DIALOGJB.TXT

       DialogJB--The Plain Visual Basic Common Dialog Replacement

This took a number of hours to make, but it takes the place of the
Common Dialog Box for opening, reading, or loading files.  With the use
of the List Box controls, it can do everything the Common Dialog Box
can in the "Open File" Action and with a little modification can do
what the "Save File" Action would do.  You could also add a "Help" button
to it and customize it in any way.  Unlike the Common Dialog Box that
ships with Visual Basic, you can control where it appears on the screen,
and you can control the color and appearance.  Add bitmaps, or whatever.
As written, it presents a 3D gray form which has become popular for Windows
applications including Win95.  Most importantly, it takes up a lot less
space--no COMMDLG.DLL, CDIALOG.VBX, CMDIALOG.VBX, THREED.VBX, or other
add-on file.

The form DIALOGJB.FRM is the form to add to your main program.  
This is the code for the Common Dialog Box.  The file
DLGJB2.FRM is, strictly speaking, not a form to load, but is a text file
with the routine for loading frmDialogJB from the Main form and three
helpful but optional routines which may be used in a MODULEx.BAS.

DialogJB as written includes calls to an INI file.  This, of course,
is optional depending on whether you need to read certain files or if
you need an "initial directory" feature.  I have written it to use
the small VBX called INICON.VBX put out by Mabry Software. (Many
BBS's and similar services carry demos of it.)  There are
other similar VBX's--or you may use the Windows API calls (if you
can get the things to work).

This was written with Visual Basic for Windows 3.0, but I believe it
works pretty much the same with earlier versions.

If you want to see how this is used, check out the shareware utility
WinAlter.

Enjoy.

James Bair
CompuServe 70730,3001
jbair@csunet.ctstateu.edu

