David,

In my opinion, iterating over the forms collection to find an alternate location is not a satisfactory solution. It assumes that there is some usable space left on the application screen. Although this assumption may be true most of the time, it is not guaranteed.

Undocked dockable form is an excellent new feature of VFP9. It works particularly well with dual-monitors. Users can move a form in and out from the VFP screen between monitors. I find that such floating forms greatly enhance productivities. It will not be surprised to see a number of floating forms of significant sizes sitting inside and outside a VFP9 application screen leaving scanty free area, if not none, in the application screen.

When a model form is active, you will not be able to move or close any form covering it. With most VFP frameworks, you may even unable to quit the application. Even though only part (a significant part, of course) of the model form is blocked, it will be a challenge to the wisdom of our users (even experienced ones).

A solution I have thought of is temporarily making the intersecting floating forms undockable when a model form is shown. Anyhow this seems to be unnatural and unprofessional if some area of these floating forms will be blocked by other forms once they become undockable.

For my curiosity, I'd like to see if anyone would come up with a good solution. I will post mine, although it may not be a good one, later, if you don't mine.


>Ben,
>
>I agree, I don't think that Dockable requires AlwaysOnTop and I've voiced the opinion at various stages of VFP development. MS doesn't agree.
>
>You know though you could in your form class write some code that could iterate over the forms collection and make sure it did not intersect with any Dockable forms. If it does it could attempt to find itself an alternate location to position itself to. I might work up some code along those lines when I get home tonight.
>
>>>Dockable == AlwaysOnTop.
>
>>They are quite different. I believe many programmers know how to avoid a model form from blocking by AlwaysOnTop forms (simply set the model form to AlwaysOnTop as well). A dockable form is much more problematic. It is not easy for an average programmer to work out a solution.