Copying Forms

Question

I know this is a question that has been asked many times before, but I have been unable to implement any of the answers or responses. What I have is a fairly complicated form with a variety of controls, including buttons, textboxes, panels, lineshapes (VB Power Pack), etc. When I try to copy via inheritance, I get an error massage as displayed below:

There is already a command handler for the menu command '5efc7975-14bc-11cf-9b2b-00aa00573819 : 17'.

Can anyone tell me why I am getting this error (it may possible havesomething to do with the VB Power Packs)? If not, can anyone advise me of a workaround? This form is really too complicated to reconstruct multiple times. By the way, I am working with VB.Net 2010 Express on Windows XP SP3.

Duane · Answer

I solved my own problem. Like so: 1. Create a new form in your project. 2. Add a control to the form that will create a ".resx" sub-file for the form. I used a panel. 3. Remove the control created in step 2. The ".resx" file will remain. 4. Save and close the project. Leave the IDE open. 5. Go to your VB directory and find the files you just created: Form1.vb, Form1.Designer.vb, and Form1.resx. 6. Copy the data in your original "resx" file to the new "resx" file. Save it. 7. Copy the data in the other two original files to their respective new files. Save. 8. Change the name of the main class in the new form files to a different name. For instance, change the class in both files to "NewClass". Save. 9. Rename the files (ALL THREE) to match the new class name. Save. 10. Exit the directory and return to your IDE. 11. Reopen the solution and voila. One duplicate form! Seems like a lot of work for a simple result, but it get the job done without errors. There are I'm sure simpler ways, but I didn't really have time to look for them. Besides solving your own problems (even if the solution isn't very elegant) has a certain charm. See ya!

Copying Forms

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