Modal forms get in the way of processing

Question

I’m working on an interface in VB6 to interact with a sound editor to automate certain tasks mainly using the editor’s object handles and activating them through SendMessage/PostMessage. In general it works OK, except that the editor has some dialog boxes that open in modal mode and freeze everything on the interface, including the timers.

Is there a practical way to get these dialog boxes to open modeless or to interact with them from the interface after they pop up? I tried an MDI form, but it also freezes along with everything else. The only way to override the modal mode of these boxes is to launch an independent applet beforehand to address the dialog boxes with a timer, but the process is somewhat cumbersome.

All I need to do with the dialog boxes is click the OK button or hit the return key.

Answer 1

The Form.Show method excepts an optional style parameter that determines if the form is modal or modeless. You can pass it the intrinsic constant vbModeless.

Form1.Show vbModeless

Answer 2

COMMENT:

raven, thank you for your answer but the form that pops up modal is one of the sound editor’s dialog boxes. I was hoping there was a way to make it pop up modeless through its handle or get around its being modal and close it some other way programmatically.

Answer 3

It's a difficult question to answer without understanding the context of the dialog boxes. However, if you don't want the dialog to stall the execution of your program, I think the only way is to run your app from a different thread (start and Active X exe or something) and then make calls across to the other thread.