Hey, I'm building a code editor app in VB.NET (Framework 4.0) and it opens all ".por" files into individual forms consisting of a MenuBar and TextBox (multi-line).
Currently I have 20 forms (all duplicates of the first on I designed) and if there are say 4 ".por" files in a directory, the first four will open up while the others hide.
I think it would be far more efficient by coding a new form For each item in form1's ListView...but I want the next so many to be a copy of the first form I designed since I spent a good bit on it.
Thanks in advance!
I decided to use tabs instead.
It wasn't difficult, the problem was I didn't know how to use a form I couldn't see.
By sticking to tabs and making a huge IF statement, simply making a new tab for each new file, and I'm getting used to using controls which haven't actually been created with the designer.
Just passing through a wall here...
Related
Firstly, I apologise for my terminology and sometimes stupidity, as I am completely self/internet (mostly on here) taught. I've been developing an app for the past few years, mostly to help me with work, and more for kicks and giggles. I have now run into a problem that has me stumped! So I am calling out for any suggestions please :)
Okay, some background, I use colours on all forms to identify blocks of data based on an ID - it looks pretty, okay; and sometimes it's a quick identifier of which block the data belongs to when skimming through tables. So I have a form where I or the user can change these colours to whatever suits their eyes, needs etc. and there is a table that holds this information. Now these colours are applied using the 'Conditional Formatting' (when ID = 1 then background this colour, font that colour, etc). When a Form is opened in the FormLoad() code there is a check to see if the colours have been changed and if so then a module is called which updates all the 'Conditional Formats' on the Form (I should add here that it's only applied to the tables on the form), and everything looks pretty and more important works! Now this process is relatively slow (a couple of seconds on some forms), too slow to run every time the form is opened. So ages ago I found a way to force Access to save the design, including the 'Conditional Formatting':
DoCmd.RunCommand (acCmdDesignView)
Forms!PrePlanner!BtnHelp.Caption = "Help"
DoCmd.Save acForm, "PrePlanner"
DoCmd.Close acForm, "PrePlanner", acSaveYes
This works perfectly on some forms but not on other!!
At first I thought it was something to do with the subForms, as it WASN'T working on all the forms that have subForms and the ones it was working on had no subForms... So I copied one of a simple subForms (a recently created form) which can open as a normal form, made changes to the colours opened the TEST form, the colours updated as expected, closed the form with the above code and the Formatting WASN'T saved! :( (If I change the Help Button to say "Help!" this change IS saved)
The Forms that don't save with the above code are also the most recent Forms that I have designed, the ones that do save are older forms (a couple years old and designed on a different computer but the same version of Access). I copied one of these older Forms, changed the colours, etc etc and this it DID save!!!
I've been through and compared all the properties of a working form and a nonworking form and nothing, I've tried exporting and importing... Please any thoughts would really help my sanity!!
Thanks in advance
....I forgot to say that I'm using Access 2016 on a 64bit Windows 10 machine.
Additional Info.
Having played around this morning, I created a new form (from scratch) configured the records so that the Conditional Formatting can be applied, etc. Opened the new form the Conditional Formatting was updated, the form closed and saved. Upon reopening the new form everything was as it should be the Conditional Formatting was saved. So I then add a subForm, and tried again, the Conditional Formatting was updated, the from closed BUT this time without saving the Conditional Formatting!! I then removed the subForm and repeated the test, this time the Conditional Formatting was saved.
So it seems to be something to do with subForms, what changes to the form properties does adding a subForm trigger that would stop the Conditional Formatting from being saved? Is this a quirk in Access?
Thanks again.
Have you tried running your code to apply the formatting while the form is in design view? It seems like conditional formatting and properties don't save when updated via VBA while the form is in normal view mode. I've had good luck reopening the form in design, running the code, and then saving the form.
I'm creating a vb.net project with over 20-30 forms. I want to apply same options for every form like "no border,backcolor,picturebox at left bottom etc.". and it takes much time to do these for ever form. Please tell me a shortcut :)
(I've thinked about creating one form and duplicating it.)
