Splash

Hello AD1408

In my applications made with MVD, I frequently use a Splash on launching the exe
It works fine.

Use a Timer
CAREFUL : You have to place this piece of code between BEGIN and END. (at the end of the script)

     Timer2 := TTimer.Create(nil);             // Pour l'activation de l'écran d'accueil
      Timer2.OnTimer  := @OnTimer2;             // event procedure
      Timer2.Interval := 1000;                             // 1 sec
      Timer2.Enabled  := True;                //  Le Timer est déclenché
      Splash.ShowModal;                      //  On affiche l'écran d'accueil

Here there is Timer 2 because in the same application, I use another timer (Timer1)

Then, you have to initialize the timer

procedure OnTimer2 (Sender: TObject);       //  On initialise le splash
begin
     iTimer := iTimer + 1;
     if iTimer > 5 then                     //    The 5 seconds are gone
     begin
          Timer2.Enabled := False;          //  We unload the Timer2
          Splash.Close;                     // We close Splash form
          Timer2.Free;                      //  Essentiel : on libère le Timer2
          Waiting.Show;
          Application.ProcessMessages;      //  To avoid Windows to freeze the application
     end;
end;

And first of all, you have to declare Timer1 as a variable

Var Timer, Timer2 : TTimer; (from the beginning of the script, so you have a global variable)

Hope this helps you

JB

Adam,
I took a slightly different approach, but still using a timer. Instead of having the splash screen in your main project. I created a splash screen only app which will immediately open the splash screen and immediately run your main project and then close the splash screen (and app) after seven seconds. I chose seven seconds because that is about the length of time it takes to load your main project outside of the MVD development environment. Obviously you can adjust the time as you see fit. For ease in uploading to the forum I placed your main project within the splash screen app folder.

Adam,
I'm not aware of an MVD command to close an external app. If there is one, maybe Dimitry can enlighten us with it.  In the meantime I revised the Splash project to use another approach. It seems a little awkward, but it works. The result is the splash form will disappear when the first form of the main app is displayed. I utilized the Sqlite.db in the splash app to store a message. I pass the splash app path to the main app in order to attach the database in the main app. When the main app opens the first form it will update the Sqlite.db in the splash app with the message of "Done". The splash app, using a one second timer, checks the message in the Sqlite.db. As soon as it sees "Done", then it closes the splash form.

Hi Adam, EHW, Jean,
I believe the original issue was that you'd put your splash form within the form1_onshow procedure rather than on launch (ie between the final 'begin' and 'end' of any script.
If you use the TTimer approach, you still need to have an idea of how many seconds your slow-loading app is going to take, in which case you might just as well stick with the 'sleep' instruction in your script as you were already doing (in your example sleep(7000) using EHW's timings).
With any of my slow loading apps, I use a splash screen with the sleep command and use the time to pop up different messages while waiting for the application to load (ie name of the app for a couple of seconds, then the author for a couple of seconds etc etc).  It doesn't reduce the overall load time of the application but at least the user doesn't think it's stopped running!
Please see the attached for the sort of thing I'm meaning (I've used a simple timer in this example rather than different timed messages but the principle is exactly the same).
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Derek.

Hi Adam,
There is always going to be some lag unless you go down the route suggested by EHW;  the point was that the lag to load frmsplash is noticeably REDUCED  by moving the splash screen call from the form1_onshow procedure and placing it between the 'begin' and 'end' when the application loads.
It's standard MVD that when you leave the label captions blank, they do not show by default when editing the frmsplash form.  Just click on the relevant label in the 'controls' tab (see screen shot) and its outline will be displayed thereby allowing you to edit it (it's just like when you have objects that are in the background behind other objects (ie a label behind a panel) when designing your forms and you need to 'edit' them without moving the foreground object).
Derek.