Spalsh screen

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Vb Gangsta

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How do you make a spalsh screen in VB.net. I know you used to able to just make a spalsh screen form in VB 6 but I see thats not the case in .net. I made 2 forms, One is my actuall program and the other is what i want to pop up before my program. Do i use the timer or sumthing? Thanks
 
All my applications use the same approach. Design a splash form with a timer on it. When the time is up it closes the splash form and opens the applications main form.

Some may disagree with this approach, but it works fine. I have used it in VBA, VB5, VB6 and now in VB.NET.
 
I don't mind if an application gives a splash screen while it's loading, but I would get really pissed off with an app that just put it there for a time and did nothing but wait. In fact I would probably remove the app from my system (unless it was really exceptional).

You could display the splash screen and do some work in a separate thread, but don't just do it with a timer as very few things are more annoying.

I think codeproject has some examples in c# which you could convert.

Pete
 
I would suggest you make your splash screen responsive to a keyboard input or mouse and close it and combine that with a timer. The easiest way to that would be to simply start a message loop for the spalsh screen first and then when it exits , your main form.
 
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I don't mind if an application gives a splash screen while it's loading, but I would get really pissed off with an app that just put it there for a time and did nothing but wait. In fact I would probably remove the app from my system (unless it was really exceptional).
Click to expand...

Mmm show me an application that starts these days without a splash screen?? Example Nero 5 displays a splash for 9 seconds before doing anything on my laptop.

Mmm having to wait a whole 15 seconds for a splash screen to disapear must really be annoying??

Lastly regardless of whether it does anything in the background or not, (mine usaully do), it is not just sitting there doing nothing.........it is doing what a splash screen is supposed to do....inform the user of the product they are loading plus supply some author detail.

Lastly lastly....had I not provided such splash screens with the apps I have developed I would not now be in the job that I am doing now as no one would have heard of me if all I did was put author detail in the About menu.
 
hog said:

Lastly regardless of whether it does anything in the background or not, (mine usaully do), it is not just sitting there doing nothing.........it is doing what a splash screen is supposed to do....inform the user of the product they are loading plus supply some author detail.
Click to expand...

Actually I'd have to slightly disagree with you about this. A Splash screen is supposed to be displayed to the user to indicate that the application hasn't forgotton about them and that processing and startup is continuing. The information on the splash screen really belongs on the About screen (and commonly holds the same information and sometimes even basically IS the same screen).

Sorry couldn't help mentioning that. Guess I've been reading Slashdot too much lately. :D
 
I don't need a splash screen to tell me what app I've just launched (Windows isn't quite *that* bad). Especially one that is going to stop me from doing other things while I wait. Even more so with .NET apps that can take a while to load anyway.

I don't mind if it goes away as soon as the program has finished loading -- then any delay is my slow pc ;)

Hmmm... might be okay to do splash in unmanaged code and launch the .net app from it. Then remove splash as soon as main form has loaded.

Pete
 
Isn't a timer on a separate thread? So it wouldn't matter if you use the timer to display the splash screen. That way, the Form loads while the timer ticks!

It really seems like the only way to do it, without getting too technical that is.
 
Some of my programs are quite large and thus take sometime to load. Adding another form with a timer will prolong the loading of the now larger program. For these programs I use another small SplashScreen program to open first then load the large program. I think looking at some nice graphic image with legal copyright information and a cool progress bar far is better that looking at, well a blank screen.
 
ugh, well you write your own splash screen program or form. In its load or activated event load the main program or form first. Set a timer for a second or two longer than it takes the program to load, add some cool looking graphics, maybe a progress bar, some copyright legalize, maybe a little fading and you're done.
 
OK to clarify:)

All the apps I have produced to date use a splash form with a timer to display an identical form as displayed on the about menu. Where there is some background procesing going on which would normally delay the app from starting then I do not use a timer as the delay would be too long, (at least we agree on that:) ).

As I previously stated I use the splash form basically to advertise to users who it was who wrote the app and display a the apps logo. You cannot be sure every user will bother to look at the about option so in these cases the author remains unknown.

If I didn't use this approach then I would not be in the job I'm in now as it was directly though this that my skill was noticed.

Worse case in all my apps is a delay of 15 seconds and that is without a timer as it connects via odbc to various remote tables so is unavoidable.

Personnaly 15 seconds is a piss in the ocean!

But I accept we are all different and thus we can happily agree to disagree:)
 
But is that 15 seconds where I can't use my computer at all (due to a big splash screen in the way)? If the splash screen can be closed with a click, or doesn't stay on top then I suppose that's not so bad.

Lets be perfectly clear with this, though: A splash screen is of *no* benefit to the user whatsoever. It is simply another form of showing off, attempting to make an app look professional (which is a valid goal I suppose). But there is nothing in it for the user, there's nothing there they can't find if they look elsewhere.

DiverDan: If your splash screen app is written with windows forms, how long does it take to load (after you boot windows -- not a fair test if it's already partly in memory)? I'm thinking of making a splash screen prog that will stay up only until the app has finished loading (using remoting with the app). This would also allow us to check for single instance, etc in the splash app rather than the main app.

If windows forms is too slow, I might try it with unmanaged c++. Not too sure how to communicate with the actual app in this case, though.

Pete
 
Hi Pete,
9 seconds to load the main program from a cold boot. The main point of my splash screens is to display copyright and disclaimer information. If the program took 1 second to load, I would still need the splash screen. Some lawyers really insist on too much cra#**#!!! Sorry for the lawyer shot, but I wish I could name names.

Dan
 
Using a timer on a splash screen is perfectly valid option if done for the right purposes. Sometimes shareware apps use them as a minor annoyance to get you to buy the full version and they plainly state that on the splash screen. It can also be perfectly valid if you are developing a freeware app, and want people to know who you are, I assume this is what hog did.

If the program is a professional app, with no free trial or any of that sort of thing, then IMHO it should only be used so that the user can see that the program didn't freeze while it is loading the application in the background.

Just my 2 cents ;)
 
Pete, I accept your opinion on the topic but you must also accept other have a perfectly valid opinion also.

Orbity......well said :)
 
Fair enough.

Orbity: So long as the shareware splash screen can be removed once you register (like in TextPad). For freeware apps.. it's still not really there for the benefit of the user (although I'll grant you that it's acceptable -- basically what I said earlier) :) .

Just so long as people realise that an app that takes a while to load (winforms) *and* shows a splash screen for a fixed time will have fewer users than one where it is optional/short/timed to app completion.

-- Pete
 
Pete, you make me laugh.....you just gotta have the last word!

Go on then I'll let ya:):):)
 
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