VB6 Form will not resize when I run - vb6

I have to make some modifications to a VB6.0 project that I haven't touched in years so my memory is getting a little old.
I have a form and then I make the form bigger in the IDE. When I run the program, the size increase does not show up although it looks perfectly fine in the IDE.
What could be causing this?
If I change other stuff on the same form, the changes show up when I run. The only thing this is happening with is the size.
This form is a lot smaller that the main window so there is space to expand into.
Other forms in my project do not have this same behavior.
What else could I check for?

Look for something that sets the height and width in code at runtime. Use the IDE's search specifically to look for ".Height" and ".Width" and ".Move".

I think that an easier solution might be to set the form's height and width in the form_load event, so it initially becomes as big as desired.

Related

SlickGrid vertical scroll bar not displaying properly unless the filter is displayed/hidden to re-size the viewport

I'm just starting to use SlickGrid but I've had a lot of success creating a remote model that can interact with the paging plugin. The only problem I have seems to be a browser issue, but I'm curious if anyone knows a trick that may resolve the issue.
I'm retrieving the data page by page in my model via AJAX and updating the grid with the grid.setData() and grid.render() methods.
The problem I would like to solve is that when the length of data changes the vertical scroll bar gets really confused, unless I change the current visibility of the filter panel (grid.hideTopPanel() or grid.showTopPanel()). By confused I mean that the scroll handle in the scroll bar doesn't change size to indicate the different number of rows that are now current, and if the list grows, the scroll handle size jumps all over the place as I scroll up and down.
I'm assuming the "fix" works because it forces the browser to recalculate the view port height, but is there any way to force that to happen? Or is there a better way to do what I'm trying to do?
Ok mleibman straightened me out, what I actually was looking for was grid.updateRowCount(). I believe he will be adding a call to this in grid.setData(), but for now just make sure the 2 method calls are used together.
Have you tried grid.invalidate() ? Im my experience that forces the grid to recalculate pretty much everything. It may be more heavy-handed than you need but at least you can see if a complete invalidate solves the problem.
I figured it out. You need to call grid.resizeCanvas() after calling grid.setData(). It seems like this should be part of the grid.setData() method because a call to it will change the number of rows. But anyway, that's what you need to do.

Xcode: Method definition not found message on a non-existing method (?) + slight color change in XIB

I have two basic practical problems:
1) The first one is really stupid. I receive a message saying: "Method definition for 'aIncreasedSelection' not found, together with an "Incomplete Implementation".
Well, that is quite strange, because I don't have this method in neither my .m or .h file (and the class name is mentioned in the remark).
I used to implement this method, but I deleted it because it was redundant. In a certain way, it appears as if my Xcode project can't let go of the method...
2) The second question is also a very mysterious one. I have a couple of viewControllers in which I have put the identical same background, and the identical same buttons. It's really identical in size and position in the screen as well (I defined the pixels). For an unknown reason, when I switch between the views, one of the buttons changes very slightly its color (it is a Photoshop created button with mirror effect on the bottom, it's the mirror that becomes lighter). That is really annoying because it's supposed to be identical; when the user switches views now, he can see that there is a color difference in the button (supposed to be planted as a button in a dock, which should be identical over the entire app)...
Very frustrating as I cannot solve these small mistakes... Any ideas? Thanks!
Regarding your first problem, if you have verified that it no longer exists in your .h or .m file, try to cmd+shift+k and clean your project, then rebuild. This should update everything and in theory solve that issue for you.
As for the second problem, it sounds strange indeed. Is there any chance you could provide pictures somehow? Are you statically loading the image into similar buttons, or are you doing something differently?
Re - opening my project solved my first problem (unlike the refresh - cmd + shift + k, which didn't work). The color problem is not solved despite :-/
It was definitely a bug since I didn't change anything. It is in fact - very confusing!

Updating the region behind a resized window

We have a fairly complex GUI, so when certain windows are resized their Redraw() is set to false till the operation is completed. The problem with this is that if the OS "Show window content while dragging" setting is checked, when decreasing the window's size the windows behind it are not repainted. This means I have to force the repaint myself so the remains of the resized window are deleted. I have no problem getting the dimensions of the region that was uncovered. What I'm looking for is best way to cause all windows within that region to repaint their part.
Not being much of a GUI programmer, I can traverse the uncovered region and list the windows in it. Then, I can ask each one of them to repaint its part. But I'm quite certain there has to be a better way to do this...
It is worth mentioning the app is written in PowerBuilder. This means I can call whatever Win32 function I'd like, but have limited control over the GUI behavior and the message handling. If there's a better way to prevent the window's content resize from being visible, or there's a way to make a non-redrawn window clean after itself, I'd love to hear it (just have the limitations above in mind).
I'm curious what version of PowerBuilder you are working in? I do resizing all the time and never run into issues like you are describing.
Maybe you can lay out some more detail on why you need to set your redraws to false within the PowerBuilder environment.
Hope I can help.

