Tip Bank

DevX

Use Sleep API to add pauses to your programs

Don’t use an empty For…Next loop to add pauses to your programs; instead, use the Sleep API function, that releases the CPU and lets other apps in the system effectively

DevX

Always declare objects with full library name

If your application uses objects from external components, either third-party or your own libraries, a good rule of thumb is to include the complete servername.classname string in the Dim statement,

DevX

Use the right type for constants

VB stores symbolic and literal constants internally using the simplest data type possible; this means that most common numeric constants-such as zero or one-are stored as Integers. If you use

DevX

Reduce the number of DoEvents

Don’t fill your code with unnecessary DoEvents statements, especially within time-critical loops. If you can’t avoid that, at least you can reduce the overhead by invoking DoEvents only every N

DevX

Topmost windows

This is an evergreen, but it’s still popular. It is very easy to create a window that always stays on top of the others, thanks to the SetWindowPos API function.

DevX

GetShortFileName – Convert a filename to 8.3 format

Private Declare Function GetShortPathName Lib “kernel32” Alias _ “GetShortPathNameA” (ByVal lpszLongPath As String, _ ByVal lpszShortPath As String, ByVal cchBuffer As Long) As Long’ Convert a long filename into the

DevX

And is faster the Mod

Use the And operator instead of Mod when the divisor is a number in the form 2^N. For instance, there are two methods to extract the least significant byte in