Instantiate a form, then find it later, without showing it initially
- by awilson53
I am having a problem that is strange to me but hopefully is not so strange to someone else. : )  Some background: I am working on a simple IM client that allows the user to broadcast messages to multiple recipients.  The goal is to create a chat form for each of the recipients containing the text of the broadcast message, then show that form only if the recipient responds to the broadcast-er.  However, when the application receives a response then attempts to locate the form for that particular chat session (using Application.OpenForms) it cannot find it UNLESS I .Show at the time it is created.  I would like to avoid having to show this form when it is created because this means that the user will see a flash on the screen.  The form doesn't seem to really be created until I show it, but it would seem there has to be a way to do this without showing first.  Can anyone assist?
I can provide code snippets if needed, I didn't in this post because this feels more like a conceptual misunderstanding on my part than a bug in the code.  Thanks in advance!