VB6 silently deleting huge chunks of control data from forms

My project has maybe 130 controls (total of all labels, textboxes, etc.) in an SSTab (4 tabs). The project loads fine, it runs fine, I don't see a single error or warning at any point, but when I save the form with the SStab on it, the SStab data isn't saved (it is completely gone). Normally the relevant portion of the .frm file looks like this:
Begin TabDlg.SSTab SSTab1
Height = 8895
[1550 more lines of code for all the controls]
Width = 540
End
Begin VB.Menu FileMenu
But lately it's getting cropped to:
Begin TabDlg.SSTab SSTab1
Begin VB.Menu FileMenu
This is very frustrating! In my VB IDE, the frame, sstab, and all the controls are there, editable, running/compiling fine, no error messages at any point, but when you save the file, 1550 lines of precious sstab data just disappears - again, with no warning or error messages. So if you exit and restart the IDE, you get a form load error because 60% of the code is now missing. The log file points to the first error it finds (in this case a Begin TabDlg with no End) - there's no other info in it. (The log file was generated after the code was deleted and saved, so it makes sense that it wouldn't be helpful.)
When I first posted this question, I thought it had to do with the number of controls, because it appeared after I added a control, and in my first few tests, seemed to disappear when that control (or other controls) was deleted. Now I can't seem to get that form to save under any circumstances, even when I delete many controls (bringing the number of controls far below where it was when it was last stable).
I also tried deleting the SStab and moving all the controls to 4 different frames. I successfully did that in the IDE, but when I saved, a huge chunk of the data (starting with a slider control) was missing. So I have no fraking idea what is going on.
The problem is reproducible on two different PCs, so it doesn't appear to be a hardware/corrupt software VB install issue.
Has anyone else run into something like this?
Create a UserControl for each tab. That makes editing MUCH easier. It also allows you to nicely modularize the code, so each tab lives in its own file, and it'll allow you to reuse tabs elsewhere if you want.
Sounds horrible, never heard of anything like that.
Presumably you aren't getting an error log file from VB6 when you load the form into the IDE before it gets corrupted? The log file has the same filename as the form file but with a .log filename extension. For example, if errors occurred when loading Myform.frm, Visual Basic would create a log file named Myform.log. The error messages you might see there are documented in the manual.
Have a look in the Windows Event Log, see whether it records any interesting problems against the VB6 IDE?
Are you using any weird controls? Maybe one of them is somehow corrupting the FRM or FRX. FRM files are just text as you obviously know & the format is documented in the VB6 manual. Can you see any corruption in the FRM in a text editor? If you remove any properties defined in the FRX, does it still fail.
I think I would try creating a new project and a new form, and then use the IDE to copy and paste all the control definitions into it - no code. Play with the new form, see whether it has the same problem. Maybe you can recreate the form this way without the problem. If the new form does have the problem, do the same thing but only take half the controls. Maybe you can find a problem control by "binary search".
I get the same problem when attempting to save a form when the .FRM is writable but the .FRX is read-only
Not sure if this is the issue, but on a VB6 form, there is a limit to 255 (or is it 256) named controls. Perhaps you are running into that?
One way around that limitation is to use control arrays. For example, if you had 10 labels, instead of label1, label2, label3, etc, you could do label(0) through label(9), and use up only one named control.
The other thing worth mentioning about the SSTAB is the way it shows/hides controls. While it may appear that the controls are on separate tabs, what is really happening is that the controls are getting moved waaaayyyyy to the left (and consequently out of view). Perhaps with so many components, the SSTAB is choking on this in the IDE as it tries to render the controls in design view?
Again, not sure if this is the issue, but I know these two tidbits are relatively unknown.
So the SAVE function is not working.
I suspect one of the components you are placing on the tab strip is the culprit.
So ..
1) Take an inventory of each and every kind of component you are placing on the form
2) eliminate one (kind), SAVE
3) Did it SAVE?
-> Yes = that was the problematic control
-> No = return to step 2, but pick another kind
Of course, its important to remove all controls of a certain kind in step #2 (for example, ALL labels, or ALL textboxes, etc).
I have never heard of this happening however.
You are not alone! I've seen this problem. . .in fact I'm dealing it right now, which is what brought me to this site.
I've been working with VB since '94 (VB3) and I first saw this problem about 5 or 6 years ago, while using VB6. My solution then, was not unlike some of the suggestions that you have recieved from the good folks who've responded above: throw out the existing file and rebuild the form in a new file. I did that back and the affected form has worked ever since.
My current problem is appearing in another, much newer form, and the replace/rebuild option (performed about a month ago) only worked for about three weeks. Now the problem is back and each new iteration of the file gets corrupted very quickly. Following the reply above regarding the total number of allowable controls, I'm looking into just how many controls I have. . .and, as it happens, I was in the process of consolidating the primary the buttons and menus into control arrays, simply because it was going to streamline their management.
I can also confirm your observations about moving the project to a second PC. . . I've done that too, and problem persists. Moreover, I can add that I have moved the project from one shared storage system to another to no avail. (The original storage location was on a drive mounted to a Win-tel system and the new location is on a UNIX-based NAS!)
Just rebuilt the file again and checked: Controls.Count = 62, so I am no where near the 255 control limit mentioned previously. This is indeed strange! (Not to mention furstrating!)

