Because setting the MousePointer property for a form only changesthe shape and does not prevent the application from acceptinguser input from the mouse or keyboard, I have developed this tip.
The tip works on an MDI form where there may be several open childwindows, and you need to disable one or all of the windows duringlong processing periods (e.g., long database updates). If youhave only one MDI child open or need to disable only one form,you can disable it by setting the Enabled property to False. Ifyou have several child forms open, create a collection of formsand scroll through the collection, disabling each form again bysetting the Enabled property to False. When the selected formsare disabled, set the MousePointer property for the MDI parentto an hourglass. This will prevent user input from the mouse orthe keyboard until you reverse the process by enabling the formsand changing the mouse back to whatever shape it was before.
The real trick involves setting the MDI parent’s mouse icon tothe hourglass shape. If you just set the MousePointer for thechild form(s) to an hourglass and then disable the child form(s),the pointer will turn back into the default shape.
