How do i find out what &H2 does

[Mallek]

Ok i see in alot of these programs that like open CD rom drives and make you start button click in the module or somewhere in the code they have like &H2 or some type of key address i am guessing thats what it is. I would like to know if there is a list of these or if anyone knows a code that will display that # whenever an action takes place on your computer. If not i vouge to write one as soon as i figure out how to use vbasic!

Anyway i'm lost and i'm new i read all the tutorials i could find and now i'm trying to take apart code.

Any help would be greatly appriciated!

Thanks in advance,

&H2 doesn't actually do anything - its just the numer 2 in hex format. It's how it is used (eg as a parametr in a function) that defines what it does.

- gaffa

[Mallek]

I thought that every key and command you press on your keyboard has a value assigned to it. (infact i know this)
Like i remember in old days of BASIC i wrote a program than when you ran it would automaticly turn capslock on by sending the key code assigned to the key CAPSLOCK to the computer i don't remember how i did this or even where my old 286 is so i could boot up the darn thing to look at it. I hope that that makes a little more sence

Thanks in advance

[kedaman]

that has nothing to do with the &H
As gaffa said &H means you convert the hex value following the &H to decimal, so you could as well type the decimal value: 2.
the keys that are assigned a code (keycode) are just plain numbers

[Mallek]

Thanks for the replies maybe i'm confused (probably)
Anyway now that i have found out i'm dumb might you be able to tell me how to find out what key = what number

also do actions like opening you CD rom drive have defined numbers also? if so how might i found out what these numbers are?

thanks in advance and sorry about the confusion,

[Mallek]

Like you can disable cntrl-alt-delete by not allowing those key codes to be input... anyone know?

You can find out what key = what number by looking up "ASCII" in the VB help file.

[kedaman]

well those key codes may be intercepted with getasynckeystate:

'in declarations
Declare Function GetAsyncKeyState Lib "user32" Alias "GetAsyncKeyState" (ByVal vKey As Long) As Integer
'in code
if GetAsyncKeyState(Keycode) then 'do whatever

[gwdash]

Depending on The Function Called (usually API), A Certain
Constant like this

Public Const MY_CONST = &H4

can do many things. For Example, to open the CD Door you use the mciSendString API and send it a String Message (Don't rember the one though). Anyway, a better example would be this:

Private Declare Function GetSystemMetrics Lib "user32" (ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
Const SM_CXSCREEN = 0 'X Size of screen
Const SM_CYSCREEN = 1 'Y Size of Screen
'There are Tons of constants that can be used, only listed two.

'Then you pass them like this:
Dim retval As Long

retval = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN) 'etc.

Use the VB Api Viewer, or http://www.vbapi.com or the API ToolShed from http://www.allapi.com for this.

So those &HWhaterevers are just Constants being passed to a specific Function

Hope this helps.