[VB.NET] Hiding and Showing of forms

[JadeWolf324]

im trying to make a simple wizard in VB.NET.

it has 2 forms, and i want the user to be able to press the back button

and makes changes to the information on form 1, if they hit the back button

which is found on form 2. in other words, i want only these to forms made

and have all the info kept on them...in VB6 all i had to do was

me.hide

frm2.show

thats not the case now...can someone help?

[Winston]

You have to instantiate a new instance of the form

Dim frm2 as New Form2()

frm.Show()

[John Veteran]

Learn some basic object oriented concepts, you'll do a LOT better in .NET ;)

[James Rose]

not to change your approach but... Wizards tend to not use multiple forms. Instead use on form and use a placeholder array for each "page", then it's easy to go back and forward in your wizard.

[JadeWolf324]

i see, but the size of the window changes on each form..is the only problem there. and as for the

You have to instantiate a new instance of the form

Dim frm2 as New Form2()

frm.Show()

wouldnt that make a new one? i want it to have the info stay if the user wants to go back and forth from the wizard.

[John Veteran]

What you're basically saying with that code is "make a new object i can use, and build it like a Form2 item" (Y) Classes (including forms) aren't meant to be designed as a single instance. You're still thinking like you're using VB6, saying "here's what the form looks like, now create it". It's just not done that way in OOP (object oriented programming) :no:

[Winston]

What you're basically saying with that code is "make a new object i can use, and build it like a Form2 item" (Y) Classes (including forms) aren't meant to be designed as a single instance. You're still thinking like you're using VB6, saying "here's what the form looks like, now create it". It's just not done that way in OOP (object oriented programming) :no:

Yes it will make a new one... so that's why you could create a Public Object Variable and instantiate the that class (form in this case), and just work off it... I had a friend who taught me some other way to do like wizards, if you wanted it to be easy, you can just have one form, and just layout each wizard screen on the whole form, top to bottom, and when the user clicks the next button, the items will shift up and change accordingly, that's a much better idea, than having alot of forms, just to create a wizard.

[DrZoidberg]

I agree with the "one form" approach. It's a lot easier to keep track of the values on each "page" of the wizard. Stick each page of the wizard on a panel and hide and show each panel as the user clicks on the "Next" and "Previous" buttons. I've written a wizard user control that makes it even easier: it takes care of all the pages on the wizard, the Cancel/Finish/Next/Previous buttons and so on. All the programmer needs to do is to set the correct number of pages in the VS.Net designer and add the appropriate controls to each page.

The "multiple form" approach seems a bit overly-complicated IMHO. If you really want to continue this way (especially as you say your forms are different sizes, which IME isn't really what happens with wizards - each part of the wizard is the same size), you could create global variables (ugh!) of an instance of each form just before you show the wizard and use the Next/Previous buttons to show these global forms. However, this approach is an awful hack and I feel dirty even suggesting it :).

Something like (I'm a C# programmer, so excuse any mistakes):

Dim wizardPage1 As New Form1()
Dim wizardPage2 As New Form2()

Then, when you want to show the first page of the wizard:

wizardPage1.Show()

In the first form's Next button click event:

Me.Hide
wizardPage2.Show()

In the second form's Previous button click event:

Me.Hide
wizardPage1.Show()

I think that might work, but (a) I'm not 100% sure and (b) it's a dreadful approach. Much better to use a single form and panels or a similar approach. There are probably user controls out there to help you, or you could write your own.

[Cool4]

I agree with the "one form" approach. It's a lot easier to keep track of the values on each "page" of the wizard. Stick each page of the wizard on a panel and hide and show each panel as the user clicks on the "Next" and "Previous" buttons. I've written a wizard user control that makes it even easier: it takes care of all the pages on the wizard, the Cancel/Finish/Next/Previous buttons and so on. All the programmer needs to do is to set the correct number of pages in the VS.Net designer and add the appropriate controls to each page.

The "multiple form" approach seems a bit overly-complicated IMHO. If you really want to continue this way (especially as you say your forms are different sizes, which IME isn't really what happens with wizards - each part of the wizard is the same size), you could create global variables (ugh!) of an instance of each form just before you show the wizard and use the Next/Previous buttons to show these global forms. However, this approach is an awful hack and I feel dirty even suggesting it :).

Something like (I'm a C# programmer, so excuse any mistakes):

Dim wizardPage1 As New Form1()
Dim wizardPage2 As New Form2()

Then, when you want to show the first page of the wizard:

wizardPage1.Show()

In the first form's Next button click event:

Me.Hide
wizardPage2.Show()

In the second form's Previous button click event:

Me.Hide
wizardPage1.Show()

I think that might work, but (a) I'm not 100% sure and (b) it's a dreadful approach. Much better to use a single form and panels or a similar approach. There are probably user controls out there to help you, or you could write your own.

imagine that you have 2 forms, and want to change the position of a control in a form from the other form without unloading the first form... how would you do it?

i use a module to pass the vars but i think this could be easier