refreshing the screen

[Art]

I've got a program that I run -- it's under the control of a form. Part of
the process is fairly lengthy (10 minutes). The form has a control that lets
me know how far it's gotten.

My problem is that if I switch to, say, e-mail and then try to get back to
my form it will not appear until it finishes the lengthy step.. When I
update the control (with the status) I tell the form to refresh. Is there
something else I need to do so that I can switch away from the application
and then go back to it again and see the status?

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Art

[Scott Swigart]

The "easy" way is to call doevents regularly during your 10 minute process
(say, once per second, if possible).

Another way is to do your long running process in a background thread. Look
into the Thread class. Here's an example from another post:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=sw...phx.gbl&rnum=1

"Art" <Ar*@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B5**********************************@microsof t.com...

I've got a program that I run -- it's under the control of a form. Part
of
the process is fairly lengthy (10 minutes). The form has a control that
lets
me know how far it's gotten.

My problem is that if I switch to, say, e-mail and then try to get back to
my form it will not appear until it finishes the lengthy step.. When I
update the control (with the status) I tell the form to refresh. Is there
something else I need to do so that I can switch away from the application
and then go back to it again and see the status?

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Art

[Art]

Scott,

Thanks -- the "easy way" seems to work for me. I put DoEvents in the same
step that updates my status control.

Art