MicroHelp VBTools Demonstration Program

MicroHelp's VBTools provides the programmer with a "grab bag" of services:

Lots of Custom Controls.

Pre-written toolbox routines. All of them are included in the
demo program.

Assembly language routines to make your programs faster and smaller.
You don't need to know anything about assembly language to use them
because they are invoked just like SubPrograms and Functions. Several
of these routines are demonstrated.

Key words that Microsoft forgot: MK?, CV? (including the MBF versions),
PLAY, BLOAD and BSAVE (for arrays other than variable-length string
arrays). Only the PLAY key word is demonstrated in this demo.

Graphics special effects, which are in the demo.

How to use some of the more useful Windows API routines. Many of these
are sprinkled throughout the demo.

A blackjack game.

A utility program giving you the functionality of $INCLUDE.

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The demonstration consists of these files:

READ .ME This file
VBTOOLS.EXE Demonstration program
VBTOOLS.VBX Dynamic Link Library (DLL) with supporting routines
CARDS .DLL Dynamic Link Library containing playing card bitmaps
SOUND .DRV New and improved sound driver

In order to run this demonstration, you'll need the Visual Basic
runtime DLL. The name of the file is VBRUN100.DLL. If you don't have
this file, you can download it from the MSSYS forum on CompuServe (the
file name is VBRUN.ZIP).

The SOUND.DRV file that comes with Microsoft Windows 3.0 has a bug that
effects "tempo" in PLAY statements. Microsoft has fixed the bug and the
included SOUND.DRV file has the fix. In order to hear the music in the
demo program as it was meant to be heard, you'll need to:

1. COPY SOUND.DRV to your Windows System directory (not the Windows
directory).
2. Make sure that your SYSTEM.INI has the following line:

sound.drv=sound.drv

3. Restart Windows

IMPORTANT: Be sure that you don't have more than one file named SOUND.DRV
in your path. If you do, Windows may read the wrong one and the music in
our demo program may play "slowly".

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The actual product contains numerous demonstration applications,
each of which shows you how to use one or more features from the
product. This demonstration consists mainly of several of the
example applications.

Please note that VBTOOLS.VBX and CARDS.DLL must be in your PATH
when you execute VBTOOLS.EXE. Therefore, after you install the
demonstration program, you will need to do one of two things:

1. COPY VBTOOLS.VBX and CARDS.DLL to a directory that is in your PATH, or
2. Adjust your PATH so that it includes the directory where you install
VBTOOLS.VBX and CARDS.DLL.

If you have any problems installing or running the demonstration program,
please call MicroHelp at (404) 594-1185.

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Double Clicking

We have had a report from someone who stated that after running VB and
one of the VBTools example programs (he didn't know which one), that he
could no longer double-click in *ANY* Windows application. He traced the
problem to the following line in the SYSTEM.INI file:

device=d:\windows\system\vtd.386

Replacing that line with the default line cured the problem:

device=*.vtd

Unfortunately, the user did have a file VTD.386 dated 4/17/91, but he
had no idea where it came from!