Creating Template Forms using Visual Inheritance
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7038/Creating-Template-Forms-using-Visual-Inheritance
[RESOLVED] Creating a Windows Form template/library?
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?641019-RESOLVED-Creating-a-Windows-Form-template-library&s=1fb7d88423241485b8fff8e50ef97d04
Create your Form with the properties set then
File (Menu) | Export Template
Note: Links to other posts aren’t advised but there is a lot of content and didn’t want to just copy/paste, these could become dead links in the future mind.
You can create Project Templates and Item Template which can have code files, assets etc already there, it’s how File | New works.
Let's start with a confession: I came from a VB6 background, and I'm accustomed to coding within the events of objects on a form, and as such my code for events ends up in somewhat random order in the code window. With this habit, it's never been very important to remember the names of controls (although I name them well)... I just double click on a button in the design view, which brings me straight to the code for that control's primary event. If I forget the name of a control, I click it and view properties. It's not a habit I've moved away from.
Well, now this is catching up to me. Using VS Express 2013, I have a form that contains a HUGE number of containers-within-containers, labels, buttons, and other doohickeys. I ported my code from VS.NET Express 2008 where this wasn't a problem. But now the act of selecting any control in the design view takes around 10 seconds before I can view its properties. If I drag to resize a control, and another 10 seconds passes before I can select another control. It makes designing this form nearly impractical.
In this particular project, I'm using use a tab control (which is never visible to the user) to design many "screens" which each contain panels full of controls. The panels for each "screen" are moved out of the tabs and docked into the main form as requested by the user changing screens. (I'm using the term "screen" to mean a window full of controls, usually maximized.)
Within the same project, a simple modal password-change form isn't slow to edit controls visually, even if the complex form is still visible in the IDE.
My question is in three parts:
First, what the heck is it spending all that time doing?
Second, is there a setting I can tweak to improve the speed?
Third, should I give up on trying to speed it up as-is, and move each "screen" into its own form for design purposes to avoid this slowness? (It's a lot of work to do that now... see next paragraph.)
Thus far I have avoided separating "screens" onto separate forms because I don't want a new window to come up when users change screens, and because code for the controls in one screen may affect the properties of controls on other screens... In such cases I prefer not to write out
form.doohickey.text = "blah"
..but rather keep it as ...
doohickey.text = "blah"
I'm using VB but I don't think this question is VB-specific.)
First off, I feel your pain. I have a management section of the application that I'm writing and I'm using a TabControl as well. I have 10 tabs so far and I've only added controls to about 4-5 tabs. I just added up the controls I have and there are about 360 controls so far on this one form and the designer file is ~3300 lines long. Currently anytime I change a property value of one of the controls or go to save the Designer, it takes about 3-4 seconds each time. I have a fairly decent machine; i5-3320M, 8GB RAM, intel 330 SSD, and it still takes a bit for it to do things within the tabControl. It also takes FOREVER to open and load the designer on that form...
What I've found is that it is easier to open a new instance of Visual Studio, create a test application, add a TabControl with the same properties, and design a new tab page from there. When I'm done I do a copy-paste into my actual project. This works great except for the few custom controls I've written in my main application project, I just have to sit and wait while adding them.
I'm now answering my own question. This is the approach I've ended up using, and it helps a lot...
My overall goal was to have an interface that didn't present a lot of windows, but still presented many different "screens".
I used to place all the different controls of different "screens" on separate panels, which were each contained in separate tabs of an invisible TabControl. I would then move those panels to my main form as needed by changing their Parent property of each panel as needed. The only problem with this is that the Winforms designer got ridiculously slow as the number of controls on a form increased into the hundreds.
Now, I am now designing each "screen" as a separate form, each of which contains a panel whose Dock property = Fill. Such a panel contains everything else on the form. The form itself never becomes visible.
As needed for to view various screens, I execute:
ScreenForm.Panel1.Parent = Mainform
...or, depending on how I lay it out...
