First let me say that I have used VB for Windows for several months 
and I would recommend it to anyone with a BASIC application for which
they require a Windows equivalent.  If you really didn't want to take the 
time to program productively using SDK, Visual Basic provided the least
painfull alternative.  Until QCWin was released that is.  

    There were many things however left out of VB which require the
capabilities of other compilers.  Included amoung these things are
calls to the remaing Windows library functions and direct memory/port
access.  Because the functions for cursor control were also omitted
VB programs which require lengthy memory/disk accesses cannot display
the famous HourGlass cursor to prevent operator hysteria.  This bothered
me to the point of writing an HGDLL for that singular purpose.

    Although Window library functions may be called by declaring them
individually in the VB .BAS file, some of the data types involved are
defined in Windows.h differently than those common to VB.  There is 
probably an easy work-around for this as there are probably several 
other ways to tap the other non-VB Windows functions.  But I feel that 
this approach will have more appeal to VB users who aren't particularly
iterested in writing technically rigorous code for their otherwise
user friendly applications.

    In order to use the HGDLL.dll it must be located somewhere on the 
PATH for Windows to find it.  The most obvious place to put it then is
either in Root or the \Windows subdirectory.  The VB application must
also be told where to find it by adding a declaration statement similar
to that below in its .BAS file:

        Declare Sub Hglass Lib "c:\windows\HGdll.dll" ()

    The following statement will serve to load and display the HourGlass
cursor while VB is busy processing non-cursor related operations.  Normally
another call to the Windows function would restore the original cursor by
its initial "handle" but VB seems happy to do that automaticly prior to 
processing further mouse input.  

        Sub control_click()
            Dim X as Integer
-->         HGdll                 <--
            Show "any_form"
        End Sub

    If anyone has a chance to use the above routine I would appreciate
hearing any comments they might have.  I will be attempting to stay 
current with the PC-OHIO Windows conference postings as well as my
personal mail.

                                        Michael Swaney