Controlling MDI child form from MDI parent panel

LuxCoder · April 2nd, 2007, 03:19 PM

I have two forms MDI Parent (Master) and MDI child (Customer). On MDI Parent i have a panel which has the following buttons:

1. New
2. Edit
3. Save
4. Delete
5. Undo
6. Redo
7. First
8. Previous
9. Next
10. Last
11. Search
12. Print
13. Close

Now my problem is how do i control the data in the customer form with the buttons located at Master's panel ?

BrianWren · April 3rd, 2007, 12:15 PM

When you open the child, you should be able to get the handle to that window. You would then use that handle to specify the recipient of your instructions.

LuxCoder · April 6th, 2007, 03:13 PM

Thanks Brian for your reply. I'm sorry but i did not understand what u said. Can u please elaborate with the help of some codes ?

LuxCoder · April 6th, 2007, 03:19 PM

In case i have three MDI child forms, then how do i determine the active MDIchild form and use the Master Panel's buttons to control it. Please help, this problem is driving me nuts !

BrianWren · April 6th, 2007, 04:24 PM

I have 2005, and don't see how to create an MDI app, though I have in the past one so with VB6.

I feel pretty confident that there is a collection of windows, perhaps as part of the Application or App object. Each of the elements in that collection may have an .activated or .focus or .HasFocus property. I'd look around for something like that.

Also I suspect that in the creation of a new child, the functionality has a way to receive a handle to that window at the same time. Perhaps creating the child as a variable:

Code:

    Dim fA_Child As frmOneOfMyForms

    fA_Child = New frmOneOfMyForms
    fA_Child.Show

or something like that. If you then ran the 2nd and 3rd line a second time, the 1st form would still be open (and you lost your reference to it), and fA_Child is now a reference to a 2nd child.

Having a reference, you then have access to all of the public properties and exposed objects of the form that it is a reference to.

Is that clearer? Perhaps I'll poke around on this a bit at home over the weekend. (I do have a lot other to do...)

LuxCoder · April 9th, 2007, 02:04 PM

Thanks for your help Brian !!! But the codes u have provided did not work.

marcostraf · April 10th, 2007, 01:16 PM

put this code in the MDI form:

Dim activeChild As Form = Me.ActiveMDIChild

"There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works."
Unknown

LuxCoder · April 11th, 2007, 02:38 PM

I have used the following code at the Close button in the panel of MDI Parent, it gives me the error as "Use the 'New' keyword to create an object instance".

  Dim activechild As Form = Me.ActiveMdiChild
        If (Not activechild Is Nothing) Then
            MsgBox("No active MDI Child")
        Else
            activechild.Close()
        End If

What shall i do now ?