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Programmatically Close The Binder Object

Because of customer complaints and confusion, Microsoft Office applicationswill begin to implement this strategy for programmatically closing Officeapplications. First, hide the object by setting Object.Visible to false.Then let the object

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Error When Setting DBCombo MatchEntry Property

When you try to set the MatchEntry property of a DBCombo control to”1 – Extended Matching”(at run time or design time), VB may reportthat the “Property is read-only.” The problem

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Change Your Editor Font

VB 4.0 lets you pick the font you want for your editor. You can do thesame thing in VB 3.0 as well, but you’re font choices are limited, andit’ll involve

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Display The Windows Registered User

The strings related to the registered user of a particular copy of Windowsare stored in a string inside USER.EXE. You can retrieve them with code.In the general declarations section, insert:

DevX - Software Development Resource

VB3 Keyboard Shorcuts

Take a few moments to memorize these keystroke combinations and you’llfind yourself rocketing through your project! Key combinations separatedby commas mean they’re to be performed sequentially. VB 3.0 Keyboard Shortcuts

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Compile On Demand

The new version of Visual Basic will compile only those portions ofcode it expects to run. This speeds load time, but the code may not befully checked. To fully compile

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Early Binding With Microsoft Excel

Early binding can be done with Excel 5.0 and 7.0 by taking advantageof two bugs in Excel. The first bug cannot do direct early binding. Thesecond bug is an unexposed

DevX - Software Development Resource

Printing From The RichText Control

The on-line documentation on using the RichText control to print tellshow it is supposed to work. It does not mention two basic problems. First,the RichText control doesn’t work with the

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Binding With Microsoft Word Type Library

The benefit of early binding is that performance improves and code doesnot need to be localized for each international version of Word. This istrue only for the function that is

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Determine When An App Is Complete

In VB3, you call GetModuleUsage() to determine when an app you startedwith the Shell command was complete. However, this call does not work correctlyin the 32-bit arena of Windows NT

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See The Methods Exported By An OCX

You can use the code window to see the events for an OCX, and the propertieswindow to see the properties of an OCX. To see the OCX’s methods, use theObject

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Numeric Strings As Keys In A Treeview Control

To use numeric strings as keys in a treeview control, the keys mustbe strings containing a non-numeric character, not just digits. A handyworkaround is to append the string “_” to

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Code All KeyPress Events in One Move

Do you need to tab through all those edit boxes? Are you tired of coding all of their KeyPress events? If so, set the tab indexes as you normally would.

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Check Available Drive Space

The setup kit supplied with VB has a DLL with a useful function thatcan be called from your own applications. The function, GetFreeDiskSpace,returns the amount of free space available on

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Load New OCXs, Error-Message Free

Normally, to load a new OCX, you select Custom Controls from the VB4Tools menu. Then, in the Custom Controls dialog, click on the browse button,select the OCX file, and click

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Create Numeric-Input Text Boxes

In almost every application’s project you come across, fields necessitate the use of numeric text boxes-text boxes that should accept only numeric values. You can deal with this situation by

DevX - Software Development Resource

Error Handling In A Class Module

To signal errors from within a class method, use the Error.Raise methodand bubble it back up to the server. Check the docs for Error.Raise andthe books online. One caveat is

DevX - Software Development Resource

Setup Wizard Complains: Not Enough Info In OLE Server

The SetupWizard directly supports only self-registering OLE servers.The setup toolkit doesn’t directly support a server that requires a REGfile. A workaround is use the Add Files button to add an

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Searching For 16-Bit DLLs in Windows 95

Windows 95 uses an extra step when searching for 16-bit DLLs. A newregistry key, “Known16DLLs,” in Windows 95 under \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetCon-trolSessionManagerfunctions in a similar way to KnownDLLs in Windows NT. Known16DLLs

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Test for Leap Year

The tip “Leap Year Rules” [“101 Hot Tech Tips for VB Developers,” Supplement to the August 1996 issue of VBPJ, page 22] illustrated how to easily determine if any given

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Shortcut for 16/32-bit Development

Here is a tip that should make life simpler for all VB programmers doing mixed 16/32-bit development in VB4 under Windows 95. I have three additional items in my project

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Regarding “Validating Numeric Input”

The tip you published on page 70 of the September 1996 issue of VBPJ on “Validating Numeric Input” was a good tip. However, the function failed to take into account

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Table Checker

I use a housekeeping routine to check the state of tables during system initialization. The routine tests whether the table is in a collection, whether the table has data, and

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Placing A Combo Box Onto A Toolbar

To put a combo box on a toolbar, create a place holder and positionthe combo box above the place holder in the z-order. You can’t place thecombo box inside the

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Print a Single Sub or Function

Need a fast way to print only one sub or function in VB3 that also takes care of the problem some printers have in printing the last page?Create a small

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Handling Erros In The Form_Load Routine

In VB3, the PostMessage API can cancel an error during Form_Load. Theform unloads if you send a WM_CLOSE message to the loaded window in theerror handler of the Form_Load routine.

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Support The Full ImageList API In VB4

To draw a selected transparent image in VB4 from an Imagelist control,as you do in C++, follow these steps. The ImageList_ API functions have many features that weren’t passedthrough in

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A Fast Way to Change Case

Do you need to convert user input to all upper case in VB3? All the ways I have seen to force user input to all upper case is to make

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Quick Test for Weekend

To test whether a date falls on a weekend, you might be inclined to do this: nDay = weekday (sDate)If (nDay = 1) or (nDay = 7) Then ‘It’s a