HOWTO: Display Extended ASCII WingDings on DBCS Systems

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0

SUMMARY

From Visual Basic 5.0, you cannot consistently produce extended ASCII WingDings on DBCS (Double-Byte Character Set) versions of Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0. DBCS versions of Windows include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

MORE INFORMATION

Extended ASCII WingDings are those the have ASCII values 128 through 255. These WingDings cannot be displayed from the DBCS code pages because lead byte ranges for the double byte character sets can start at 129. A lead byte is the first half of the two byte representation used to describe characters in the double byte character sets.

Character sets are sometimes called charsets. Charsets refer to the same collections of characters defined by Windows code pages but their identification numbers can be expressed in a single byte. A code page is used to associate a numerical value to each character used in the language. For example, to illustrate the relationship between code pages and charsets, the code page for Chinese is 950 and the charset that corresponds to this code page has a value of 136 (see CHINESEBIG5_CHARSET in step 3 below). By changing the charset using the CreateFontIndirect API, you can display these WingDings using the TextOutA API.

There are other fonts whose extended ASCII characters can be displayed using this method.

The sample below displays all WingDings from 32 to 255 on DBCS Windows 95 and NT 4.0. It uses the CreateFontIndirect and TextOutA APIs. The method below can also be used to display extended ASCII characters for other fonts. To change the font in this sample, set lf.lfFaceName to the name of the font. It might also be necessary to modify lf.lfCharSet. Possible values for lf.lfCharset are listed as constants in the code below.

1. Create a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic 5.0. Form1 is created by default.

2. From the Project menu, select Add Module. Module1 is created by default.

3. Place the following code in the General Declarations section of Module1:

         Type LOGFONT
            lfHeight As Long
            lfWidth As Long
            lfEscapement As Long
            lfOrientation As Long
            lfWeight As Long
            lfItalic As Byte
            lfUnderline As Byte
            lfStrikeOut As Byte
            lfCharSet As Byte
            lfOutPrecision As Byte
            lfClipPrecision As Byte
            lfQuality As Byte
            lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
            lfFaceName As String * 32
         End Type
   
         'Charset constants
         'Values for lf.lfCharSet:
         Public Const ANSI_CHARSET        = 0
         Public Const DEFAULT_CHARSET     = 1
         Public Const SYMBOL_CHARSET      = 2
         Public Const SHIFTJIS_CHARSET    = 128
         Public Const HANGUL_CHARSET      = 129
         Public Const GB2312_CHARSET      = 134
         Public Const CHINESEBIG5_CHARSET = 136
         Public Const GREEK_CHARSET       = 161
         Public Const TURKISH_CHARSET     = 162
         Public Const HEBREW_CHARSET      = 177
         Public Const ARABIC_CHARSET      = 178
         Public Const BALTIC_CHARSET      = 186
         Public Const RUSSIAN_CHARSET     = 204
         Public Const THAI_CHARSET        = 222
         Public Const EE_CHARSET          = 238
         Public Const OEM_CHARSET         = 255
   
         'Values to be used with GetSysColor:
         Public Const COLOR_BTNFACE = 15
         Public Const COLOR_ACTIVEBORDER = 10
         Public Const COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION = 2
         Public Const COLOR_ADJ_MAX = 100
         Public Const COLOR_ADJ_MIN = -100 'shorts
         Public Const COLOR_APPWORKSPACE = 12
         Public Const COLOR_BACKGROUND = 1
         Public Const COLOR_BTNHIGHLIGHT = 20
         Public Const COLOR_BTNSHADOW = 16
         Public Const COLOR_BTNTEXT = 18
         Public Const COLOR_CAPTIONTEXT = 9
         Public Const COLOR_GRAYTEXT = 17
         Public Const COLOR_HIGHLIGHT = 13
         Public Const COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT = 14
         Public Const COLOR_INACTIVEBORDER = 11
         Public Const COLOR_INACTIVECAPTION = 3
         Public Const COLOR_INACTIVECAPTIONTEXT = 19
         Public Const COLOR_MENUTEXT = 7
         Public Const COLOR_SCROLLBAR = 0
         Public Const COLOR_WINDOW = 5
         Public Const COLOR_WINDOWFRAME = 6
         Public Const COLOR_WINDOWTEXT = 8
   
