Reply to: So I'm using this thingie called PSET...

[zeitghost]

I gave a load of old books including a beginner's guide to VB3 to the Barnardo's charity shop last year. If you hurry Z it may still be there.

Thanks, Xogg, I'll pop along tomorrow morning. Probably gone though...

[xoggoth]

I gave a load of old books including a beginner's guide to VB3 to the Barnardo's charity shop last year. If you hurry Z it may still be there.

[zeitghost]

HTH

You'd never guess that I've never done any VB programming, would you

Not really, no... it seemed your usual sort of now you mention it...



I'm moving on now to the 4046 PLL setup, coz it's set for a centre frequency of about 4.5kHz, which is far too high.

I shall have to redimension things a bit... to bring it down to say 2.5kHz...



Well, I've done that & it does appear to receive stuff...

After much frigging around with pixel counts, it displays stuff.

Oddly, the timing seems very variable... I can't decide if VB is dropping characters or if the PIC16F88 is sampling randomly... I find it difficult to believe that the pic could be as far out as it looks on the screen... but I may well be wrong there.


It is indeed very odd... if I make the display window larger, the timing goes all to pot...

How weird is that?


Down to the speed of the pc, I've migrated the code on a floppy over to a slightly faster machine & the scan rate doesn't change any more.

Since it's running XP, however, the serial handling seems to have slowed to a crawl...

[DaveB]

HTH

You'd never guess that I've never done any VB programming, would you

Tell Bob and the rest of the Mumbai posse well done

[NickFitz]

Muchos gracias...

HTH

You'd never guess that I've never done any VB programming, would you

[zeitghost]

Danke.

I shall try that tomorrow.

I frigged about with that image thingie last week to no great avail... but then I don't know what I'm doing anyway...

I loaded up my, er, "copy" of VB3 pro today, coz it's got the MSCOMM thingie in it...

I've hacked about with the VBTERM example & have it writing stuff to a Picture that I've added.

It actually shows the range of the pll chip is quite limited, I may have to shift some bits in the PIC to restore it to something more applicable.

Or alternatively, I may attempt to use the external VRef I designed onto the board...

First, you need to set the AutoRedraw property to True before you do the drawing - the system then knows to keep track of what you draw. Otherwise, it expects you to have a Paint event handler that will redraw it every time.

You can check if this is the problem by hiding the window behind another window and then bringing it to the front again - if the PictureBox isn't redrawn, then change the code to set AutoRedraw before drawing, and try again - it should now work as expected.

Yup.

Did that, it now redraws ok... still doesn't save the image though...

I'm onto the next suggestion now, with the .Image thingie instead of the .Picture thingie...

This is so exciting...


Yes! Yes! Yes!.... the .Image thing does the business...

Muchos gracias...

[NickFitz]

First, you need to set the AutoRedraw property to True before you do the drawing - the system then knows to keep track of what you draw. Otherwise, it expects you to have a Paint event handler that will redraw it every time.

You can check if this is the problem by hiding the window behind another window and then bringing it to the front again - if the PictureBox isn't redrawn, then change the code to set AutoRedraw before drawing, and try again - it should now work as expected.

(The hide/show test may also be graphics-driver-dependant, so do the AutoRedraw thing even if it seems unnecessary after the first hide/show test.)

If that's working but it's still not saving correctly, try changing

SavePicture frmWfaxdisp.picDisplay.Picture, filetosave

to

SavePicture frmWfaxdisp.picDisplay.Image, filetosave

and see if that works.

Finally, some people claim that setting the PictureBox's Picture property to the value of its Image property will work, but that sounds a bit voodoo chicken to me - also, the VB docs seem to suggest that the Picture property is read-only at runtime. But if all the above fails, give that a try - revert the change to the SavePicture call as well if you try this.

[zeitghost]

Indeed.

It's a 3.5" floppy, I'll have you know... really up to the minute here...

VERSION 2.00
Begin Form frmWfaxdisp 
   Caption         =   "Weather Fax Display Program"
   ClientHeight    =   5820
   ClientLeft      =   1095
   ClientTop       =   1770
   ClientWidth     =   7365
   Height          =   6510
   Left            =   1035
   LinkTopic       =   "Form1"
   ScaleHeight     =   388
   ScaleMode       =   3  'Pixel
   ScaleWidth      =   491
   Top             =   1140
   Width           =   7485
   Begin CommonDialog CMDialog1 
      Left            =   2160
      Top             =   6600
   End
   Begin PictureBox picDisplay 
      Align           =   1  'Align Top
      AutoSize        =   -1  'True
      BorderStyle     =   0  'None
      DrawMode        =   4  'Not Copy Pen
      Height          =   9000
      Left            =   0
      Picture         =   WFAXDISP.FRX:0000
      ScaleHeight     =   600
      ScaleMode       =   3  'Pixel
      ScaleWidth      =   491
      TabIndex        =   0
      Top             =   0
      Width           =   7365
   End
   Begin Menu mnuFile 
      Caption         =   "File"
      Begin Menu mneSelect 
         Caption         =   "Select File"
      End
      Begin Menu mnuSep2 
         Caption         =   "-"
      End
      Begin Menu mnuSave 
         Caption         =   "Save File"
      End
      Begin Menu mnuSep1 
         Caption         =   "-"
      End
      Begin Menu mnuExit 
         Caption         =   "E&xit"
      End
   End
End
Option Explicit
'File Open/Save Dialog Flags
 Const OFN_READONLY = &H1&
 Const OFN_OVERWRITEPROMPT = &H2&
 Const OFN_HIDEREADONLY = &H4&
 Const OFN_NOCHANGEDIR = &H8&
 Const OFN_SHOWHELP = &H10&
 Const OFN_NOVALIDATE = &H100&
 Const OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT = &H200&
 Const OFN_EXTENSIONDIFFERENT = &H400&
 Const OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST = &H800&
 Const OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST = &H1000&
 Const OFN_CREATEPROMPT = &H2000&
 Const OFN_SHAREAWARE = &H4000&
 Const OFN_NOREADONLYRETURN = &H8000&

