Written by a Microsoft insider and well-respected Visual Basic expert, Matthew Curland's Advanced Visual Basic 6: Power Techniques for Everyday Programs is a unique guide to extending the reach of VB into COM and object design. This compendium of tips and strategies for doing more in VB is perfect for intermediate to advanced developers who seek to overcome bottlenecks in performance and functionality in their favorite programming tool.
The underlying message is that VB lets you work more efficiently with Microsoft COM if you implement a few extra routines that look under its hood. The more notable techniques use memory more efficiently (including code that creates large numbers of objects faster). More advanced readers will appreciate the in-depth guide to building COM objects programmatically within VB. (The book shows you how to create lightweight COM objects by using custom routines.) For the real guru, there's even a section on how to use inline assembly language within VB. Later sections turn to a host of techniques for multithreading, doing more with windows, and how to manage and customize COM-type libraries for successful real-world deployment. Armed with these custom routines and an expert's-eye view of VB internals, you'll be able to get more out of VB with faster, more versatile programs. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered:
- Tips and strategies for extending Visual Basic by using COM
- VB pointers and memory management
- Extending VB arrays (accessing underlying SAFEARRAY COM objects and speeding up array performance)
- Accessing the IUnknown COM interface from within VB
- Binding names and COM vtables in VB
- Improving code reuse by using aggregation in VB (overriding functions in child classes and simulating polymorphism)
- Improving object cleanup in VB (circular, weak, and strong references and strategies for improving memory use in class hierarchies)
- Using COM class factory APIs within VB
- Loading DLLs and OCX controls directly
- Lightweight COM objects in VB
- Strategies for creating large numbers of objects efficiently
- Accessing the VB Running Object Table (ROT)
- Calling function pointers in VB
- Simulating inline assembly instructions
- Threads in VB (apartment models, worker and UI threads, and synchronization tips)
- Improving VB performance with strings
- Generating and customizing type libraries
- Binary compatibility of COM objects
- Tips for working with windows in VB (subclassing, custom window creation, and windowless controls)
- VBoost (custom library of advanced VB routines)
In Advanced Visual Basic 6, leading Visual Basic expert Matthew Curland demonstrates powerhouse techniques programmers can use to write high-performance, robust, and reusable VB code. Readers learn how to leverage the close relationships between VB, COM, and OLE Automation, extending the envelope of VB's capabilities and building high-quality, object-based systems. Key topics include how to:
* Control VB array variables explicitly to directly access arbitrary memory locations
* Call pointers to standard, cdecl, and class module functions
* Aggregate complete interface implementations into any VB object
* Override functions on any interface, including those implemented automatically by VB
* Turn any user-defined type into a lightweight COM object
* Minimize memory usage in systems with a large number of objects
* Safely create and manage threads in ActiveX EXEs and DLLs
* Interact with messages to customize windowed and windowless UserControl objects.
The Web site accompanying this book contains extensive source code samples to enable all techniques without external DLLs. It also provides integrated type library add-ins for creating and editing referenced libraries, modifying binary compatibility files, and customizing the type libraries that VB generated for ActiveX components. With this compendium of best practices, sophisticated techniques, and valuable utilities, VB programmers will gain a deeper understanding of VB's inner workings and be able to extend its object-oriented capabilities.
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