ScreenForm.Panel1.Parent = Mainform.PanelXYZ
...I also either unload or hide any panels which already exist in the panel's new container.
I was GLADLY SURPRISED to find that the code for the various events of the controls contained in the panels would still run, because such code exists in the first form's file, not the displayed form's file. Luckily, it seems I was wrong. Event code follows the control itself. I can copy/paste not only controls, but also their corresponding event code to new forms for easier development and a faster Winforms designer.
All of this is similar to a MDI interface with maximized windows, but no title bar or [X] is displayed.
Essentially I'm doing everything as I did before, except using separate forms with panels instead of separate tabs with panels. The WinForms designer is much quicker because there aren't so many controls on any form.
I think I accidently found a workaround for saving a lot of time when changing the name of a control on a overpopulated container/project. Before you change the name, toggle False/True the "Generate Member" property of the control you want to rename(I believe you can also locate this under the "Name" property). This adds a few more clicks to the procedure but saves a lot of time. My not-yet-finished project has over 4000 controls and multiple forms and some of them are very "heavy" (10 - 20 seconds to normally change the name of a control). This, of course, don't help in anyway with the loading time of the project (about 35 seconds for me) but I can live with it. Let me know if this works for you too.
I need to update an Access VBA app with around 30 forms in it.
I have to amend a screen that seems to have been set up right at the start of the app, it uses a lot of SQL tables. Is there an way of finding my way to the start of the code?
I come from a procedural coding background and I am unused to code that doesn't have a start and an end; I also know a bit of VB, some ASP, some .Net and general computing.
When something "automagically" happens upon opening an Access database, it is almost always because
A "startup form" has been specified. (In Access_2010 that's done in File > Options > Current Database > Display Form.) ...or...
The database has a Macro named AutoExec which is automatically run when the database is opened (unless you bypass it by holding the [Shift] key down while opening).
In addition to #Gord's answer, there's a few things you need to know. I'm going to give you the quick & dirty version.
First, there's 2 types of code in Access. VBA & macros. Sometimes what's called a macro, is really VBA.
In Access, a macro is a set of instructions to do something to the database. It's very limited in what it can do. These are often used by novices who don't know how to program in VBA.
VBA is the real powerhouse behind the scenes. It can do everything a macro can do, but a whole lot more.
Access uses an Event-Driven / Object-Oriented (at least close enough for this discussion) interface. Do a Google search on those meanings. But very quickly, the listbox on a form is an object. It has properties (like width), methods (add an item), and events (click on an item).
To see the code, for macros look to to your navigation window to your left. For VBA (modules), look to the same window, or just press Alt-F11. VBA can be used standalone in a module, or behind the scenes of a form or report.
Once you get the hang of it, you'll find Access to be a handy RAD tool for small projects.
Good luck.
It appears that you already have found the form that opens when the app starts (if not, check out Gord Thompson's answer).
The first things that happen when an Access Form opens (the "start of the code", as you called it) are the Load and Open events.
If there is any code in this form that is connected to these events, then it's in the Form_Load() and Form_Open() functions in the code of the form.
I am porting a vb6 application to VB.net. One of the key forms has a large msflexgrid on it - about a 1000 columns and 50 rows. It has 2 header rows - the first header row has merged cells to form a main header and the second row has sub headings. There is no requirement for any data entry and it's unbound. The code does the work in deciding what to display (if anything) in each cell. It is solely used to display data in the form of a character and a coloured background and to display a tooltip text with more information when you mouse over it. Works beautifully in vb6.
I'm trying to decide whether to:
a) use the vb6 msflexgrid in the .net version
b) use the datagridview - which at a first glance seems to have a problem merging the cells on the header row
c) build my own custom control to do the job
Has anyone got any suggestions for the best approach?
I would suggest using the DataGridView, primarily because using COM objects in .NET is a pain. There is a MSDN page for exactly what you want to do here, and some additional discussion here.