>>>I'm adding menus to applications rewritten from old dBase apps. I included the old _mfile menu from the ol' VFP system menu, and modified it some. This menu is automatically disabled whenever I'm in a modal form. How do I turn it back on again? Should I just not ever use modal forms? I know that some people say you shouldn't. Is this the reason? In general, is there any place where this and other specific features of the standard VFP system menus are documented? The manual and help menus are, as usual, unhelpful.
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>>Bret,
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>>If you look at other applications, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, you'll note that the only modeless windows are those containing the spreadsheet or documents. The same applies to creating a data application. The only forms that should be modeless are the data entry forms. Modal dialogs are used in those instances where the user must complete some action before the system allows them to proceed.
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>>I believe that you could get around the disabled menu business in FP 2.x by simply re-executing the menu from with the dialog. I don't know if this still applies to VFP. It was a feature I never used.
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>>HTH,
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>>George
>Do you mean modal when you say modeless? It looks that way.
>
>My forms are all modal because the apps I inherited (and copied) were originally designed in dBase. The users are used to using a "mainmenu" form. The simplest way to go from there is to THISFORM.Hide, DO thatform, which is modal, then THISFORM.Show. There wasn't even a READ EVENTS. Pretty simple. I'm not going to leave it like this anyway. I'm deciding where to put the mainform.show, now that Thatform is modeless.

Bret,

Nope, I didn't mean modal. Look at the MESSAGEBOX() or GETFILE() dialogs. Both are modal, and the menu options aren't available when they're called. This is the default behavior of modal dialogs. Modeless forms, the Data Session form for example, allow full access to, in most cases, all other options.

If you're using modal forms, then, unless calling the menu program from within the form still works, you'll have to do without the menu options.

George