Sorry about the long delay in this thread, I'm in the army and have been very busy with that. However, I am back on track and have just a couple more bugs to work out before opening it up for testing. If everything goes right I should be posting my dll for testers to try later today.
I decided it would be better to edit than double post ;)
Ok, here is what I have, a user control that simulates an LCD screen. (links later in the post) I would like it if others could test it out and let me knwo what they think.
Recoloring - Changing a color takes longer than expected. To see color changes you must clear the display. I left that up to the user so they can decide when they are done with the colors.
You can have an array of LCD Cells up to 255x255 (bounds are stored in byte values).
Color1 - Cell BackGround Color
Color2 - Inactive "dots"
Color3 - Active "dots"
Color4 - Highlight color for active "dots"
Lines - Number of lines of cells
Chars - Number of columns
Note: Each "Cell" is 11px wide by 15px high. The control will auto resize based on Lines x Chars.
In VB, function do not "have" to return a value so you can call them like a sub (ie. function(params)). Or you can get a value back:
Dim RetVal As Byte
RetVal = Function(Params)
RetVal will equal error codes (more on that later)
InsertText(CellX,CellY,User Text) - Iserts a string of text
SetCell(CellX,CellY,String Text, IsExtended As Boolean) - Set the text of a single cell
ClearLCD() - Clears all text
ClearLine(CellX) - Clears all text on a single line (To clear a signle cell, just SetCell(Blank Space))
0 = Success, no error
1 = Invalid Line Number
2 = Invalid Column Number
3 = Invalid Character
Special Characters are just that, special. To access special characters (this works with SetCell as well) use Chr(139) (‹) followed by the character for the special text. It should be notes that if you have a Chr(139) character and send text that does not corispond to a special character, it will be evaluated as a normal character. So to get a special character you will ne to send Chr(139) &
"A" = Copyright Logo
"B" = Rights Reserved Logo
"C" = BarGraph Level 1
"D" = BarGraph Level 2
"E" = BarGraph Level 3
"F" = BarGraph Level 4
"G" = BarGraph Level 5
"H" = BarGraph Level 6
"I" = BarGraph Level 7
"J" = Key Symbol
"K" = BlueTooth Symbol
"L" = Wifi Symbol (I am not real happy with the way this looks, I will probably end up remaking it)
"M" = Cell Service Symbol
"N" = GPS Symbol (Again, not happy with the way this one looks)
Screen Shot of the app used to test its functions:
Please let me know what you think.