You can use this method to display a modal dialog box in your application. When this method is called, the code following it is not executed until after the dialog box is closed. The dialog box can be assigned one of the values of DialogResult by assigning it to the DialogResult property of a Button on the form or by setting the DialogResult property of the form in code. This value is then returned by this method. You can use this return value to determine how to process the actions that occurred in the dialog box. For example, if the dialog box was closed and returned the DialogResult.Cancel value through this method, you could prevent code following the call to ShowDialog from executing.

When a form is displayed as a modal dialog box, clicking the Close button (the button with an X at the upper-right corner of the form) causes the form to be hidden and the DialogResult property to be set to DialogResult.Cancel. Unlike modeless forms, the Close method is not called by the .NET Framework when the user clicks the close form button of a dialog box or sets the value of the DialogResult property. Instead the form is hidden and can be shown again without creating a new instance of the dialog box. Because a form displayed as a dialog box is not closed, you must call the Dispose method of the form when the form is no longer needed by your application.

This version of the ShowDialog method allows you to specify a specific form or control that will own the dialog box that is shown. If you use the version of this method that has no parameters, the dialog box being shown would be owned automatically by the currently active window of your application.

The following code example displays a form as a modal dialog box and evaluates the return value of the dialog box before determining whether to read the value of a TextBox control on the dialog box form. This example requires that a Form named Form2 is created and that it contains a TextBox control named TextBox1. The example uses the version of ShowDialog that specifies an owner for the dialog box.

Public Sub ShowMyDialogBox()
    Dim testDialog As New Form2()

    ' Show testDialog as a modal dialog and determine if DialogResult = OK.
    If testDialog.ShowDialog(Me) = System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
        ' Read the contents of testDialog's TextBox.
        txtResult.Text = testDialog.TextBox1.Text
    Else
        txtResult.Text = "Cancelled"
    End If
    testDialog.Dispose()
End Sub 'ShowMyDialogBox

public void ShowMyDialogBox()
{
   Form2 testDialog = new Form2();

   // Show testDialog as a modal dialog and determine if DialogResult = OK.
   if (testDialog.ShowDialog(this) == DialogResult.OK)
   {
      // Read the contents of testDialog's TextBox.
      this.txtResult.Text = testDialog.TextBox1.Text;
   }
   else
   {
      this.txtResult.Text = "Cancelled";
   }
   testDialog.Dispose();
}

void ShowMyDialogBox()
{
   Form2^ testDialog = gcnew Form2;

   // Show testDialog as a modal dialog and determine if DialogResult = OK.
   if ( testDialog->ShowDialog( this ) == ::DialogResult::OK )
   {

      // Read the contents of testDialog's TextBox.
      this->txtResult->Text = testDialog->TextBox1->Text;
   }
   else
   {
      this->txtResult->Text = "Cancelled";
   }

   delete testDialog;
}

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98

.NET Framework

Reference