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Chapter 11. Windows APIs
The Windows API has a bad rap among many Access programmers who think
it's too hard to figure out, too hard to call, or
just plain mysterious. We're here to prove that none
of these is the caseeven if you've never seen
the Windows API programmer's reference, you can use
the Windows API, given some help. In this chapter,
we'll present some interesting uses of the Windows
API from within Access, with example forms and modules for each
solution. In most cases, using these in your own applications entails
little more than simply importing a module or two and then calling
the functions. We've divided the solutions in this
chapter into three broad categories, as follows:
- The Windows user interface
You'll learn how to remove a form's
system menu, how to maximize and minimize buttons at runtime, and how
to draw attention to a specific form by flashing its titlebar or
icon. We'll discuss language-independent
classification of keypresses, so you can monitor exactly what keys
have been pressed. We'll also show how to restrict
mouse movement to a specific area on the screen.- The Windows shell
You'll learn how to have asynchronous code run
another program and pause until the other program is done before
continuing. We'll demonstrate a method for shutting
down Windows under program control and show you all the options of
the associated API functions. You'll learn to find
and run an application, given an associated data file, and how to
determine if the application is already running.
You'll see how to retrieve a list of all open
top-level windows (generally, one per application) and how to close a
window from your VBA code.- Files, drives, and hardware
You'll learn how to set file date and time stamp
information, which is useful if you're moving files
around from within applications or making backups based on dates.
You'll also learn how to retrieve information about
your disk drives, hardware, and the current Windows environment as
well as how to connect and disconnect from remote network devices
programmatically or using standard dialogs.
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