When trying to modify form, the form is not visible

[VictorFRodriguez]

I was working with VFP9, and aparently, I click over somthing, and since that moment, the form is not visible. I cannot mdodify form, or text. The only thing visible is the properties window, command window and the VFP Menu. How can I resolve this?

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Resize the screen window. You shrinked its height. See the three dots in the right buttom corner, that's where the mous icon will turn into resize arrows and when that's the case you can resize. Hold the left mouse key down (not just click, hold it) then drag the mouse down.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Lesson to learn: Not all windows of the VFP IDE are child windows of _screen. Command Window and Properties Window for example can be dragged outside. Projoect manager windows and designer windows are child Windows and clipped when _screen is shrinked.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[VictorFRodriguez]

Thanks Olaf. It worked. I had several days without doing with this case.

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Fine. Oh, and yes, there is a single click, which can cause this, the button left beside the close [X] button in the title bar. This button can switch between two states, maximized and normal and the button left of it can minimize the form, you may well know how these buttons work.

In your screenshot, the middle button is the maximize button, so the form is in the "normal" state. That button also would have worked, but then another click would also shrink it down back to that unusable shrunk state. That's why I recommended really using the mouse resize to make the IDE window bigger again and get rid of the memory of the minimum height size. If you switch between maximized and normal the form size will switch between the whole display and restore to whatever size it was before maximizing. And in this state it is resizable. The normal size state is only of minor interest if you only have one display you could use one half for the IDE and the other for a browser, but it's more efficient to ALT+TAB between active applications with a single display like you have when using a notebook without a docking station.

In fact, since most applications start maximized today and you have multiple applications in use by ALT-TAB-switching or arranging them on multiple displays, each maximized. So the normal state is a bit anachronistic. Overall it's just native Windows behavior and nothing special of VFP. It's just the way the upper three buttons work: 1. minimize (_ icon) 2. maximize or restore (one or multiple boxes icon) and close (x icon). All windows applications with main windows have these window states. Word, for example, in the normal state can even be resized to only be the title bar. You can also size the window to full-screen size via the mouse and then maximize and restore won't even make a difference, just that in the normal state the form also becomes resizable.

The core "problem" is, that the remembered size can be unusable - besides the fact that you can resize it. As Word shows, that can be even less usable than in the VFP case. VFP at minimum displays the menu and toolbar and status bar. If you simply do _screen.height=0 in the command window you get back to that situation. The screen also will change from maximized state to normal state automatically. The three states correspond to the WindowState property, which can be one of the 3 normal, maximized, or minimized. And _SCREEN also just is a VFP form with this VFP form property. So you can also control this as long as the command window is visible.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name