HOWTO: Display Extended ASCII WingDings on DBCS Systems

ID: Q181276

The information in this article applies to:
  • 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, Windows 98, 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:


    4. 
      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):


    6. 
      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

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbnokeyword kbVBp kbVBp500 kbGrpVB kbDSupport
Version : WINDOWS:5.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto


Last Reviewed: January 5, 2000
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