Floating Pane initialise is messy

Hi Chris,

1. What do you mean by: This just looks messy?
2. Just call: wndDockingPanes.FloatPane wndDockingPanes.FindPane(1), 100, 100, 200, 200

 

Additional Information.

The same thing happens even if I do not attach a Form to the Pane.

So I get the flickering and black centre even if I just use
      Set TmpFloatPane = DPM.CreatePane(......)
      TmpFloatPane.Floating = True


If I only have the first line (.CreatePane(...   ) the pane appears instantly with no flickering.  But when I make the Pane float, I get the problem.

Is there some property I need to set?

I have done more experiments. Some of my problem was that I had a DoEvents loop waiting for the floating form to become visible.

(Did you know that this happens.......
       myForm.show
       debug.print myForm.visible       (prints  True)

       myPane.Handle = myForm.hWnd
       debug.print myForm.visible       (print  False)

        wait for a while   (eg 50 mSec)

       debug.print myForm.visible         (prints   True)
)


My DoEvents while waiting caused the black background effect. So that is now fixed.

But I still have problem that floating form appears on screen, and then moves to final Pane position/size. This causes flickering effect.  I can minimise this by trying to preset Pane size and position to match the Form.

------------------------------------------------------------
Can you get a Floating Pane to appear in the middle of the screen with its attached Form, instantly?  (ie. without flicker?).  If yes, please what code do you use?   

Thank you Aaron for taking trouble to investigatae.

To make your sample same as what I am doing, just take all the code in your Form_Load event and move it to the Command1_Click event. 

That is, I only create the Form1 when I need to show it in the Pane. (because I will be displaying many different Forms in this same Pane).

So when I click the Command button, the Form1 is loaded and then the Pane created and then the Form1 attached to the Pane, and the Pane floated and moved to the location I require.

When I run this code on my PC there is no problem. The Pane and Form seems to appear almost instantly on screen with no "flicker".

So I guess that my real app is slower because of many forms and many controls, and this causes the appearance on screen to be slower.

My code is very similar to your example. So I conclude there is no better way to create/display a floating Pane.

Thank you again for all your comments.