For the people that want to know. Apparently the Leave event is fired before autocomplete can do it's magic however, Putting the handler on the LostFocus event solves the issue. It's just not visibile in the VS2005 UI... Solved ;-) Do Or Don't, there is no "try catch ex as exception end try"

Correct. Your most basic static singleton looks like this: public class MyClass { private static MyClass instance = new MyClass(); public static MyClass Instance { get { return instance; } } public void DoSomething() { Console.WriteLine("Something"); } } and then all of the objects in your program can access it like this: MyClass.Instance.DoSomething(); If you have lots of multi-threading in your program then here are some tricks to handle thread-safety with the static object, but in simple programs the basic stuff should suffice.

It sounds like you need a priority queue and a way to retrieve some status information from it. It also sounds like you have the priority queue in place. Use locking for queue access and modification. I'm a C# developer and don't know the VB.NET syntax, but in C# there's the lock keyword that can be used to lock a section of code for execution by a single thread. It's pretty simple and the most common technique is to create a locker object that is locked in every place the queue will be touched. Depending on your needs you may want to go with a subscriber model to provide information to other applications. With it you would have queue modification events that other applications 'subscribe' to and they would implement an event handler that will give them an EventArgs object with information about the event (ItemAdded, ItemRemoved, ItemUpdated, ItemProcessed, etc.). Or, perhaps you want to go with a by-request model in which you have methods that return a status object only when invoked. Using .NET Remoting may be useful if it is a Client-Server architecture as the TCP/IP communication is already handled for you and it defaults to using a Singleton, where one instance of the priority queue will exist on the server and clients can interact with that instance remotely. Keep It Simple Stupid! (KISS)

Noctris wrote: are there gotcha's in protocol design (for instance i found out that having an parameter to let the client detect when the command is done is an abolute must).? Not sure what that means. Noctris wrote: It's my first Client/Server application and I feel like i am in the dark. Not unusual, it's a large subject. Noctris wrote: I've found very little on designing a protocol Yeah I don't remember ever seeing anything like that. Try looking at existing protocols rather than looking for something that teaches protocols. I suggest you start with some simple application level protocols like HTTP/FTP/POP3 of course... Noctris wrote: what i need (basic question/response and synchronizing data, which i currently do using xml) That sounds like SOAP so you may not need to create your own protocol. It's difficult to say for sure with the limited information you provided. led mike

You will need to run a REGEX session on your string before you send it to your XMLWriter. Search GOOGLE for xml unsafe characters and ASCII code to see what you should turn those funny characters into. Since you are making your own server / client application you can set your own REGEX standards for conversion of characters. IE: REGEX finds a "&" in your input string. You replace "&" with a @045; and send that to your XMLWriter.

controls are only available on the main thread(where all presentation takes place). since you are on a different thread it complains when you try to use something on the main thread without getting on that thread. you need to use the INVOKE command of the control that will place the assignment of the text property on the main thread. to do this, you will need to use a DELEGATE which will need the same signature that the routine has that will contain the invoke call... this idea is like this define the delegate in your routine change to this Public Sub ConnectedUi() if LblServerStatus.InvokeRequired Then LblServerStatus.Invoke(....) 'new instance of the delegate pointing to this routine Exit Sub End If LblServerStatus.Text = "Connected" End Sub 'Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.' ~ anonymous 'Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.' ~ anonymous