Look for a thin horizontal line at the top of the client area in theVB code window that comes up when you view code for a form or a module.If

You do not have to use the return value of any function! Thisnew behavior is in the manual (under CALL), but is a shocker,and a little dangerous: Private Sub Form_Load()

“Send a Message” (Windows Programming, by Jonathan Zuck,VBPJ December 1995), a great example of code usable ina text editor, mentions three ways to code the Clipboard functionsusing SendMessage, VB’s Clipboard

To stop the selection bar on a data-bound grid from moving when navigating through records in the boundRDC or the rows on the grid, use the API call LockWindowUpdate(gridname.hwnd) before

By default, VB list boxes use any keyboard input to find the firstitem beginning with the pressed letter. Where the number of itemsin a list box is large (>100), this

This subroutine shows how byte arrays can speed a search though a file.The routine is called with the file name, a string to look for, a flagthat tells it to

Running applications written in VB3 in the WIN95 OS is not always aclean conversion. This code would work fine in Windows for Workgroups 3.11,but would GPF in WIN95. SS3D2.VBX, which

When loading a form, reduce the “flicker” and “flash” of the GUI by using these Windows API functions: ‘Declarations Section#If Win32 Then Declare Function LockWindowUpdate _ Lib “user32” _ (ByVal

Optional parameters are a great new feature in VB4, but the ParamArraykeyword is an overlooked addition to function and subroutine declarations.The ParamArray keyword allows an unspecified number of Variantparameters to

To have a program programmatically close another program, use this code: ‘ Close an existing program Title = “VBApp” ihWnd = FindWindow(0&, Title) ihTask = GetWindowTask(ihWnd) iRet = PostAppMessage(ihTask, WM_QUIT,

When a control is deleted from a form, any code behind that controlis not deleted. It still exists in the code in the General area. Such strandedcode might not be

Designing monitor resolution-independent applications is a frequentproblem Visual Basic programmers face. The simplest solution isto design forms at the 640 by 480 resolution found in most lap-topcomputers. Such a form

The DegreesToXYsubroutine, part of CodeBank’s standard procedurelibrary, calculates the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) coordinatesof any point, measured in degrees, on the circumference of a circleor ellipse. As you can

You cannot use the IsEmpty function to determine if a variableof type Form or any Object has been assigned a value. You can,however, use this method to determine if the

When you’re finished tinkering with your apps, close and restart VBbefore making the final EXE. This simple action can reduce the size ofyour EXE by 10 to 30 percent (many

You cannot load a VB4 form in VB3 directly. You must modify theform definition. When you open a VB4 form, the file will resemblethe example: VERSION 4.00Begin VB.Form Form1 Caption

Programmers are in the habit of creating meaningful identifiersby concatenating the words of a “title case” phrasethat describes the identifier, such as LastName or FinalPaymentDate.Often, you can use these names

I needed a way to issue a DoEvents to allow Windows time to redraw controlson a form, but wanted to prevent the user from clicking some other controlwithin my application.

In many cases, it is best to select or highlight the full text of afield when that field gains the focus. This allows the user to simply begintyping to replace

When using the SQL Server ODBC driver and SQL Server, and If ODBC preparedexecution is used, certain floating-point values may be incorrectly converted.Microsoft Access and Microsoft Visual Basic commonly use

One way to test whether a specific file exists is to open thefile for input and check VB’s error flag. An error will occurif the file does not exist. Use

Never, never, never assume that a given API call or control/OCXworks the same under Win95 and Windows NT. For example, the 32-bitfile common dialog handles long file names, right? Well,

The Microsoft Access engine will maintain a persistent connection onan ODBC connection in order to be more efficient, even after using a Closemethod on a database opened with ODBC. The

With the release of VB4 and the new development environment for32-bit operating systems, I use three versions of Visual Basicin developing VB applications. Some of my clients won’t acceptapps built

There is a list of our new functions in Visual Basic 4.0 for workingwith an application’s Windows registry entries (or .INI file on16-bit Windows platforms): GetSetting(appname, section, key[, default]) GetAllSettings(appname,

The problem? You want to print a single sub but VB always prints allthe subs that are in the current form. You could copy it to the clipboardand print it

LenLongestWord finds the length of the longest word in a stringwhere a word is defined to be bounded by spaces or the ends ofthe string. It also illustrates a case

Note that in writing in VB3.0, Visual Basic’s AppActivate statementfails to make a 32-bit application the active window under Windows NT.For example: Sub Form_Load () AppActivate “Notepad – (Untitled)”End Sub

Many times when I code similar syntax with slight modifications on each line, I like to make a template of thecore syntax, quickly paste a copy of it however many

When you get a cool sample of a VB component and you simply can’t recreate all of its characteristics inyour app, don’t go nuts. Most of the time, you can