windows mobile releasing resources when application is closed (.net 3.5 cf) - c#

I have a basic .net 3.5 cf application with 4+ forms. I am using a window handler class that I created to make sure that certain forms only have one instance open at a time where as other (Product Details for example) can be opened as many times as the user wants. My problem lies in the fact that when the user closes all the forms (By clicking the "x" on the form rather than the "exit" button in the menu) that the application does not release the database connection. In addition to this if the user closes all the forms and then opens the app up again their previous search results are shown rather than a new form. How can I make sure to release all resources when the user closes all the forms??

The (X) button is a minimize button, not a Close button. You need to eitehr change the MinimizeButton on the Forms to false - which changes the (X) to an (ok) - or add logic to handle cases where all Forms get minimized.

Be aware that on Windows Mobile that clicking the 'X' is more like minimizing a window than closing it. It definitely won't exit the application, and may actually literally perform a minimize rather than a close on the form (I can't remember for sure)
So when they're "opening up the app again", it's likely it's just re-showing the same form.

Related

Winforms ShowDialog(this) blocks the switching windows of other applications to the foreground

When I open any dialog in my Winforms application then Windows 10 behaves oddly in these ways:
ALT-TAB no longer displays the list of windows
I cannot switch to hidden applications using taskbar icons - if I select a taskbar icon of a window that is not currently visible (even if it is not hidden by the winforms app) the icon just flashes and then stays highlighted, but is not brought to the foreground. I can use other applications that are visible. As soon as I close the dialog form the other I can use the windows of other applications correctly
If I switch to the application window that is behind the winforms application by clicking on it, I cannot go back to the winforms app either by ALT-TAB or by clicking on the taskbar icon. I can get back to it by minimizing the other application
I'm opening the dialogs with
dialogFormName.ShowDialog(this);
TopMost is set false on all forms and is not set in the code.
I've read about 50 related articles and the only problems seem to be either TopMost is set or ShowDialog is not called with the parent form. I'm not a regular Winforms developer so I'm probably doing something stupid. This is driving me crazy, so I'd really appreciate any help!
Edit: The same issues occur with MessageBox.Show(this, "test"). The issue does not occur with a newly created app just with a single button calling MessageBox.Show(this, "test"). The problem application uses EntityFramework but no other packages and the problem existed before I added EF.
After trying different scenarios I eventually found the issue. In my case I was calling ShowDialog() after a user clicks an item on a ContextMenu. The blocking of ALT-TAB was caused by the following code that attached the ContextMenu to the ListView that the menu was contextually for:
lstList.ContextMenu = myContextMenu;
As soon as I removed that association, the ShowDialog no longer blocked ALT-TAB.
Form.ShowDialog() blocks the parent form until it's closed.
Use Show() to display the form separately without blocking its parent.

What causes WPF App to close

I've ran into a weird bug where a WPF app is closing after the first window closes. This has made me curious what is triggering it to close
For example this is what I was the unworking version. After the EULAWindow would close it would shut down the application.
EULAWindow eula = new EULAWindow();
eula.ShowDialog();
MainMenuWindow mainWindow = new MainMenuWindow();
mainWindow.ShowDialog();
I thought it would open the EULA and then open the Menu window. I've found that if I rearranged the code it will operate like expected.
For example this will fix it:
EULAWindow eula = new EULAWindow();
MainMenuWindow mainWindow = new MainMenuWindow();
eula.ShowDialog();
mainWindow.ShowDialog();
This brings me to the question of what actually is causing the application to shut down in the first situation?
ShowDialog() is a blocking call. So, in the first case you have single window, then show it, then let user to close it. What should an app to do once last UI window is closed? Maybe, follow to app shutdown code? I suspect so.
In the 2nd case you create two windows before the blocking inside ShowDialog(). So, once you closed the first window, there is another one that could accommodate the user, and the app is not shutting down, it just waits for the next window to be shown.
Since I was using Application Startup to create my windows, it was defaulting setting the EULAWindow to the Current.MainWindow Then keeping the Current.ShutDownMode as ShutdownMode.OnMainWindowClose.
When you create two windows, before calling Show or ShowDialog, it changes the shutdown mode automatically to ShutdownMode.OnLastWindowClose
I'm not certain how or where this happening, but I can tell this is the behavior that is happening upon further investigation.

FContinueMessageLoop marks hidden modal dialog forms for closing

I am opening multiple modal dialog forms (2) one on top of the other. I hide the modal dialog forms along with their parent and open the Microsoft Word application. A short while after calling the Hide method for each form I noticed that the system calls the Close method automatically for each of the forms as a result of running FContinueMessageLoop (I noticed this in the StackTrace).
After reading this forum entry, I found out that this might be caused by cross-threading issues but the author is not very specific.
Does anyone know which are the situations in which FContinueMessageLoop decides that a message loop should be terminated?

C# Windows not opening on top

I've written a relatively large application with lots of dialog boxes and forms, etc.
I'm opening them with Form.ShowDialog().
A lot of the time, the forms open behind existing windows, e.g. yesterday I was testing it on a machine with several other programs open: many Windows Explorer windows, a few Excel windows, etc. A lot of my forms, open/save file dialogs, etc were supposed to open but didn't. I was twiddling my thumbs until I pressed alt+tab and realised that they were, in fact, behind another window.
Why is this happening, and how can I stop it in future? Thanks.
Use the ShowDialog override which takes an owner window as a parameter.
By passing in your main window as the dialog's owner, you guarantee that the dialog always pops in front of it, and stays in front of it.
And it won't annoy the user if they were using some other application.

Close a WPF window separately

Goal:
Enable closing of the application's window(s) independently without affecting others. The application is created in WPF.
Problem:
Can't close the window(s)
In winform, it is enough to have the code winform.close() to close down the window but it doesn't work in WPF.
You can have this code to close a specfic window:
Application.Current.Windows[0].Close();
but how would it work if you have many windows and you want to close a specific window without affecting the others?
Use the Application class to get the windows through Application.Windows-property exactly as you described. If you are in the code-behind of the window, call this.Close();
Configuration for multiple Windows
Set the main window to the Application.MainWindow property and set the Application.ShutdownMode to a appropriate value if you also want to hold the app open, if the main window is closed (e.g App.Current.ShutdownMode=ShutdownMode.OnExplicitShutdown; ).
I have already observed, that some people have had problems with the ShutdownMode. A workaround for this is to open the first window invisible and from this window, you open the visible application windows. This prevents the application from closing if the first created window will be closed. However you should be able to resolve this problem also over the ShutdownMode-property.
In scenarios with multiple windows, you can use Shutdown to close the app without closing every window.
I hope this answer is what your question is about. Make a comment if not.
I am agree with HCL. You can use this.Close(); from code-behind of the window, this will close WPF window as like winform.close();.
Or you can use following code for get the specific window for close
Window win = Application.Current.Windows.OfType<Window>().SingleOrDefault(w => w.Name == "Window Name");
win.Close();
just use this code to close the most recent window
Application.Current.Windows[Application.Current.Windows.Count - 1].Close();

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