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Nov 11, 2002, 11:22pm

I'm in a bit of a pickle right now. After going away from AW for about four
months, I've come back and started spending a bit more time working on my
software. But changes in the interval have brought up a few issues.

I've written thousands of lines of code in VB over the past three years, and
have amassed quite a collection. Most of the code uses MrGrimm's OCX
wrapper that used to be the standard.

Unfortunately, MrGrimm decided to change the implementation of his wrapper
recently. As a result, I now have a great deal of code that will be quickly
becoming obsolete as 3.4 and later versions are released. Rewriting these
programs is out of the question: Ultimate Paintball, for example, includes
somewhere near eight thousand lines.

Here are my questions:

1. Does anyone else have a wrapper for the AW SDK using Visual Basic (and
will continue developing it for future versions of AW) that functions
similarly to MrGrimm's discontinued OCX wrapper, even if terrain querying is
not available?

2. Since version 6 is going to become obsolete, I might as well move to
..NET. Is VB6 completely compatible with VB.NET or will making the
transition require changes in the code?

3. Does anyone have any idea where I can find a decent free tutorial on
designing graphical user interfaces (with the Windows API) using Visual C++
(preferably .NET, if 6 and .NET differ significantly)? I couldn't find one
that's easy to understand in the MSDN. I have a great deal of knowledge of
and have written quite a few programs in C++, but have never used it to
design Windows forms. If I can figure out how to use C++ to work with
Windows, then I can use AW's SDK directly and not have to rely on
third-party products in the future.

Thanks for any help anyone can come up with. Hopefully I'll be able to find
a solution to these problems so that I won't eventually be forced to
discontinue development of my current programs.

-Brant

Nov 12, 2002, 4:08am

I've used Visual Basic .NET and it can "upgrade" all your projects to it's
format including the OCX wrapper. Personally I'd like to know is there an
explanation anywhere on how to use the COM wrapper cause the
help/documentation on the site is outdated and I have no clue what to do
with the com wrapper.

--
OS: Windows XP Prof. Build 2600
Processor: AMD Athlon, 1.2GHz
Memory: 256MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 8.1 (4.08.01.0810)
Card: ATI Radeon 7000/VE 32MB (Driver Recent As of 10-14-02)
Video Mode: DX7 (w/o T&L)
Version: 3.4 Beta Build 442
[View Quote]

Nov 12, 2002, 4:27am

[View Quote] VB.NET is an entirely different language, about the only thing that remained the same is the name. There is a built-in VB6 project import wizard available that works great for "not-so-advanced" VB6 code but the changes in syntax and general approach are so massive that I often found it easier to rewrite small projects from scratch instead of porting them. IMO moving to VB.NET is not worth it unless you work for a company that requires it or if its demand raises in the job market; if you have to learn a new language and want to work with the CLR you might want to try C#.

>
> 3. Does anyone have any idea where I can find a decent free tutorial on designing graphical user interfaces (with the Windows API) using Visual C++ (preferably .NET, if 6 and .NET differ significantly)? I couldn't find one that's easy to understand in the MSDN. I have a great deal of knowledge of and have written quite a few programs in C++, but have never used it to design Windows forms. If I can figure out how to use C++ to work with Windows, then I can use AW's SDK directly and not have to rely on third-party products in the future.
>

I found the resources on http://gotdotnet.com/ very helpful on C++, C#, VB.NET. Anyway crash courses still work, get .NET, get a couple tons of books, mess with it, google it, solve problems as they appear :)

-Baron

Nov 12, 2002, 6:33am

This is a bit of a crap solution, but it would buy you some time to make a
more long-term decision while still having the interface of the OCX SDK -
Wrap the COM DLL in a control developed in VB using the same
methods/properties/events of the VBSDK OCX. The wrapper itself does very
little to speak of, so as long as the layers on layers on layers doesn't
cause too big an impact, bob's your uncle for the short term.

Grims


[View Quote]

Nov 18, 2002, 7:47pm

Eeek, really really old post but what the heck...

Use the VB COM wrapper exactly like you would the C++ version, to retrieve 32 bit integers use aw_int, for strings aw_string, for bools aw_bool and so on and so forth, the use of them is pritty simple just set the attribute as an argument.

dim avX as long
avX = sdk.aw_int(AW_AVATAR_X)

I thought what the heck might as make it even more similar and added a bunch of functions which do not require the SDK. before them as that is set in the function such as.

Public Function aw_int(AwAttribute_Set as AwAttribute) as long
aw_int = frmmain.sdk.aw_int(aw_attribute_set)
end function

Setting is near enough the same too...

sdk.aw_int_set AW_OBJECT_X,12345

Same goes with booleans with the aw_bool method, its mainly based on attribute calling rather than a whole lotta properties.

- Mark
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