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The Latest

Simulating Buttons

Question: I would like to make a row (in a frame) of command buttons that could light up when depressed. And also have some small round buttons (like option buttons)

Memory Management: Lost Resources

Question: Each time I run a certain application from VB environment, resources go lower and lower. When I exit VB, all the memory is released.I do not have that problem

Dynamically Creating Controls

Question: I am a teacher (this explains my lack of expertise at understanding many VB technicalitiesin manuals etc.) experimenting with creating bits and pieces of software for children with learning

Executing DOS Commands

Question: How can I run the following “SHELL” command in VB? It works fine in PowerBasic, but VB 3.0 doesn’t like it.SHELL “DIR *.BKP > FILES.LST”Any ideas? Answer: Try this:Shell

Handling Dependent Processes

Question: I need execute some commands to rename/copy files. What is the best method of performing this type of function.I do not want to fire off a batch file, but

Screen Saver Development

Question: What all do I need to know to create a screen saver in Visual Basic? Answer: Windows screensavers are easy and fun to write in Visual Basic, but there

Object Was Unloaded Error

Question: When I try to unload some forms with database controls on them while in the Form_Load event, VB tries to show the form again and issues the statement ‘Object

Grids with Spanning Columns

Question: I need a way to make a grid/table that would support headers and cell data spanning multiple rows as wellas multiple columns. Any ideas? Answer: VideoSoft has a product

Limiting Size of Popup Windows

Question: How do you limit the size of a help file definition window? When I program a pop-up window for a definition, its as big as the main Help window

Accessing a DBGrid Cell

Question: How can get the Text contained in a specified Cell in DBGrid? Answer: If you set the Row and Col properties first, you can then look at the “Text”

Changing Default Title on Window

Question: I made a copy of a project for a new application. The problem is that each time a message box is displayed it has the old project name as

Getting Available Disk Space

Question: I am looking for a way to determine the numberof bytes on a hard drive. Preferable I’d liketo know the total bytes on a drive and the bytes used

Dynamically Positioning Controls at Runtime

Question: It is easy to use control arrays to load controls inside a container. Now the problem is I do not know how many containers e.g., groups of option buttions,

Centering a Form on the Screen

Question: How do I center a form on the monitor regardless of monitor resolution? Answer: The Screen object contains the properties of the current display. In the Form_Load event, you

Right-Justifying Output

Question: My VB program produces as output, paper reports such as Income Statements and Balance Sheets. How do we get the numbers to print as they should, that is, dollars

Getting Started

Question: We have a big complete hospital system written in ClipperWe had looked at VO, but that does not seem to be the way to goWe will now concentrate on

Creating Delays

Question: Can you suggest ways to delay sending keystrokes to the external application? I’ve tried inserting ‘For-Next’ loops of different durations but without success. Answer: Try a timer control. That

RecordCount Incorrect

Question: VB reports the wrong number of records from an Access database with the RecordCount property. The same query to dBase files reports the correct number of records. What is

Converting 4.0 Files to 3.0 Format

Question: I use version 4.0 and the school I go to uses version 3.0. I use windows 95 and they use windows 3.1. I know you can convert a 3.0

Creating Help Files for VB

Question: I am new to Visual Basic and wanted to know how to write those nifty little help files. Answer: Help files are fairly easy to create. All you need

Masked Edit Control: Clearing the Text

Question: Could you tell me how to clear a MaskEdit Field? Answer: To clear a masked edit field’s text, you first have to set the mask to “”, then set

Creating Simple Animation

Question: How do I get four simple .bmp pictures to animate?Could you maybe give me an example? What the picturesare is a green scare then it would turn into a

Finding User Directory for Microsoft Mail

Question: I’m in the process of refining a program I wrote. What I need to do is find the user’s mail directory on a Network server. To do this, the

Unload vs. Hide

Question: My application makes use of different forms.I call forms by ‘hide’ the current form and ‘show 1’ to showthe next one.When I want to return to the previous form

Saving Information

Question: How do you save information?Say a made a game, and i wanted high scores, how do I want to do that? Answer: You could do it a number of

Creating 2 Dimensional Array

Question: I am trying to design a telephone directory and am unable to set the 2 dimensional arrayas an unknown number. How do I do this? Answer: The best way

Declaring Form Objects

Question: If i declare a new form as an object variable,Dim NewForm as Formset NewForm=form2NewForm.ShowOnce I have a one of those forms, how do refer to that particularinstance of the

Removing Filename Reference

Question: I have a form containing a Picture Box control.This control currently contains a bitmap i.e. the pictureproperty contains a filename. How do I change the picture property back to

Oracle via ODBC

Question: I am using Visual Basic as my front-end tool to read an oracle 7 database residing on an oracle network. I have completed the connection stage. I am using

Using ANYDATA in Oracle 9i

First introduced in Oracle 9i, ANYDATA is a “self-describing data instance type” which means it not only holds the value, but it also holds its

In-memory JDBC Driver Details

When you’re working with JDBC, you can load more than one JDBC driver in memory. To find out how many drivers are in memory, along

Determine Whether a URL Is Valid

Use this Boolean function to determine whether a URL is valid: public static bool checkUrl(string url) { bool rt = false; if (url.StartsWith(“www.”)) { url

Making Delicate Decisions

uppose you and your swashbuckling buccaneer friends attack a Spanish galleon. When the smoke clears you find that you have emerged victorious but now you

If You Build It, They Can Know

n a previous article I showed you how to leverage Semantic Web technology to create a relatively sophisticated sommelier application that recommended wines based on

Does Your RDBMS Support Savepoints?

Before using savepoints in your application, you need to be sure that your RDBMS supports this facility. To do this, call the DatabaseMetaData.supportsSavepoints method, like

Save a URL as an MHT File

To save a URL as an MHT file (Microsoft “Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension HTML”?a Web Archive File), reference the Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.7 and