I Wish Book - Windows Declares

Hi Everyone. I am adding a Conversation to the Add-Ons section of the forum to let users know about updates and allows comments/questions for new examples and workarounds.

Here is a list of updates for the I Wish I Knew How To…Implement Declares with Xojo on Windows that is available on the Xojo Library website.

Xojo provides a RAD (Rapid Application Development) environment because it protects the user from the Operating System.
Tapping into the Operating System directly with Declares opens up almost all of the options available for a program - but you are also out of the protection of the safe IDE (Integrated Development Environment) of Xojo. With the ability to change anything with the program or operating system, improper code also provides the ability of a crash. This is written for intermediate and advanced programmers of Xojo.

Where possible, examples are being converted to both 32-bit and 64-bit Xojo compatible.This book is Version 1.4 (Mar 2017).

This book provides many examples that are converted from C++ functions to Xojo. Although there are many Visual Basic examples that can be converted, vb declare example are becoming outdated, have different parameters, or contain misinformation. For these reasons converting from C++ to Xojo is a long-lasting alternative and which this book provides many descriptions, reasons, references, and working examples for Xojo declares.

There are more than 14 chapters and contains over 350 pages with over 70 example programs.

Examples include creating controls, a new window, GDI, Pens, brushes, Structures, Files, LoWord, and much more. Many screenshots have been added to show the results of the code with an index to help find topics quickly.

Added content to version 1.1 (November 2015) are:
Added ExitWindowsEx function (how to exit windows, logoff, etc)
Added running in 64 or 32 bit mode example (Example 1-13)
Added GetUserName for 64 or 32 bit Xojo versions (Example 2-9)
Added screen grab (Example 8-4)
Added screen grab with picture scrolling (Example only: Example 8-4a)
Begin testing for 64 bit versions (Partially complete)

Added content to version 1.2 (December 2016) are:
Renumbered examples in chapter 1 to Example 1-14, Example 1-15, and Example 1-16
Added Example 5-7: Translucent Window
Create a shortcut on the desktop which opens a file (Example 11-1)
Added GetLogicalDriveStringsA and W (Example 4-5) -32 and 64 bit compatible
Added GetDriveTypeA and W (Example 4-6) -32 and 64 bit compatible
Added Get Free/Total Disk Space (Example 4-7) -32 and 64 bit compatible
Added Items/Size in Recycle Bin (Example 4-8) -32 bit only
Added get drive information (Example 4-9) -32 and 64 bit compatible
Added simple StatusBar (Example 10-1) -32 and 64 bit compatible
Beginning 32-bit and 64-bit compatibility - where possible

Added content to version 1.3 (January 2017) are:
Added Example 12-01: Get Global Timer Resolution - 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added Example 12-02: Set Global Timer Resolution - 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added Example 13-01: Run program with ShellExecute - 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added Example 13-02: Get Dir Info with ShellExecute - 32 and 64 bit Compatible
Added Example 13-03: Get ls Info with Bash - 32 and 64 bit Compatible
Added Example 10-03: Multi-Part StatusBar - 32 and 64 bit Compatible
ISBN: 978-1-927924-10-5

The March 2017 version updates that will be on the website soon are:
New to Version 1.4 – March 2017
Added more C++ to Xojo Data type conversions (Appendix A)
Added API MessageBox Function for AppX Windows Store compatibility (Example 6-9) – 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added enable and disable functionality for Window Close, Minimize, Maximize buttons (Example 6-10) - 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added GetKeyState for keyboard values (Example 14-1) – 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added GetAsyncKeyState for keyboard values (Example 14-2) – 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added GetCursorPos for mouse coordinate values (Example 14-3) – 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added ChooseColor dialogue box (Example 15-1) – 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added ColourIndex conversion to Colour (Example 15-1) – 32 and 64 bit compatible
Added Colour conversion to ColourIndex (Example 15-1) – 32 and 64 bit compatible

New example for ChooseColor Dialogue Box:

The ebook is a pdf formatted document and all examples include Xojo code. The Table of Contents can be downloaded at http://Scispec.ca under the heading books. This is one of the many available books at Xojo Library where many Xojo resources are available.