Pause execution in Main: Activity_Create

In Activity_create drive your app to a sub creating the 'about dialog'. Initialize a timer, and after 5 secs, disable it (the timer) and continue loading your activity's layouts and so on. If however you need user to see a loaded layout underneath the dialog box, you can firstly load your layouts, then load and set your 'about dialog' panel to transparent. Of course you should cover the whole view's area with this panel, in order to avoid clicks on the main form.

Thanks - I'll give it a try...

I was initiating a timer in the About dialog.

I did as you suggested. Within the Main Activity_Create I have the following:

StartActivity(About)
AboutTimer.Initialize("AboutTimer", 5000)
AboutTimer.Enabled = True

Then, in Sub AboutTimer_Tick, I have:

AboutTimer.Enabled = False

When I execute the program it just blows right past the timer code in Activity_Create and loads everything else in that Sub. How do I get it to stop executing until the timer times out?

There are several ways to implement it.
If you choose to create another activity then you should start the activity.
Then in the second activity use a timer. When the timer ticks you should use CallSubDelayed to call a sub in the first activity and call Activity.Finish.

In the sub you should load the layout.