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Q. Delphi 2.0 has a control property called Hint that, when set to TRUE, automatically displays a 'microhelp box' beneath the control. It can contain default text or can be modified/set at run time.

Is there an equivalent feature way of doing this in VB4.0 without having to buy a control??

A. No, there is no equivalent property or facility in VB. You could probably hack a solution together without using a custom control, but it would definitely be easier to get a VBX/OCX to do this. The basic problem is that you do not generally have MouseEnter/MouseLeave events in VB, so you really need to jump through hoops to detect the fact that the cursor has hovered in one control for a couple of seconds so you can show the tip.

One alternative to a dedicated Tips control, is to use a generic subclassing control (such as SpyWorks from Desaware) to trap the required mouse messages and roll your own. I think SpyWorks comes with a demo that updates a status bar with text based on which control the mouse cursor is over. This would be a good starting point for creating Tips.

Or, you could just use Delphi. :-)

Jim Karabatsos.
Email : jimk@gui.com.au

Q. I want to trap keystrokes combinations, that it's if the users presses ALT-TAB, ALT-ESC and CTRL-ESC. Can you tell me how to do it?

A. You can use SpyWorks from Desaware. The ability to trap global keystrokes is but one of the many wonderful things it does.

Carl Franklin.
Email : carlf@apexsc.com

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