Display reports with non-modal messagebox

Question

Am writing a VB.Net app written in VS2010. This displays some reports in several forms. (Am using Crystal Reports though this is incidental to the problem). The user needs to be able to check these, then confirm if he wishes to run the update process or abort.

My first idea was to ask the user to reply using a messagebox. But of course this is modal, so the user cannot browse through the reports.

I thought of other options but each seems to have problems: - export the reports as PDFs, then display report in external Adobe Reader Window using System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("AcroRd32.exe", filename). This seems messy. - create a non-modal message box or equivalent. This loses any concept of program flow, so am unconvinced by this

What ideas do you have please?

Can't you just put an "Update Process" button on the report form? (it's already a form - isn't it?) — AVIDeveloper, Mar 08 '12 at 22:14

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 08 '12 at 23:30

You should already be using a form to display the report(s). Put all the reports on the same form with scroll bars enabled and add a button to that form for the user to 'Update Process'. You may come up with a better display based on how many reports you want the user to look at - like a drop down at the top with list of reports in it OR a radio button list on the left with reports listed etc.

Display reports with non-modal messagebox

1 Answers1