MSComm serial port control HELP!!! - Visual Basic Discussion Boards

My boss has a project he wants me to convert to .NET. However, he is really concerned about people having to download the Framework, when its around 20 meg to download. It occured to me that it might be possible to develop for the compact framework, and that this might be significantly smaller, as I would assume its for handhelds. So I'd like any advice anybody can offer on the issue. Can you tell me, is the compact f/w able to run on desktops, is it much smaller, is this all worth the hassle? Will Dallas ever return to TV, and will JR get shot again?

To make money on this project we have to sell thousands of units of the software, and I don't think we can do that other than by download, and who wants to download an extra 20MB ontop of the current 10MB of the application? Its a tough call.

Also, if anybody has any sample code for calling .NET functionality from VB6 I would be vey grateful, as this will help me greatly with the refactoring of future applications.

Many thanks.

Nursey

cnurse wrote:
It occured to me that it might be possible to develop for the compact framework, and that this might be significantly smaller, as I would assume its for handhelds. So I'd like any advice anybody can offer on the issue. Can you tell me, is the compact f/w able to run on desktops, is it much smaller, is this all worth the hassle?

Compact Framework is for devices running Windows CE (which means if you have a CE Desktop, then yes Smile | :)

). It is much smaller, but I'm assuming you're running NT, yes? If so, then it's the full framework or not at all.

cnurse wrote:
To make money on this project we have to sell thousands of units of the software, and I don't think we can do that other than by download, and who wants to download an extra 20MB ontop of the current 10MB of the application? Its a tough call.

Well, IE, sends as part of the headers the .NET version if it's installed - so if that header is there you don't need to provide links to the framework, only for users who don't have it. I think for the difference between 10 and 30 meg (as opposed to say, 2 meg and 30 meg), I wouldn't worry about it - only Broadband users are going to really try to pull that down anyway.

cnurse wrote:
Also, if anybody has any sample code for calling .NET functionality from VB6 I would be vey grateful, as this will help me greatly with the refactoring of future applications.

It's easier than that - .NET projects can be registered as COM objects that can be instantiated from VB (there's an option in the projects settings). There's an attribute you apply to the class you wish to expose, and so forth.

Ian Darling
"The different versions of the UN*X brand operating system are numbered in a logical sequence: 5, 6, 7, 2, 2.9, 3, 4.0, III, 4.1, V, 4.2, V.2, and 4.3" - Alan Filipski

Ian,

Crystal clear as always. Thanks for the help mate.

The thing I have in the back of my mind is to run the application which could be developed in .NET, as a web app. There would be the minimum of downloads then, and of course nobody has to work hard to keep up to date with the latest version! 8-) I only have to rollout to one location too, sounds good huh!?

Regards,

PS:Like your little signature. UN*X can also be seen to be called XENIX, CTIX, AIX....hehe

Nursey

cnurse wrote:
The thing I have in the back of my mind is to run the application which could be developed in .NET, as a web app. There would be the minimum of downloads then, and of course nobody has to work hard to keep up to date with the latest version! 8-) I only have to rollout to one location too, sounds good huh!?

Web apps can be good. HREF-EXEs (also known as ClickOnce or No-Touch Deployment) look better Smile | :)

Unfortunately for you, it would seem to be best suited to corporate LANs:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/vbtchno-touchdeploymentinnetframework.asp[^]

But in the longer term, this might be how a lot of software is deployed in future generally.

Ian Darling
"The different versions of the UN*X brand operating system are numbered in a logical sequence: 5, 6, 7, 2, 2.9, 3, 4.0, III, 4.1, V, 4.2, V.2, and 4.3" - Alan Filipski

I'm having a problem that has me a bit confused. Maybe somebody out there can help me a bit.

I am making an adventure type fighting game and am using a listbox to display the combat results. My combat routine is contained within a function that calculates inititive, hitting, damage and whatnot. Right now all the info gets displayed all in one shot. What I want is to add a delay between the initiative and attacking messages.

What I've tried is a simple for next loop, but for some reason this has no effect. So I tried the 'System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2000)'method and this seems to create a pause. However it seems to run at the beginning of the function even though I put it halfway into my function.

Why is the .sleep method getting run first? Hopefully this makes sense.

thanks.

This is happening because your thread gets puts to sleep before your window has a chance to update. What you need to do is put an 'Application.DoEvents()' just before the Sleep statement and that should take care of it.

RageInTheMachine9532

Awesome! Now it works the way I want it. Thanks.

HELP please someone I'm using MSComm with C#.....at the moment I'm communicating via a null modem connection between 2 PCs. At the moment I'm just sending out some bytes from one PC to another PC... Got the communication to work... all is well.

The problem; I only expect something to be sent from one PC to other when I press a button on the sending PC which then uses the command object.Output= new byte [] {a number}; to send a byte to the other computer.... the recieving computer in turn recieves this and displays it via the ONComm event handler. The ONComm event on the recieving PC is raised when a byte arrives at the recieving PC serial port on pressing a button on the sending PC.... HOWEVER the ONComm Event is also raised (on the recieving PC)when I start up and exit the sending application. I just can't understand this! This could obviously be a really big problem... Can someone explain or have a solution to this? I would be grateful... I just can't seem to stop this event from raising when the sending application starts up or shuts down... This could be reallly disasterous if the sending PC sends something on start up (ie without me even having instructed the sending application to output a signal by pressing a button) when connected to a PICmicrocontroller which shouldn't recieve that signal....

