Application Transition

That depends on your operating system and on the application you want to launch; if the second program has any GUI, for instance, there's probably no way to make it run without that UI (except for special utilities that are designed for batch usage/etc., which often includes things like installers and maintenance tools).

Can you be a bit more specific on what you need to do?

I need to have an application load up without displaying things like the windows background, possibly showing an image while another application is loading in the background until its loaded then displaying that, within Windows Vista.

Its somthing ive never come across before so I have no idea where to begin.

Any ideas?

Why do you need a separate program for loading? And how would you pass the loaded data to the main program?

Load the data with a loadscreen, or for example minimalised, then switch to the main window mode if the loading is done.

Probably I don't get it.

use threads. Have the main window thread display the loading screen while a second thread does the load.

After you draw a loadscreen, you can do the loading, while the loadscreen stays on the screen. No need of threading.

Quote:

Original post by Asheh Its somthing ive never come across before so I have no idea where to begin.

It's a common technique known as "splash screen". I'd first look in the Windows SDK and see if there is some native support for it. You could also look at how these guys did it, it'll probably work on Windows 7 too.

Splash screens....



So you used some fancy UI builder and now your application takes 30 seconds to load. Oh, I know. Put a splash screen on it, list 46 patents that you hold on it, and put a nice image of a smiling generic IT drone, with a motivational logo over it.

Guess what - splash screen doesn't get my work done. And no - no matter what your application does, there is no reason it should take longer than one second to load (if it's bad) or 0.1 second if its any good.

Bonus points for loading bar. Preferably a broken one that overflows or doesn't reflect progress.

There is NOTHING that any application would need to do that would warrant waiting more than fraction of a second for the screen to show up.

I am starting an application. I have not yet specified which work I want to do or how, so there is no work to be done.

Obligatory car example: When I press the unlock key on remote, I do not want to see a progress bar "unlocking", followed by "prewarming". When I press the unlock button, the lights immediately flash, and car is unlocked. It will take me 12 seconds to open the door, sit down and insert the key into ignition. During this time, fuel injectors will prewarm without me needing to do anything. If it's very cold, it will take a few seconds longer, but I will be notified at that point to wait 3 seconds (not 15).

Yep - cars have abandoned splash screens at least a decade ago. And PCs and other software has increased in performance by 1000 times in same time.

Needs more smileys, Antheus. :)