hide vs unload

[gtmeloney]

I use several different userForms at different times in my macro. I am having an issue where soemtimes Excel will be stuck (not frozen) after I close a form. Its almost like the form is being hidden but Excel thinks that it is still visible, so execution halts.

I've tried leaving the form with both me.hide and unload me. My code is pretty lengthy, so I don't think submitting it is appropriate. I believe my problem is my own lack of knowledge on hide vs unload.

Can anyone help me out here?

[shg]

Unload removes it from memory, so that all value will return to those created at design time when next shown.

Hide just removes it from display, preserving values.

I don't think that's the source of your problem.

[gtmeloney]

Thanks shg.

Any idea what would cause my problem?

Here's my scenario. I have formA and formB. formA is displayed using formA.show (from another module). formB is then displayed using formB.show from within formA. Sometimes everything works fine after closing formB (using either hide or unload), but other times I get Excel stuck (have to kill the process to do anything else). Surprisingly though, the debugger is still running.

[shg]

Dunno, gt, I really don't spend a lot of time with forms. Perhaps formB is parented by formA, and becomes orphaned if formA is sometimes closed first? I do have an app that includes a subform invokes by a main form, but have never had a problem, and therfore no problem to figure out.

[royUK]

The best way to avoid these problms is one form with a MultiPage control

[romperstomper]

How do you get from FormA to FormB and back? It's quite common to see people using FormB.Show in FormA, then in FormB using Unload Me (or Me.Hide) in conjunction with FormA.Show but that can leave you in a big loop since processing switches to the other form without actually completing in the form you are trying to unload. Once you have done that a few times, it's one big spiral...

[Leith Ross]

Hello gtmeloney,

I have encountered this problem when one form is modal and the other is not. The default is to display the UserForm modally. The ShowModal property ensures one and only one UserForm can accept user input. This prevents other UserForms or the application from accepting user input.

When showing UserForms as non-modal, I modify them using the API to function like a standard window. This allows the UserForm to retain its information and interact with the application. You may want to use this approach for what you are doing.

[gtmeloney]

Thanks for all the help folks. I haven't found a fix for my issue, but I'm still trying. I think part of my problem might be that I have refEdit controls on the form in question. I'm not sure if the modality of the userForm and the modality of the refEdit controls are conflicting.

Is there anything that I need to do when using refEdit controls, in order to avoid problems like this?

[romperstomper]

Avoid putting them on Multipage or Frame controls generally. (Some would say avoid them altogether and use Application.Inputbox with Type:=8 instead)

[gtmeloney]

Thanks romper. I'm going to give that a whirl to see if it eliminates my problem. I'll follow up whether or not it works.