Textbox anchored to a form on all 4 sides not displayed properly

I'm running into a problem trying to anchor a textbox to a form on all 4 sides. I added a textbox to a form and set the Multiline property to True and the Anchor property to Left, Right, Up, and Down so that the textbox will expand and shrink with the form at run time. I also have a few other controls above and below the textbox.
The anchoring works correctly in Visual Studio 2005 (i.e. I can resize the form and have the controls expand and shrink as expected), but when I run the project, the bottom of the textbox is extended to the bottom of the form, behind the other controls that would normally appear beneath it. This problem occurs when the form loads, before any resizing is attempted. The anchoring of the textbox is correct for the top, left, and right sides; only the bottom is malfunctioning.
Has anybody heard of this and if so, were you able to find a solution?
Thanks!
UPDATE:
Here is some of the designer code as per Greg D's request (I am only including the stuff that had to do with the textbox itself, not the other controls):
Friend WithEvents txtRecommendationText1 As System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
<System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> _
Private Sub InitializeComponent()
Me.txtRecommendationText1 = New System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
' ...snip...
'txtRecommendationText1
Me.txtRecommendationText1.Anchor = CType((((System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Top Or System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Bottom) _
Or System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Left) _
Or System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Right), System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles)
Me.txtRecommendationText1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(4, 127)
Me.txtRecommendationText1.Multiline = True
Me.txtRecommendationText1.Name = "txtRecommendationText1"
Me.txtRecommendationText1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(223, 149)
Me.txtRecommendationText1.TabIndex = 10
End Sub
ANOTHER UPDATE:
The textbox I originally posted about was not inherited from a baseclass form (although it was added to a custom User Control class; I probably should have mentioned that earlier), but I recently ran into the same problem on a totally unrelated set of controls that were inherited from a baseclass form. It's easy to blame these problems on possible bugs in the .NET framework, but it's really starting to look that way to me.
Is your Form localized? Check the resource files for an entry with Textbox.Size, delete is and reset the size.
Is your Form inherited and is the Textbox on the baseform? Try setting the Textbox's access modifier to Protected or Public.
Have you implemented custom resize logic? Turn it off and see if the problem is still there.
Have you entered a Textbox.MinimumSize/MaximumSize? Remove or change the value.
It might also be a combination of these things...
Does the form snap back to the expected layout when you resize it after it's been initialized weirdly? Also, have you set a Height or MinimumHeight/MaximumHeight property for the text box?
If possible, a few snippets from the designer code might be useful. :)
One possibility that I've run into in the past is DPI. If you're running/testing your code on a machine with a different DPI setting than the machine that you're developing on, you may observe some strange things.
The anchor functionality essentially establishes a fixed distance between the edge of a control and the edge of the control's parent. Is your textbox embedded within another control (e.g., a panel) that doesn't have its anchors properly set? Right clicking on the text box in the designer should pop up a menu that lets you select any controls that exist underneath it, also.
Does your program include any custom resize logic, or does it modify the size of the textbox programmatically outside of designer-generated code? That might also result in weird behavior. I've assumed maintenance for a number of pieces of software at my organization where the original developers spent a great deal of time implementing (buggy) resize logic that I had to tear out so that I could just let the designer-generated code do the work for me.
The textbox I originally posted about was not inherited from a baseclass form (although it was added to a custom User Control class; I probably should have mentioned that earlier), but I recently ran into the same problem on a totally unrelated set of controls that were inherited from a baseclass form. It's easy to blame these problems on possible bugs in the .NET framework, but it's really starting to look that way to me.
It's very likely because of the 'AutoScaleMode' property being set in InitializeComponent(). Try setting it to 'None' and see if that fixes it. I've had these problem a couple of times now.

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