api question

[iwdu15]

hi, does anyone kno of a website i can learn about the basics of API calling
and using windows DLLs in my program? ive been porogramming in VB for a
couple of years and want to start using more powerful code, so if anoyone
could point me in the rite direction id b grateful, thanks

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Iwdu,

This website is from the guy who has in my opinion the best answers about
API in these newsgroup

http://www.msjogren.net/dotnet/eng/default.asp

However using API's does not make your Net programs better. It makes them
worse. Mostly you can avoid them.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...l/win32map.asp

I hope this helps,

Cor

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

"iwdu15" <iw****@discussions.microsoft.com> schrieb:

hi, does anyone kno of a website i can learn about the basics of API
calling
and using windows DLLs in my program?

Visual Basic Language Concepts -- Walkthrough: Calling Windows APIs
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vbcn7/html/vaconCallingWindowsAPIs.asp>

--
M S Herfried K. Wagner
M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
V B <URL:http://classicvb.org/petition/>

[iwdu15]

why do API make the program worse? and also, why in order to do certain
things you need to call APIs, like for my program someone said in order to
hide the taskbar and make my program full screen, i needed to call and API,
without them i wouldnt have been able to do that

[m.posseth]

Well i believe that you should see Cor`s comment in the following context
( correct me if i am wrong Cor )

In the past with VB6 a lot of functionality was only availlable with API`s
, however now with .Net a lot of the Application Programing Interfaces are
part of the framework , so a lot of peoplle are still using API`s while they
could have used the framework classes to do the same thing . In this
situation it would have been better to use the framework functionality as it
is " protected " code

However in some situations it is still necessary to use API`s as MS did not
port all functionality that is availlable currently in the API library to
..Net classes , using API`s however comes with a prize
and that is for instance the posibility that you may encounter compatibility
problems in the future ( future releases of Windows might not have the
same API interface , or if you want to run your app on MONO on the Linux
platform ) these problems will not be there if you use the framework
classes that correspond to the same functions .

My personal opinion is that in some situations , there is nothing wrong with
using API`s , after thoroughly investigating that there is not yet a good
..Net alternative

Heck i believe i wrote that code for you that hides the taskbar if i
remember correctly ( a port from a snippet in a VB6 proggy i once wrote )
:-) well that was a legal situation
regards

Michel Posseth [MCP]

"iwdu15" <iw****@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:24**********************************@microsof t.com...

why do API make the program worse? and also, why in order to do certain
things you need to call APIs, like for my program someone said in order to
hide the taskbar and make my program full screen, i needed to call and
API,
without them i wouldnt have been able to do that

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Michel,

Nothing to add or deny by me,

:-)

Cor