Question

I don’t know why this is happening, but when I create a new form inside an EventHandler, it disappears as soon as the method is finished.

Here’s my code. I’ve edited it for clarity, but logically, it is exactly the same.

static void Main()
{
    myEventHandler = new EventHandler(launchForm);
    // Code that creates a thread which calls
    // someThreadedFunction() when finished.
}

private void someThreadedFunction()
{
    //Do stuff

    //Launch eventhandler
    EventHandler handler = myEventHandler;
    if (handler != null)
    {
        handler(null, null);
        myEventHandler = null;
    }
}

private void launchForm(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    mf = new myForm();
    mf.Show();
    MessageBox.Show("Do you see the form?");
}

private myForm mf;
private EventHandler myEventHandler;

The new form displays as long as the MessageBox “Do you see the form?” is there. As soon as I click OK on it, the form disappears.

What am I missing? I thought that by assigning the new form to a class variable, it would stay alive after the method finished. Apparently, this is not the case.

Answer 1

I believe the problem is that you are executing the code within the handler from your custom thread, and not the UI thread, which is required because it operates the Windows message pump. You want to use the Invoke method here to insure that the form gets and shown on the UI thread.

private void launchForm(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    formThatAlreadyExists.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(() =>
    {
        mf = new myForm();
        mf.Show();
        MessageBox.Show("Do you see the form?");
    }));
}

Note that this assumes you already have a WinForms object (called formThatAlreadyExists) that you have run using Application.Run. Also, there may be a better place to put the Invoke call in your code, but this is at least an example of it can be used.