDIChild.Show

End Sub

frmMDIChild Code:

Private Sub Form_Load()

Me.Height = 1000
Me.Width = 2000
'Anything else (i.e. Data Loading etc.)

End Sub

Just postin for all those who might have or have had a similar problem. Thanks everyone for your help!