Here is how i set up the 2 PCs;

com.CommPort = 1;
if (com.PortOpen) com.PortOpen = false;
com.RThreshold = 1;
com.Settings = "9600,n,8,1";
//com.DTREnable = true;
com.Handshaking = MSCommLib.HandshakeConstants.comNone;
com.InputMode = MSCommLib.InputModeConstants.comInputModeBinary;
com.InputLen = 0;
com.NullDiscard = false;
com.OnComm += new System.EventHandler(this.OnComm);
com.PortOpen = true;

Here is the ONComm event handler on the recieving PC which is connected with a null modem cable;

// MSCommLib OnComm Event Handler
private void OnComm(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//Message box 1
MessageBox.Show("recieved something 1");

switch (com.CommEvent)
{
case (short)MSCommLib.OnCommConstants.comEvReceive:
//Message box 2
MessageBox.Show("recieved something 2");

byte[] x = (byte[]) com.Input;
foreach (byte byt in x)
{
strrecvd += (char) byt;
//Message box 3
MessageBox.Show(strrecvd);........................

The only Message box that should show on the recieving PC is 3 and that only when I press a button to send a byte on the sending PC... However on the inclusion of message boxes 1 and 2 I noticed that when I started up or shut down the sending application they would show on the recieving PC.... Frown | :(

anyone?
I would never have known this happens had i not put a message box there to check something else...SCARY!

maria (phillips_maria2@hotmail.com)

Perhaps you should try posting this in the C# message board instead of the VB message board?

hi,
Can anyone help me how to set directory permissions on a particular directory and also on the subdirectories and files within that directory. Basically I want to set specific permissions for a Windows Group. Only that group should be able to access that directory and have specific permissions like read, write, add,delete etc.

What I did is
I made a directory and assigned a particular group to it, i.e. only that group can access the directory on the basis of permissions. Then by using Scripting.FileSystemObject I copied that folder in another drive. But the permissions are not transferred. Even if the permissions are transferred it will be useful to me. Right now I tried on Windows Nt Server 4.0. But I want this to work on Windows 2000 also.

Thanks.

Tasnim

Copying files and directories is independent of setting permissions on files and directories -- except in the sense that you cannot do one without the other. The FileSystemObject, as far as I know, doesn't perform any actions with respect to permissions. In order to do anything with permissions, you'd have to declare and access the Windows NT/2000 security API's. I think Dan Appleman has an article on this subject, try www.desaware.com[^] or Amazon.

Copying files using the FileSystemObject will not maintain the permission on the file. BTW: Permissions on the file level is not a good practice!

What happened is the new copies of the file inherited the permission of the folder you copied the files to and the ownership of the file is set to the person that ran the script that copied the files.

RageInTheMachine9532

This is driving me mad Mad | :mad:

How do I get a VB .Net Datagrid to automatically scroll past the visible rows when I click and drag on the row headers to select multiple rows?????????

As can be done when using MS Excel for example

Ray

Hello, guys....

I just want to ask how can I make the columns of my datagrid adjust to the length of the strings that will be displayed from the tables of my database that I queried from?

len_ems

I was wondering where i could find a updated files for the API Viewer. Also is there a api viewer for .NET or do you just need to use the one for 6.0.

check http://www.mentalis.org/
it has API viewers

I need testers and bug finders to pound the heck out of my Syntax wrapper class:
http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/RTBClass.asp#top[^]

Please post any bugs you may find in the messages section of the wrapper.

Thank you

Can anyone recommend a third party pdf processing component that I can run on a server. It needs to convert word and excel files (and possibly other formats) to pdf.

Jim

I haven't seen any FREE ones. Most of the components that I've come acrossed cost upwards of $1500. There are online coversion tools that can do the same job, but again, they are not free for production use.

RageInTheMachine9532

Thanks for the reply. I realize they're not free. I'm after feedback from people who have used these products and can give some feedback on how good the products are. Since posting my original query I have come across www.pdftools.com which is a usefull site for all pdf tools.

Jim

Dear community

I am working at a my project in Visual Basic 6 (Service Pack 5) and I notice this seroius problem.
When I create my executable on a PIII or Athlon Processor the speed of the program is almost two faster than when I create my executable on P4.
I think that the compiler isn't optimized for P4, but it's a strange fact.
( The P4 Work at 2.4 Ghz, P3 work at 1.0 Ghz and Athlon XP work at 1.6 Ghz (It is a AthlonXP2000)

Somebody can help me for increasing the speed on P4?

Unfortunately, the compiler doesn't have any optimizations for a P4, or a P3 for that matter. There's got to be something else installed on the machine that is causing this. I've run VB6 SP5 on my machines, P3, P4 and Athlon 2600+, with no difference between the executables or their speed.

Are the .EXE files generated EXACTLY the same, byte for byte?

RageInTheMachine9532

I have done two tests:
First I have made the executable on P3 and I tested it on P4. The difference on speed is about two times.
Second: I have made the executable on P4 directly, but it is the same.

The source code is the same, in each tests.
I have used Windows2000, and WindowsXp : there are no difference.

E.G.

Let me get this straight:

You compile the program on a P3. Run it on the P3 and P4 and the performance is about twice as fast on the P4.

You compile the program on a P4. Run it on the P3 and P4 and the performance is EQUAL on both machines!? Confused | :confused:

and its slower than when the program was compiled on the P3?

RageInTheMachine9532

Probably I made some mess in my word..
I tested the speed in two way:
First: I compile the program on a P3(1 Ghz) and I copy it on a P4 (2.4 Ghz) also.
In this way the executable is the same (Byte per Byte), but I see that the speed on P3 is faster (!!!) than the P4.

Second: I compile the program on P3 and run it.
I compile the program on P4 and run it.
I see that the P3 is faster than P4.

The P3 is faster than P4. Why? (Very strange)
I didn't install any special program and I have made some tests on different P4.

E.G.