Copyright: Copyright ® 1994 by Dana W. Cline
Citation: Reprinted from VB Shareware Review ® 1994 by Dana W. Cline


Contents
Visual Basic Shareware Review
Volume 2	September, 1994

Information

About this HelpZine
Submitting your Shareware
Index to Previous Issues
Credits
Letters to the Editor
Reviewers Wanted

Reviews

INFSPY.EXE	Windows information viewer
VBMSGR.VBX	Windows messaging control
PROBE.VBX	Control debug control


About this HelpZine

The Visual Basic Shareware Review is published as a HelpZine for the Microsoft Windows operating environment.  The intent is to provide reviews of shareware tools for the Visual Basic programmer.  The majority of these tools are available on CompuServe, in the MSBASIC forum.  If you can't find a copy, contact the author of the program.  This HelpZine is published as freeware.  Contributions are welcome.  While the intent is to publish one issue a month, schedule conflicts may prevent this.

I generally get the shareware from the MSBASIC forum on CompuServe, and I try to review the latest versions (within the month previous to release of this HelpZine).  Some things change quickly, so please contact the individual authors for information on the latest versions.

Contacting the Editor

Disclaimers


HelpZine
A zine is an abbreviation for a magazine.  In the world of science fiction fandom, a fanzine is a small magazine, generally published by fans, for fans.  I've warped the definition some, to create a helpzine as a help-file magazine.  It follows the philosophy of the fanzine because it is published by a software engineer, for software engineers.


Contacting the Editor
Contact the editor at:

Dana W. Cline
TANSTAAFL Software
P.O. Box 260075
Lakewood, CO  80226
(303) 989-7389

CIS
73700,3053

GEnie
TANSTAAFL

Internet
73700.3053@compuserve.com


Submitting your Shareware

All submissions from shareware authors are welcome.  You can employ several methods of getting it to me.  US Mail is adequately reliable, and sending a diskette is fairly cheap (any size is OK).  Or, send me the file via CompuServe or GEnie.  If you've already sent your file to a CompuServe or GEnie forum, send me email telling me where it is and I'll download it.

Contacting the Editor


Disclaimers
The reviews in this HelpZine are copyrighted by Dana W. Cline.

Many of the names of various software products mentioned are copyrighted or trademarked by their respective owners.

The opinions expressed by the reviewers are their own.


Index to Previous Issues

Program	Volume	Date
CANIMATE	1	July 1994
TITLESPY	1	July 1994
VB2DOC6	1	July 1994
VBASM	1	July 1994
VBVALET	1	July 1994


Credits

Editor/Publisher

Dana W. Cline

Reviewers

Dana W. Cline
Your Name Here!

Help file by ForeFront's ForeHelp
Thanks to Compaq for use of a Contura Aero 4/33C

Contacting the Editor


Letters to the Editor

I just downloaded your help file.  Excellent Work!  This is something that the shareware industry really needs to get things going.

I took the liberty of sending you my shareware product called VB Messenger.  VB Messenger is a VBX that can be placed in any Visual Basic application to subclass windows and/or controls.  With it you can do just about anything that you need to do in C.  This product fits a  gap that VB has left in that you only get notification of a few events that can occur.  With VB Messenger, you can detect *any* event that occurs and write code to respond as necessary.

VB Messenger is only $29.95 and full source code is also available for $49.95.  Registration is available via Compuserve's SWREG forum, ID #961. Source code ID #1589.

So far, this product has been very successful with over 6,000 downloads over the last year!

I'd be interested in knowing what you think.

Jim Tyminski

Thanks, Jim...look for a review in this issue!

Dana; Had the opportunity to download your first effort with "Visual Basic Shareware Review." Seems like a good idea if you are willing to make the proper effort.

<The only problem with the dialog box tips is that they are wrong.  The cross referencing feature is not on the Tools menu. > Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Somehow or other the necessary code was left out of the shipped version. (...and I thought I checked it all.)  You will find a fix for this in your mail along with this note.

<  You start the process by opening a .MAK file and selecting VBValet from the Tools menu.>

The other way to do this is just to select VBValet from the tools menu before opening a .MAK file. This is documented in the sample.doc file and also in the read1st file.

< I could find no way to change the fonts/sizes/colors.> There is a way of doing this using the resident W4W dialogs. This is documented in the sample.doc file and also in the read1st file and in the Tips dialog

Good Luck,

Bob Haduch

Mea culpa!  I admit I did not read in detail the sample.doc file that came with VBValet.  I did skim it, but completely missed the part about changing fonts and stuff.  Thanks for the quick fix, Bob!

Dana,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.  I have been working 12 hours a day on a PC and my eyes are too tired to read my E-mail when I get the chance.  I am researching your problem with the indexes and I will post a message to you when the new upload is posted.  I have designed the program to create a separate Global index from the Const index since you can have one of the other or both kind of variables in your program.  As for the GPF's you are getting, I know that MS Word is a memory hog, and with the compilation of the indexes, it really gets hairy.  I recommend at least 16 MB of RAM to create all the indexes.   I will E-mail you when I resolve your index problem.

Thanks!

Eddie Juden

Thanks for the response, Eddie!.  I know how it can be sometimes.  We'll take another look at VB2DOC6 in a future issue.


Order VBMSGR
Send a check or money order for $30 to:

James D. Tyminski
JOSWare, Inc.
25 Voorhis Dr.
Old Bethpage, NY  11804

Compuserve ID: 71222,3522

Registration via Compuserve in the Shareware Registration Forum (GO SWREG).  Registration Number: 961

Source code for VB Messenger is now available.  To receive the source code, register via Compuserve's Shareware Registration Forum (GO SWREG).  The cost for the source code is $49.95 and can be paid conveniently via the SWREG forum and billed to your Compuserve account. The registration number for VB Messenger Source Code is 1589.


