The commands in this section are used to control the way the cursor is displayed and to retrieve information about the desktop and system.

 

Command Summary:
SetCursor CursorID
HideCursor
ShowCursor
SetDepth colorDepth

Function Summary:
var = GetDepth ( )
var = HasDepth ( colorDepth )
var = Launch( pathname$ )
var = ScreenBorder ( dimension )
var = PowerPC ( )
var$ = AppPath( )

 

SetCursor CursorID

This command will change the shape of the mouse cursor. Please note this command will not work with the Console Text Window open.

CursorID - This should be a numeric expression that contains a value that is used to designate the cursor type. For example:

Cursor ID Values
0 = Arrow cursor
1 = Ibeam cursor
2 = Cross cursor
3 = Plus cursor
4 = Watch cursor

 

HideCursor

This command removes the mouse cursor from the screen.

 

ShowCursor

This command will redisplay the mouse cursor on the screen.

 

SetDepth colorDepth

This command will change the the pixel color depth of the screen. You can use this with the GetDepth and HasDepth functions to check and change the number of colors possible on the screen. You should normally ask the user if they want to change the screen depth before proceeding to do it.

colorDepth - This should be a numeric expression that contains a value that is used to designate the color depth in bits. For example:

colorDepth values
4 = 16 Colors
8 = 256 Colors
16 = Thousands of Colors
32 = Millions of Colors

 

var = GetDepth ( )

This function will return a numeric value representing the number of colors currently available on the screen.

return values
4 = 16 Colors
8 = 256 Colors
16 = Thousands of Colors
32 = Millions of Colors

 

var = HasDepth( colorDepth )

This function returns a value designating whether the screen can be set to a certain color depth. If it can, this function will return a value of 1, if not, it will return a value of 0.

colorDepth - This should be a numeric expression that contains a value that is used to designate the color depth in bits. For example:

colorDepth values
4 = 16 Colors
8 = 256 Colors
16 = Thousands of Colors
32 = Millions of Colors

 

var = Launch( pathname$ )

This function will launch start another application. It will return a one (1) if the application was successfully started or a zero (0) if the application file was not found or there was a problem launching the application.

pathname$ - This should be a string expression that contains the name of the application file that is to be used. If the file is not located in the current default directory then you must specify the directory path specification.

 

var = ScreenBorder( dimension )

This function returns a designate dimension of the specified window.

dimension - This should be a numeric expression that contains a value that is used to designate which Window dimension to return:

dimension values
1 = Return the left x screen coordinate for the screen.
2 = Return the top y screen coordinate for the screen.
3 = Return the width in pixels of the screen.
4 = Return the height in pixels of the screen.

 

var = PowerPC( )

This function returns a value indicating if the computer is running in 68K or PowerPC mode. It returns a value of 1 if the Visual MacStandardBasic program is running in PowerPC mode or a 0 if it is not.

 

var$ = AppPath( )

This function returns a string that is the folder location of the application.