Application using multiple windows forms

Question

I am (still) writing a small application which requires me to use several windows forms to show to the user.

Some of the forms just show progress messages while the application performs tests using several external devices.

The forms will usually be used in order (see below) but there may be some errors picked up from the devices, in which case an Error Reporting form will be used. The user will have the option to go back to the beginning or to the 2nd test (the 1st test takes 30 mins to perform). The error report can be invoked from any other form.

Also, the final form has the option to go back to the beginning to perform the tests on a new device.

Obviously this would cause the suite of forms to get rather tangled up. if it were used for several devices with errors etc.

So am I have a few questions.

Am I using the forms correctly and if so, how do I pass control from one form to the next one without having to go back to the original form, if that makes sense ?

Can I still have access to all variables created in preceding forms, or should I create all the variables in the initial form setup ?

Or should I have all the processing within one parent form and simply "show" the other forms as part of the procedure ?

I hope this doesn't sound too stupid, but I havent used multiple forms in C# yet. The steps are ALSO dependent on each other.

The following is the usual flowchart of forms, with PRGERREP being called from any form (more or less).

PRGSTART
PRGDEFAULT
PRGTEST1
PRGTEST2
PRGTEST3
PRGTEST4
PRGMANUAL
PRGFINALE

PRGERREP 

Any help or advice would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Consider inheriting from an ApplicationContext to implement this logic in your application. See here and here.

Answer 2

I question the requirement to use multiple forms for this. Most applications show all information for a task; progress, tests, errors, messages, et al. in a single window, not multiple windows. Web browsers and office applications are very complex programs and manage to show all task information in a single window.

The fact that you are trying to "pass control" between multiple forms makes me suspect using multiple windows is a bad design. Look at the windows on your screen now; each one is a self-contained environment and does not need to "pass control" between each other.

If you are trying to make the user do something in sequence, handling errors before going on to the next step and allowing the user to "go back to the beginning", a wizard-like design may be better.

Create a single form with fields and buttons for the first task. Clicking a button redraws the form with fields and buttons for the next task, and buttons to go back or start over. This can be done more easily than creating a bunch of separate forms and trying to synchronize data between them.

Answer 3

Please try to focus more on the question, not the context. Even though i don't know exactly what you want, you should check out MDI Applications.

Basically you have a parent form with several child forms. Should your tests be finished you can BringToFront() the corresponding child window from the parent form.