Sub mneSelect_Click ()
'dim nestring( 800,400 ) as string
 Dim filenum As Integer
 Dim input_char As String
 Dim R, G, B As Integer       'point colour
 Dim X, Y           'point location
 Dim loop_count As Long
 Dim file_byte_count As Long
 
 frmGetFile.cboFileType.AddItem "Fax Files (*.DUP)"
 frmGetFile.cboFileType.ListIndex = 0
 frmGetFile.Show 1

 MsgBox frmGetFile.Tag
 If frmGetFile.Tag = "" Then Exit Sub

 filenum = FreeFile

 Open frmGetFile.Tag For Binary As #filenum
 file_byte_count = LOF(filenum)

 Debug.Print file_byte_count

 X = 1
 Y = 1

 For loop_count = 1 To file_byte_count Step 1
 input_char = Input$(1, #filenum)

 'MsgBox "input char " + Hex$(Asc(input_char))
 R = Asc(input_char)
 G = Asc(input_char)
 B = Asc(input_char)

 frmWfaxdisp.picDisplay.PSet (X, Y), RGB(R, G, B) 'firkle pixel

 X = X + 1
 If X > 1599 Then 	'end of line?
    X = 0
    Y = Y + 1		'new line
    DoEvents
 End If

 If Y > frmWfaxdisp.picDisplay.ScaleHeight Then 'bottom of window?
 MsgBox "got to end of picturebox"
 Y = 0
 End If

 Next

 'frmWfaxdisp.picDisplay.AutoRedraw = True 'didn't work...

End Sub

Sub mnuExit_Click ()
 End
End Sub

Sub mnuSave_Click ()

Dim filetosave As String


CMDialog1.DialogTitle = "Save As"
CMDialog1.Flags = OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST Or OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST
CMDialog1.Filter = "All Pictures|*.bmp;*.wmf;*.ico"
CMDialog1.Action = 2

'store name of file to save
filetosave = CMDialog1.Filename
If filetosave = "" Then Exit Sub

MsgBox filetosave
'just in case, set up error handler
On Error GoTo notSaved

'save the picture in picDisp to the file specified in filetosave
SavePicture frmWfaxdisp.picDisplay.Picture, filetosave
Exit Sub

notSaved:
MsgBox "Could not save file " + filetosave, 48, "File Save Error"
Resume Next

End Sub

Sub picDisplay_Change ()
 MsgBox "changed"
End Sub

There you are... have a good larf...

[DaveB]

I'll have to find a floppy disk first so I can transfer it...

White heat of technology and all that, eh ZG?

[zeitghost]

I'll have to find a floppy disk first so I can transfer it...


P.S. I'm only using VB3 coz it happens to be on the junk machine in my project room.

I suppose I could load up something a bit more modern... except there's been dire warnings from the IT lot about sticking unaproved stuff on machines...

[NickFitz]

Yup.

Using SavePicture.

If I don't have anything loaded into the Picture, then it goes tits up with an error.

If I have a bitmap loaded, then it just saves it unchanged.

Tried the autoredraw thingie and it didn't do anything.

Ho hum.

I'm sure I'll get my head around it soon.

If I was writing it in VC++, then I'd expect to have created my very own DIB or something & be merrily setting pixels in that...

Ho hum. Squared.

I had a feeling that doing this sort of thing with VB was a bit outside the box...

It's ever so funny that the thing displays perfectly well, but it's not being written to the bitmap.

Post some code!

We can't debug it if we can't see it

Oh hang on, isn't that the point of Visual BASIC - you can't see the code...

Notwithstanding, GIVE US CODE!

[Diver]

The clue was in the original post...

Anyway, back to the original question.

Are you constructing a "windows" bitmap?

Maybe I should have read it?

[zeitghost]

Yup.

Using SavePicture.

If I don't have anything loaded into the Picture, then it goes tits up with an error.

If I have a bitmap loaded, then it just saves it unchanged.

Tried the autoredraw thingie and it didn't do anything.

Ho hum.

I'm sure I'll get my head around it soon.

If I was writing it in VC++, then I'd expect to have created my very own DIB or something & be merrily setting pixels in that...

Ho hum. Squared.

I had a feeling that doing this sort of thing with VB was a bit outside the box...

It's ever so funny that the thing displays perfectly well, but it's not being written to the bitmap.

[NickFitz]

Microsoft's MSDN Library, unsurprisingly, no longer has documentation for VB 3...

How are you attempting to save the image? Are you using the SavePicture statement?

If you are, and this is what's giving you the result you describe, perhaps you need to set the AutoRedraw property of the PictureBox to True?

[Churchill]

in my Weather fax display program in VB3, see...

And it's setting pixels in a Picture thingie as part of my form...

Quite successfully, it shows the image much as I think it should...

However, it ain't writing it on the bitmap thingie in the Picture... it's doing it somewhere else...

So when I save the bitmap, there isn't one there, or if I've loaded a blank bitmap into the picture and attempted to write on it, then it saves a blank bitmap.

Confused of Gamma Centauri.

Things were much simpler with a 286, dos, MASM, and a hercules display.

I have a book or two.

Using Visual Basic 5, with enterprise edition disk + Visual basic (5) in easy steps.

Where shall I post it ?

The clue was in the original post...

Anyway, back to the original question.

Are you constructing a "windows" bitmap?