Author: Jonas Bilinkevicius

I'm trying to set up a "Please Wait" box. I want it to be modal in the sense that 
my main form is deactivated while I have this box showing. But, in the function 
that displays the "Please Wait" box, I want the code to continue rather than stall, 
waiting for the box to close.

Answer:

1   { ... }
2   WaitBox.Show; {shows your WaitBox}
3   Enabled := false; {disables the whole main form (Self.Enabled)}
4   Application.ProcessMessages; {let the two forms update themselves}
5   try
6     { ... Do next steps }
7   finally
8     Enabled := true;
9     WaitBox.Hide;
10  end;


Note that the WaitBox must be visible before you can disable the main form. You 
needn't disable each single component. With this construction you can easily add a 
Cancel-Button to your WaitBox. Set a public property (CancelPressed) to TRUE if the 
Cancel Button is pressed and you can do something like this:

11  { ... }
12  repeat
13    { next steps }
14    Application.ProcessMessages;
15  until
16  WaitBox.CancelPressed
17  { ... }