Make Form popup on top - silly question?

[ITfromZX81]

Maybe this is a silly question but...

How do I make a Delphi program appear at the top, in front of other windows, at a specified point in the code?

I don't want it to always be on top; I just want it to pop to the top so that the user can see a message when other functions are finished.

I cannot figure out how to do it or what I am doing wrong - it never does this - the user has to click on it in the taskbar to see the message.

Thanks,

 

[towerbase]

Delphi forms have a property called FormStyle. This is set to fsNormal by default but you can set it either at design time or run time to fsStayOnTop.

Andrew
Hampshire, UK

 

[buho]

Lets see if i'm getting you right: you have a form which is minimized and doing some work. You want it to "pop" when the work is done.

Being so, restore the form. You can use ShowWindow(Handle, SW_RESTORE) (check the SDK) or Application.Restore (check Delphi help). Try both to see which fits to your needs best(the last is best if the form is the main form).

buho (A).

 

[TeeeTeee]

I'm not sure that you are actually refering to a minimised form. My example is not related to a minimised form.

It's been a while since I wrote some code on this subject but I have found that fsStayOnTop doesn't appear to work, or do anything in my particular version of Delphi6. So I implement a call from the topmost form, say TopForm, to the 'popup' form to call its Self.Show() method. Because I want to keep the form on top whenever this TopForm is active, I put the call to the PopupForm in the FormActivate method of TopForm, there's a little more to it. But this might be relevant to your problem.

TeeeTeee

 

[buho]

Yup; TeeeTeee have a point. If the form is not minimized, Show is the way to go.

From the D6 help: "Note: It is not advisable to change FormStyle at runtime." I do not use fsStayOnTop too much, but I think it is not to put an actual Window on top but to start a new "stay-on-top" Window. To put an actual Window on top I use SetWindowPos.

buho (A).

 

[TeeeTeee]

I guess, if you simply wanted a form on top, you could call 'ShowModal' but this would block all other processing in your application.

For some purposes I use Show() and tie it to formActivate and formDeactivate() but the reason I do this is I don't want the a modal form blocking. My other forms continue to receive input from the topmost form when it is on top.