How To Display a Form in a Top-Level Form on Startup (257230)

SUMMARY

If you attempt to automatically run a form inside a top-level form, you may find that you cannot run the form from the Load or Init method. Both the Load and Init method cause the form to appear in the Visual FoxPro screen, rather than in the form.

Although the Activate event happens frequently during the life of a form, this is the best place from which to run a form on startup. You can put wrapper code around the call to the in-top-level form so that it only runs once.

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To use the code sample included in this article, follow these steps:

Copy and then save this sample code into a program named RunSDI.prg:

*!* Adjust this line to point to your VFP 5.0 or 6.0 root directory.
#INCLUDE "D:\VS98\VFP98\FOXPRO.H"

LPARAMETER tcDoForm
PUBLIC oContainer

oContainer = CREATEOBJECT("frmContainer", tcDoForm)
IF TYPE("oContainer") = "O" AND NOT ISNULL(oContainer)
   oContainer.Show()
ENDif

RETURN


DEFINE CLASS frmContainer AS form

   AutoCenter = .T.
   Height = 400
   Width = 600
   ShowWindow = 2   && As Top-Level Form
   Caption = "Top-Level Container"
   Name = "frmContainer"
   cDoForm = ""
   lFormCreated = .F.
 
   PROCEDURE Init
      LPARAMETER tcFormToRun

      IF TYPE("tcFormToRun") != "C"
         tcFormToRun = ""
      ENDif

      IF UPPER(RIGHT(tcFormToRun, 4)) != ".SCX"
         tcFormToRun = tcFormToRun + ".SCX"
      ENDif

      IF FILE(tcFormToRun)
         THIS.cDoForm = tcFormToRun
      ELSE
         MESSAGEBOX("File " + ALLTRIM(tcFormToRun) + ;
            " not found.", MB_OK, "Top-Level Container")
         RETURN .F.
      ENDif
   ENDproc

*!* To make your form appear inside the SDI container, run the following 
*!* code as is. If you want to make it appear that only one form is 
*!* running, comment the "loDoForm.Caption..." line below and uncomment
*!* the lines currently commented.
   PROCEDURE Activate
      LOCAL loDoForm, llLockScreen
      
      WITH This
         IF NOT .lFormCreated
            DO FORM (.cDoForm) NAME loDoForm
           
            llLockScreen = .LockScreen
            .LockScreen = .T.
            
            lcDoForm = .cDoForm
            loDoForm.Caption = loDoForm.Caption + ": In Top-Level"
            
*!*	            loDoForm.TitleBar = 0
*!*	            loDoForm.BorderStyle = 0
*!*	            .Height = loDoForm.Height
*!*	            .Width = loDoForm.Width
*!*	            .Caption = loDoForm.Caption
            
            .LockScreen = llLockScreen
            .lFormCreated = .T.
         ENDif
      ENDwith
   ENDproc
ENDdefine

Create a new form with the following properties and save it as MYFORM.scx:
ShowWindow = "1 - In Top-Level Form"
Height = 200
Width = 200
From the Visual FoxPro Command window, set the default directory to the directory that contains the RunSDI.prg file.
Type the following in the Command window and then press ENTER:
```
DO RunSDI.PRG WITH "MYFORM"
```

A top-level (SDI) form with your form inside appears. Your form was run from the Activate event of the SDI container.

How To Display a Form in a Top-Level Form on Startup (257230)

SUMMARY

MORE INFORMATION

REFERENCES