When is a Modal UserForm 'Semi-Modal'...?

[David OShea]

Using a fresh install OL 2003 SP2, Win 2000 Pro SP2, E2K 2000 profile. All Com addins
removed.

I created a UserForm and macro that shows it when its run.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Private Sub ShowForm()
UserForm1.Show
End Sub
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ShowModal property of the form is set to True.

When I test it from within the VBE the macro runs, the form shows and deactivates Outlook
till the form is closed.
This I believe is absolutely normal.

I save and close the project and run the macro from within Outlook. The UserForm shows but
the parent application is not fully deactivated. The explorer in Outlook is fully active.
I can open and close emails, browse folders and when the close X button on the top right
of Outlook is clicked it closes the form. The only things that were deactivated were the
menu bar and buttons.

I deleted the profile and set it up again this time without the E2K settings but setup for
Personal Folders. I ran the ShowForm macro again and believe it or not, the form showed up
in full modal fashion. The Outlook application was deactivated behind the form.
Success!..... I added E2K to the profile. It still worked!

I deleted this that profile and again created a new E2K only based profile. This time,
when I ran the macro, the form showed up again in "Semi-Modal" fashion.

It seems that making the connection to Exchange is causing the problem. I have been able
to replicate this sort of behaviour on different machines with different builds using
Outlook XP or OL2003.

So I guess, here are my questions.
Has anyone seen this behaviour before?
Is there any work around for this? I've tried 'UserForm1.Show vbModal'. That dosn't work.
Is it possible to set the parent of the form?
Can I somehow respecify the scope of the forms modality? ie to include the Outlook
Explorer.

It seems like the Outlook Explorer dosn't even know the UserForm is there when E2K is
connected.

Thanks in advance.
Dave

 

[David OShea]

Looks like it's a bit of a bug in MSForms 2.0.
Instead I used Win API to get the handle of the form an set to the front, which as a
matter of fact makes it modal.

Private Declare Function SetForegroundWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" _
(ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
Dim hWnd As Long
hWnd = FindWindow("ThunderDFrame", Me.Caption)
SetForegroundWindow hWnd
End Sub

 

[Dmitry Streblechenko]

Your form must be created as a child of the Outlook Explorer, this really
has nothing todo with Exchange.
On the low level, CreateWindow() Windows API function must take the
Explorer's handle, which can be retrieved by QI'ing the Explorer for
IOleWindow.
Thta's being said, I don't know how/if VB allows to override its default
behavior when creating its forms.

Dmitry Streblechenko (MVP)
http://www.dimastr.com/
OutlookSpy - Outlook, CDO
and MAPI Developer Tool

 

[David OShea]

Thanks Dmitry for your reply.
I used this and it works very well.

Cheers
Dave


Private Declare Function SetForegroundWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" _
(ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
Dim hWnd As Long
hWnd = FindWindow("ThunderDFrame", Me.Caption)
SetForegroundWindow hWnd
End Sub