For all of you GURUS out there ;-)

[wildcat_2000]

Hi all,

this one is really for all the GURU specialists that are out there ;-) hope you can take me out of this.

Let's say that I have a project with:

- a MDI form (MDIform1);
- 2 child form (form1 and form2).

In fact, I actually have more than 2, and not all of them are visible at the same time. But let's keep it simple (did I say simple?!?).

On Form1 and Form2 I have labels which work as buttons (for graphical reasons I prefer using those instead of controls).

These buttons all have the mousepointer property set to 99 (custom icon), which is a small hand (like the one used for hyperlinks). So that when the mouse is over, the mousepointer changes, and the user understands it's a button (duh!).

Now, here the hard part begins. When you click on label1 of form1, I fire up a quite heavy routine. I therefore set my
form1.label1.mousepointer = 11 (hourglass), so that the mouse just stays at hourglass and the user just cannot start anything or click anything in the program until the heavy routine that he has started is done.

However I was not happy enough, since my routine can be quite long and I wanted my users to be able to stop it at anytime.

Therefore, I've put up a function that allows them to stop the routine by pressing the ESCAPE key (thanks Chris for this one!). In order to allow this stop, I am using the DoEvents property that allows to check for the key press.

The problem is: because of this DoEvents function, the mousepointer value is automatically set to 0 (default!), and therefore the user can click on other forms (which cause inevitable overflows, stacking,...).

Question: how can I solve this problem?

Things that I've tried:

1. setting MDIform.enabled = false
--> doesn't work. It's true, you can't press labels in the forms, but the mousepointer is 0 (arrow).

2. setting MDIform.mousepointer = 11
--> doesnt'work, same effect of form1.label1.mousepointer = 11, after the DoEvents the mouse is 0 again.

3. setting all the labels in all the forms to mousepointer = 11
--> could work, but then as I said not all the forms are loaded at the same time. This would mean setting up a verification to see which forms are active... seems long and not effective.

4. setting mousepointer = 11 after all the DoEvents
--> doesn't work, memory is overflooded, Stack problem.

5. ...any ideas?


All of you great GURUS, hope you can solve this one with me! Thanks for reading until here, you definitely would like to help if you kept on reading until these lines, so I already appreciate you efforts [^_^]

Best regards to you all,

W.

[tumblingdown]

Why do you get stack probs by setting the cursor explicitly after the each doevents? Seems odd.


td.

[wildcat_2000]

mmmm, you're right. I might have bad recalling for this error.

The problem, though, remains: since the DoEvents happen all the time, it would mean setting not only MDIform.mousepointer = 11, but also all the labels, and this after every DoEvents, and moreover you would have first to do a routine to find which forms are active and visible...

I am sure this would considerably slow down the whole process. Isn't there another way?

Thanks for our reply ;-)

W.

[tumblingdown]

So far. You have an MDI parent with many children. At a given point, on of these children will do something (process A). You need to be able to interupt (Cancel) process A with a cancel button on the Child form that kicked it off.

Question: are the other forms active while process a is doing it's thing.

Question: why do you think a search and destroy on all forms, changing lbls pointer property would take a long time. It'll take a fraction of a second.
e.g. global routine (psuedo code)

Public Sub ChangeLblPointer(frm as Form,Pointer)
Dim ctl as control
  For Each ctl In frm.control
    If TypeName(ctl) = "Label" Then ctl.MousePointer=pointer
  Next
  Set ctl = Nothing
End Sub

td.

[wildcat_2000]

No there are no other ongoing processes except for the one fired up by the child that started it up all, so Ok I'll try this. I'll put the sub you've suggested in a module, and call it after every DoEvents.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[wildcat_2000]

Any other suggestions?

[Paul Warren]

hmmm, interesting. I've just run this code on a child form and it works fine ? Are you sure it's related to the DoEvents ?

Create a blank project with a MDI and child then stick this code into the child. Show the child when the MDI is loaded and let me know what happens.

Private bEnd As Boolean

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Screen.MousePointer = vbHourglass

Do

    DoEvents

Loop Until bEnd

Screen.MousePointer = vbDefault

End Sub

Private Sub Form_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)

Select Case KeyAscii

    Case vbKeyEscape
        bEnd = True
        
End Select

End Sub

[wildcat_2000]

Paul,

in your exemple is that you're still using a command1_click.
My problem starts using a label1_click, where the label1.mousepointer = 99 when the form is loaded.

However there's something new in your code: you're using Screen as the object, while I've always (was I blocked in my thinking ? used a form object.

Maybe I would just have then to set, as you kindly suggest,

Screen.MousePointer = 11

and instead of my Form1.Label1.MousePointer = 11

...what do you think?

[tumblingdown]

yer, use the screen.

the code i gave you was psuedo code to give you an idea.


td.

[Paul Warren]

Wildcat_2000, yep that should do it. It's also worth using the VB constants because if Microsoft ever change the values for the hourglass, etc your code will automatically pick them up and save you changing and recompiling your code. YOu may already be doing this of course and just putting the numbers in for clarity. In which case ignore the last bit.

[wildcat_2000]

Thank you very much both for your precious suggestions. If this doesn't work, you'll soon seem me posting here again ;-)

Best regards to you all,

W.