         Declare Function TextOut Lib "gdi32" Alias "TextOutA" (ByVal hdc As _
            Long, ByVal x As Long, ByVal y As Long, lpString As Any, _
            ByVal nCount As Long) As Long
         Declare Function DeleteObject Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hObject As Long) _
            As Long
         Declare Function CreateFontIndirect Lib "gdi32" Alias _
            "CreateFontIndirectA" (lpLogFont As LOGFONT) As Long
         Declare Function SelectObject Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long, _
            ByVal hObject As Long) As Long
         Declare Function SetBkColor Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long, _
            ByVal crColor As Long) As Long
         Declare Function GetBkMode Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hdc As Long) As Long
         Declare Function GetSysColor Lib "user32" (ByVal nIndex As Long) _
            As Long
   
   

4. Place a CommandButton on Form1.

5. Place the following code in the click event of the CommandButton (Command1):

         Private Sub Command1_Click()
   

            Dim lf As LOGFONT
            Dim chars(257) As Byte
            Dim sysColor As Long
            Dim DispChar As Integer
            Dim NumDispchar As Integer
            Dim prevBkCol As Long
            Dim hFont As Long
            Dim StartASCII As Integer
            Dim StopASCII As Integer
            Dim StartRow As Integer
            Dim NumOfChars As Integer
            Dim i As Integer
            Dim j As Integer
            Dim EndRow As Integer
            Dim NewStart As Integer
            Dim tmp As Integer
            Dim xd As Long
            Dim xt As Long
            Dim xs As Long
   
            'These are the important settings: lfCharSet and lfFaceName
            lf.lfCharSet = SYMBOL_CHARSET
            lf.lfFaceName = "WingDings" & Chr$(0)
   
            lf.lfClipPrecision = 64
            lf.lfOutPrecision = 0
            lf.lfEscapement = 0
            lf.lfItalic = 0
            lf.lfWidth = 16
            lf.lfHeight = 32
            lf.lfOrientation = 0
   
            Form1.Caption = lf.lfFaceName
            Form1.Refresh
            sysColor = GetSysColor(COLOR_BTNFACE) 'Gets button system color
            prevBkCol = SetBkColor(Form1.hdc, sysColor) 'Set background color
            hFont = CreateFontIndirect(lf)
            xs = SelectObject(Form1.hdc, hFont)
   
            DispChar = 32 'Number of characters to display in a row
            StartASCII = 32 'Starting with character having this ASCII value
            StopASCII = 255 'Ending with this ASCII character
            StartRow = 1
   
            If StartASCII < 0 Then StartASCII = 32
            If StopASCII > 255 Then StopASCII = 255
            If StartASCII > StopASCII Then 'If StartASCII is larger than
                                           'StopASCII swap
               tmp = StartASCII
               StartASCII = StopASCII
               StopASCII = tmp
            End If
   
            NumOfChars = StopASCII - StartASCII + 1
   
            If Int(NumOfChars / DispChar) = (NumOfChars) / DispChar Then
               EndRow = Int(NumOfChars / DispChar)
            Else
               EndRow = Int(NumOfChars / DispChar) + 1
            End If
   
            For i = StartASCII To StopASCII
               chars(i) = i
            Next i
   
            'Display characters on the form in rows containing 32 characters
            For j = StartRow To EndRow
               NewStart = StartASCII + (j - 1) * DispChar
   
               If NumOfChars < DispChar And NumOfChars > 0 Then
                  NumDispchar = NumOfChars
               Else
                  NumDispchar = DispChar
               End If
   
               xt = TextOut(Form1.hdc, 0, j * lf.lfHeight + 2, _
                  chars(NewStart), NumDispchar)
               NumOfChars = NumOfChars - NumDispchar
            Next j
   
            xd = DeleteObject(hFont)
            Form1.Caption = Form1.Caption & "   From " & _
                            StartASCII & " to " & StopASCII
   
         End Sub
   
   

6. Press the F5 key to run the application, and click the CommandButton. Note that all WingDings having an ASCII value from 32 to 255 are displayed.

REFERENCES

"Developing International Software for Windows 95 and Windows NT" by Nadine Kano, published by Microsoft Press, 1995

Keywords          : vb5all vbce WinCE
Version           : WINDOWS:5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto