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Use Your Own Popup Menus in VB4

In VB4 if you want to show a popup menu for a text box, a system-providedcontext menu appears first, and your popup menu does not appearuntil you close the system

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Databound Grid Bug Solution

A severe bug in VB4 appears when using the Databound Grid withmodal forms. Create 3 forms: form1, form2 and form3. Put a buttoncommand1 on each of the forms. In the

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Identifying a Generic Control at Run Time

When a procedure can operate on multiple types of controls, youcan use VB’s TypeOf function to determine a control type at runtime: Function myFunc(ctl as Control) ‘ This code works

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Hexadecimal Color Constants

Properly designed Windows programs should change their own colorsaccording to the system colors. One of the reasons why developerstend to forget that part of design is that it is not

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Undocumented Feature Logs Jet Queries

Jet 3.0 includes an undocumented feature that lets you log Jet’soptimization plan of queries. To enable this feature, you mustcreate this registry key using Windows’ RegEdit program: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoft _ Jet3.0EnginesDebug

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Simplifying the Condition-Part of an If statement

When you write an If statement such as: If Category = “CM” or Category = “M2” or Category = “P1” or Category = “ZZ” thenProcessEmployeeEndif it can be simplified by:

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Eliminating the If Statement Wherever Possible

If you have to assign True or False to a variable after testinga certain condition, then the If statement may be done away withaltogether. For example, if you have something

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Avoid Redundant Execution of Code

Most collections are zero-based. The COUNT property returns thenumber of members of a collection, as opposed to the highest membernumber. So when we see code that loops through all the

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Set Forms to Nothing with Caution

It’s a good idea to set your form variables to Nothing to recoverall memory that was allocated for the form module. Executing SetForm1 = Nothing for a loaded form, however,

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RegEdit Addition “Automation”

This sample file from Microsoft allows a more automated Windows95 Registry Addition. You can create a similar file in Notepador your favorite text editor, replacing the appropriate entriesin place of

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Sizable Forms Without a Title Bar

If you set a form properties caption to “” and controlbox to False, then a form with borderstyle 3 (fixed dialog) willdisplay without its title. Unlike borderstyle zero (none), itkeeps

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Securing a Jet Database the Right Way

To secure a Jet database, you must purchase Access 2 for VB3/VB3-16or Access 95 for VB4-32 and follow these steps: Use the Access Workgroup Administrator to create a new workgroupwith

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Editing the Regular Grid

The regular grid that comes with Visual Basic cannot be editeddirectly. However, this problem can be easily circumvented withone line of code: Private Sub Grid1_KeyPress(KeyAscii As _ Integer)Grid1.Text = Grid1.Text

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Blanks in the Masked Edit Control

The Microsoft Masked Edit control only allows input that matchesthe mask. Similarly, you can only set the Text property to a stringthat matches the mask. If you have a mask

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Enforce Uppercase Characters

Do you want to facilitate the user to enter only uppercase charactersduring editing in text boxes and other edit controls? Irrespectiveof the position of CAPS LOCK key, this code in

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Add ‘Type Ahead’ Functionality to Combo Boxes

You can add ‘Type Ahead’ functionality to the standard VB ComboBoxcontrol with this subroutine: Sub ComboTypeAhead(Combo As ComboBox)Dim i As Integer, _ KeyString As String, _ KeyLen As IntegerKeyString =3D

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Tab Order with Labels Attached To Controls

In order for a label to be associated with a control (such as a textbox) for using hot keys, they must be in TabOrder sequence, the label beingone more than

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DBGrid Automatic Configuration

If the layout of VB4’s DBGrid is not changed at design time, it willautomatically configure to a new record set when the Data control is refreshedwith a new RecordSource. Related

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Unloading The Server From Memory

Shut down the instance of Visual Basic that uses the compiled in-processOLE server to unload the server from memory. Changes to the in-processOLE server will not be seen until the

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Beware Of Design-Time DDE Links

When using DDE Links at design time, the link will be temporarily cutwhen the program is run. Some, but not all, programs will reestablish theconnection. Related Posts Making a File

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Speed Crystal Reports

If Crystal Reports’ speed is lacking although your report contains nolarge graphics or large numbers of groups, change these two lines in yourCRW.INI file to solve disk swapping problems: MaxRecordMemory=0MetapageSpillLimit=100

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MSDN Is Indispensible For Those Off-The-Wall Errors

Use the Microsoft Developer Network to search for errors that seem to defy explanation. VB4 comes with a short version of the MSDN, and subscriptions are available through Microsoft. Related

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VB 4.0 Keyboard Shortcuts

Note that some key combinations are different from those for VB 3.0:Ctrl-T–Custom Controls. Ctrl-E–Menu Editor. Ctrl-F–Find (Unchanged from VB3). Ctrl-H–Replace (H? Yes, H! Go Figure!). Related Posts Sort a List

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Printer Object EndDoc Resets FontName

The Printer object’s EndDoc method resets the FontName property. Ifyou want your application to print separate documents, invoking EndDocat the end of each, set the FontName before printing the first

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OLE Server Object Manipulation

Don’t return references to Form and Control objects from your OLE server.Rather, provide wrappers for the properties and methods of forms and controlsif they must be manipulated by your OLE

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Append a String to a Text Box

Use this code to cause a TextBox control to automatically scroll down as you concatenate new text: ””Select the end of the text MyTextBox.SelStart = Len(MyTextBox.Text)””Put the new text thereMyTextBox.SelText