Order PROBE.VBX
Standard registration

US, Mexico, Canada	$15.00
Other foreign countries	$17.00
Thru CompuServe	$10.00
  GO SWREG, number 2449

Source code registration

US, Mexico, Canada	$40.00
Other foreign countries	$45.00
Thru CompuServe	$35.00
  GO SWREG, number 2450


PROBE.VBX
PROBE.VBX   Reviewed by Dana Cline

Author:  Mabry Software

Order Information

I was originally going to review DFINFO, another of this company's products (and eventually all of them), but after running across Probe, I figured that it would be more fun to review, since there is nothing else like it that I'm aware of.

Probe is a custom control that allows access to the properties of other controls at runtime.  This is useful for modifying runtime properties, with an easy-to-use interface.  The primary use of this control is for debugging your program, although there are reasons to include this program in a release version, too.

Probe has very few properties, and no events or methods.  The control should be placed on any form where you want to modify the controls.  From your code, set the Visible property to true to start the action.  A dialog box will let you pick from all of the controls on the form, and all of the properties for the control.  You can also control Probe from your code.  You would set the ControlName property to the name of the control you want to tweak, then you can iterate through the properties and their values.

A little control is a dangerous thing.  Although they mention that beta testers could use this to change things, I'd personally be a little bit leery about letting Joe User change stuff in my code.  However, it would work great for alpha testing in a controlled environment, or for pre-alpha testing by the programmer.  I'd be tempted to add this to every form in every program and have it triggered by a hot key.  That way, I'd always have a back door into my software.


Reviewers Wanted

Reviewers are necessary for this HelpZine to continue in a timely and robust fashion.  Please contact the editor if you have any interest in contributing.

I will do one more volume, then will fold it if I don't excite people to review stuff.

Contacting the Editor


INFSPY.EXE
INFSPY.EXE   Reviewed by Dana Cline

Author: Dean Software Design

Order information

InfSpy is a tool that can be useful to any Windows programmer, not just Visual Basic programmers.  InfSpy is a viewer that allows you to view the heap, tasks, windows, classes, modules, file handles and DOS information.

InfSpy was first released in 1993, and is not up to version 2.01.  All of the information is shown in MDI child windows.  You can customize the windows, and remember their setup for later.  This version adds real-time tracing of the stack, messages and serial ports.

This program is similar to the Spy program that comes with Microsoft Visual C++ and the SDK.  However, this program makes Spy look like a child's toy.  Besides the standard lists of heap items, tasks, windows, modules and classes, InfSpy can provide information on things like multimedia devices, networks and device redirection, DOS environment, device drivers and memory control blocks.

InfSpy excels at tracing real-time actions, such as a task's stack, serial communications, and messages (task-specific as well as all Windows messages). When tracing messages, you can filter on specific message types.  These types perhaps may require further explanation.  The mouse filter and keyboard filters are easy to understand, but what is a hardware message? And what is a standard message versus a system message?  I assume these are answered in the SDK documentation, but a brief reiteration in the help file wouldn't hurt.

This program is both useful and inexpensive.  Any Windows programmer should have a program like this.


windows


Dean Software Design
P.O. Box 2331
Everett, WA  98203-0331

CIS:
75240,65


Order InfSpy
Registration is $6.99.  Orders from Canada & Mexico add $.50 postage, other foreign countries add $1.50.


Mabry Software
James Shields
Mabry Software
Post Office Box 31926
Seattle, WA  98103-1926

Phone: 206-634-1443
Fax: 206-632-0272
BBS: WinDev BBS 206-634-0783
CompuServe: 71231,2066
Internet: mabry@halcyon.com


JOSWare, Inc.
James D. Tyminski
JOSWare, Inc.
25 Voorhis Dr.
Old Bethpage, NY  11804


VBMSGR.VBX
VBMSGR.VBX   Reviewed by Dana Cline

Author:JOSWare, Inc.

Order Information

VB Messenger is a custom control that allows a VB program to intercept Windows messages.  While VB controls can receive messages (with the normal events), more messages are available than are currently used by Visual Basic.  This control allows you to do things that were previously possible only in C.

VB Messenger offers only two events (WindowMessage and WindowDestroyed), and no methods.  There are about twenty properties above and beyond the standard VB properties.  VB Messenger contains eighteen API calls, which you can use to do things like address conversion and message text conversion.

The WindowMessage event is where most messages are passed.  Like C, you will have access to the message itself as well as two parameters, called lParam and rParam.  You also get the window handle that the message is intended for.  This approach is both good and bad.  The good thing is that you can put all of your message processing code in one place.  The bad thing is that you will end up with the "case statement from hell", with a case for each window you're interested in.  Each window case would then have a case statement for each type of message.  Could get messy.  All messages go through this event, except WM_DESTROY, which goes through WindowDestroy instead (but why?).

Using the MessageSelector property, you can decide which messages to trap.  The control can be set to trap no messages, all messages, messages you specify, or all but the ones you specify.

The obvious question is what can you do with it?  Well, most anything.  This control extends VB to enable it to do almost anything you can with C or C++.  Several example programs with source code are included.  One program shows you how to trap menu items, so you can change status bar text for each menu item, which is useful for providing help for each menu item.  It shouldn't be too hard to extend this to provide tool tip help for things like controls and toolbars.

The real gem is the (200K) help file.  It provides a tutorial on the subject of subclassing windows, intercepting messages, and general information needed to understand how VB Messenger works and can be used.  About the only thing missing from the help file is an explanation of what the various messages are.  As a C programmer, I can get this information from the SDK documentation, but the average VB programmer would not have access to this information without going out and buying a book.