Application loading screen

[Stephan]

Dear All,

I hope that you all could get what I am going to mention down here and I
appreciate on any help attempts.

In order to avoid the noticable form loading time caused by form transitions
while my application is running, I have decided to load all forms during the
startup of my application. After that, using the Application.Run(Form) to
show the first page of my application. However, this will then lengthen up
the startup of my application as a sacrifice.

Hence, I was assigned to create an application loading page (just a progress
bar with blinking maybe) to tell the user the application is loading. Is
someone out there could give me some hints from where I should start? How
could I make a form stay on top of the loading process with the progress bar
is blinking? After all the forms are loaded, then only the program should
show the first form, which is the log on form.

If you all find any doubts on what I am trying to ask, please don't hesitate
to let me know and I will try to tell in more details. Indeed, any starting
suggestion must well code snippests is very much appreciate.

Thank you.


Regards,
Stephan

 

[William Bates]

Stephan,

I solved this problem by creating the initial screen at startup. This
is typically a login / splash screen.

I then started a thread that loads all screens invisible (this.Visible =
false). I also hooked into events (See ApplicationEx in OpenNETCF) to
see if the user is trying to do something, and if they are, I suspend
the launching thread to perform the task, which may mean loading a form
that hasn't yet been loaded.

My application lakes about 30 seconds to fully load all forms, but the
threadloader and hooking into the users actions makes this fairly
painless and transparent.

William

 

[Stephan]

Thanks William, I get that up now...

Thank you.


Regards,
Stephan