Visual Basic 6 Win32 API Tutorial
by Jason Bock
Category: Computers

Win32 API calls from Visual Basic 6 - allowing the VB programmer to access the powerful repertoire of API calls available when programming in Windows. Visual Basic does an excellent job of letting developers build sophisticated Windows applications in a relatively short amount of time. This allows one to quickly build prototypes for end-users to evaluate and test, which can accelerate the development cycle. However, this ease of use does have its disadvantages. By shielding the programmer from the low-level Win32 calls, he or she may not be able to optimize certain functions or perform some tasks that the users have requested. Unless a programmer has started his or her career developing Windows applications in a lower level language like C or Pascal, they may be unfamiliar with the API calls that can be made to the OS. This can lead to frustration or confusion in using an API procedure that may behave unexpectedly.