XL5: Visual Basic Procedure to Display Screen Metrics

ID: Q108012

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

The following macro allows you to determine the metrics of your video display (that is, horizontal resolution, vertical resolution, number of colors) by using a macro in Microsoft Excel, version 5.0. This information may be helpful in creating macros that create variable-sized custom dialog boxes based on display size or take into account the effect of display resolution on printed output.


MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides examples of Visual Basic procedures for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This Visual Basic procedure is provided 'as is' and Microsoft does not guarantee that it can be used in all situations. Microsoft does not support modifications of this procedure to suit customer requirements for a particular purpose. Note that a line that is preceded by an apostrophe introduces a comment in the code--comments are provided to explain what the code is doing at a particular point in the procedure. Note also that an underscore character (_) indicates that code continues from one line to the next. You can type lines that contain this character as one logical line or you can divide the lines of code and include the line continuation character. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications programming style, see the "Programming Style in This Manual" section in the "Document Conventions" section of the "Visual Basic User's Guide."

'Each Declare statement should be entered as a single line 


Declare Function GetActiveWindow Lib "USER" () As Integer 



Declare Function GetDeviceCaps Lib "GDI" (ByVal hDC As Integer, ByVal _
nIndex As Integer) As Integer 


Declare Function GetDC Lib "USER" (ByVal hWnd As Integer) As Integer


Const Horz_res = 8
Const Vert_res = 10
Const Planes = 14
Const BitsPixel = 12 


Sub Display_info()
   'Returns the handle of the active window
   Act_Win = GetActiveWindow()
   'Returns the handle to the Device Context
   Dev_Con = GetDC(Act_Win)
   'Displays The Horizontal Video resolution
   MsgBox "Horz Video Resolution = " & GetDeviceCaps(Dev_Con, Horz_res)
   'Displays The Vertical Video resolution
   MsgBox "Vert Video Resolution =" & GetDeviceCaps(Dev_Con, Vert_res)
   'Displays the number of Planes
   MsgBox "Planes = " & GetDeviceCaps(Dev_Con, Planes)
   'Displays the number of Bits per Pixels
   MsgBox "Bits per Pixel = " & GetDeviceCaps(Dev_Con, BitsPixel)
End Sub


The above macro displays 4 message boxes showing the following:

NOTE: The macros shown below will not work on systems running Microsoft Windows NT (all versions). Microsoft Windows NT does not allow applications to control the operating system in the manner described below. These macros will run without error but will have no effect.

Additional query words: 5.0 high res mapping screen driver 


Keywords          : 
Version           : 5.00
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: April 8, 1999