View Form with animation (gif) while a while runs

Question

In the application I am developing I need to check if a process is running on the system, for this I use a function (Isrunningprocess).

However, I would like to display a form (Formprogress) which contains a gif of loading while a specific process runs. The problem is that the animation is not shown, it seems that the form gets frozen.

I also tried with the components Progressbar and Gauge using a Timer, but I was also unsuccessful. To illustrate follows a part of the code.

while IsRunningProcess('nome_do_processo') do
begin
  FrmProgress.Show;
  FrmPrincipal.Hide;
end;
FrmProgress.Close;
Application.MessageBox('Operação concluída com sucesso!', 'Ferramentas',
    MB_ICONEXCLAMATION + MB_OK);
FrmPrincipal.Visible := True;

Answer 1

With ProgressBar and Gauge you probably did not succeed because you would need to be updating the FrmProgress.

Because with ProgressBar and/or Gauge? I don’t know what the behavior of an animated gif is like at Delphi. I already tried to put once, it was not native the use of animated gifs and then replace by other forms, usually ProgressBar or Gauge because I always need to give feedback on processing time.

To update the form I know three ways:

1. Frmprogress.Update;
2. Frmprogress.Refresh;
3. Application.Processmessages.

The first two (Update and Refresh) you apply only on the form (Frmprogress) and only it processes display updates. Unfortunately I don’t know the difference between the two. But both make use of the Repaint method, which can also be called directly: FrmProgress.Repaint;.

In the latter, the Application.ProcessMessages you send an order to the entire system to process all information that has not yet been processed on the display.

For all options a more in-depth information, by source, would be interesting.

About your problem, I don’t know what is done in this method IsRunningProcess and not because you use it in a while, but actually it can be used to implement one of those methods I showed you and then remove the program print "locked".

Seria:

while IsRunningProcess('nome_do_processo') do
begin
  FrmProgress.Show;
  FrmPrincipal.Hide;
  FrmProcess.Refresh;
  // ou FrmProgress.Update;
  // ou Application.ProcessMessages; // esse, em threads, costuma dar problemas
end;
FrmProgress.Close;
Application.MessageBox('Operação concluída com sucesso!', 'Ferramentas', 
  MB_ICONEXCLAMATION + MB_OK);
FrmPrincipal.Visible := True;

---

A suggestion for testing

I don’t know what you have in your job IsRunningProcess, but I would venture to say that FrmProgress.Show; and FrmPrincipal.Hide; would not need to be inside the while. I believe it’s unnecessary processing.

Try it like this:

FrmProgress.Show;
FrmPrincipal.Hide;
while IsRunningProcess('nome_do_processo') do
begin
  FrmProgress.Refresh;
  // ou FrmProgress.Update;
  // ou Application.ProcessMessages; // esse, em threads, costuma dar problemas
end;
FrmProgress.Close;
Application.MessageBox('Operação concluída com sucesso!', 'Ferramentas', 
  MB_ICONEXCLAMATION + MB_OK);
FrmPrincipal.Visible := True;

Answer 2

An easy way to make your form display the rotating image would be to use Sleep and ProcessMessages, otherwise would be through the use of Threads

frmProgress.FormStyle := fsStayOnTop;
frmProgress.Postition := poScreenCenter;
frmProgress.Show

while IsRunningProcess('nome_do_processo') do
begin
  Sleep(200);
  Application.ProcessMessages;
end;

FrmProgress.Close;

Application.MessageBox('Operação concluída com sucesso!', 'Ferramentas', 
  MB_ICONEXCLAMATION + MB_OK);

FrmPrincipal.Visible := True;

To prevent users from interacting with the system you can still implement the following:

procedure frmProgress.onDeActivate(Sender: TObject)
begin
    If frmProgress.CanFocus then
      frmProgress.SetFocus;
end;

Answer 3

Delegate the processing to a thread in the background. You can do this using German methods:

TThread.CreateAnonymousThread(procedure ()
  begin
    TThread.Synchronize (TThread.CurrentThread,
      procedure ()
      begin
      frmProgress.FormStyle := fsStayOnTop;
      frmProgress.Postition := poScreenCenter;
      frmProgress.Show
      end);
    while IsRunningProcess('nome_do_processo') do
    TThread.Synchronize (TThread.CurrentThread,
      procedure ()
      begin
          label1.text := formatFloat('#00.00% concluído...',AlgumValor);
          //Sendo que AlgumValor é uma var publica atualizada pelo 

'nome_do_processo'

end;

  end).Start;
frmProgress.close;

in the example, I monitor the progress of the process. Whenever you want to update the form call a Synchronize method.

In the example below I show a counter that updates the form every 40 numbers

TThread.CreateAnonymousThread(procedure ()
  begin
    TThread.Synchronize (TThread.CurrentThread,
      procedure ()
      begin
      frmProgress.FormStyle := fsStayOnTop;
      frmProgress.Postition := poScreenCenter;
      frmProgress.Show
      end);
    //while IsRunningProcess('nome_do_processo') do
for AlgumValor:=0 to MaxNum do
    If AlgumValor mod 40 = 0 then
        TThread.Synchronize (TThread.CurrentThread,
          procedure ()
          begin
              label1.text := formatFloat('#00.00% concluído...',AlgumValor/MaxNum);        
    end;
      end).Start;

frmProgress.close;