Unicode in VB5

I am trying to develop an app that uses unicode for CJK languages. VB5 is meant to be a unicode application, but the text box and rich edit controls all display what is typed in DBCS. Is there any way to make it display unicode...or do I have to turn to a 3rd party control?

any ideas/solutions greatly appreciated,
psiclone.

[Mikesc]

I've been trying to find information on the same thing for quite some time now. I want to display Japanese characters, I don't care if its DBCS with JIS, or unicode. I just want to display them in English Windows 95 or 98. But even hardcore people have not been able to point me in the right direction. I don't want to use a third party control and have to worry about licensing. Here is what I've found so far ( and its all vague and uncertain ):

***Definitely you need the fonts for the characters. I've heard Microsoft offers two Japanese fonts for free download. I don't know about Hangul or Chinese.

***Possibly you need the Code Page that covers these fonts. Have no idea where to get this or even if it can be installed on English windows.

***If you do have these two things then maybe you will be able to display Unicode characters but you'll have to write your strings out as hexidecimal numbers that correspond to the Unicode characters you want to display.

*** You may be able to hack around the above by using vector fonts or bitmap fonts or whatever they're called but I haven't been able to get this to work because windows won't let me install the fonts.

That's as far as I've got but I know it can be done since IE is able to display CJS characters through plug-ins. I've tried to access the plug-in's dll's but Vb won't let me.

Another thing VB is unicode internally because that's what COM expects. But externally it's strictly ANSI...

Recently I've been picking up a little Java on the side. Java is Unicode from what I understand. So you may be able to use Java although there's also (maybe) the problem of code pages and (maybe) mapping unkown fonts.

If anybody knows how to do this please give us some info, please, please, please...

If its DBCS you want to display, a Japanese viewer should allow that as long as you have a suitable font installed.
I have also tried Borland CBuilder's EditBox control but that displays DBCS also. MS Office displays unicode nicely though...maybe I ought to contact Microsoft...
I've been experimenting with VB, and it seems the textbox control is unable to display unicode. Part of its probably still 16bit. I either have to use a 3rd party or a self coded component I reckon. 32bit API may also help...but I have no idea which call to use.

If anyone knows ANYTHING about how to use unicode in VB PLEASE reply. Any info will be very much appreciated.

psiclone.

[Mikesc]

What do you mean by a Japanese viewer?

Thanks for the info

[BrewGuru99]

I've had another, but related problem with vb's usage of the different character systems.

I need to save a string into a binary file, and retreive it again later in single bytes. But I want to only use one single byte for each character (ASCII), not DBCS or Unicode. And since the strings are taking up twice as much space as nessary, I have run into problems retreiving the file data in binary form.

I have not been able to figure out how to limit the strings to ASCII only. I can get around this by assigning a byte variable type the ASCII value of the character, but this is rather chinchy, and slow, as I would perfer to store the whole string in memory as an ASCII string.

I've been trying to solve this for some time now, so any help just MIGHT be very welcome

Brewguru99

By Japanese viewer I mean the program that you use to view and input Japanese characters. I think a program called NJStar Communicator is a CJK viewer. Unfortunately its not free :-(

[BrewGuru99]

What? No takers? No true programmers out there, rearing to show there bad-assness?

Brewguru99

[Ravi Kiran]

Rest assured, you wont get replies for your problems with this kind of 'bad-assness' of yours.

RK

[BrewGuru99]

Bad-assness of mine? I never said I was the bad-***, just looking for others that might have some bad-*** code they are just waiting to show to others.

Comeon, you can't tell me that you haven't ever writen some code that you thought was absolutely wonderful, regardless of all the other, potentially better code out there.

And if it's my choice of words that would prevent potential help from my peers, then I have no apologies. I hadn't demeened anyone, so I see no need for any.


Now, let me reiterate. I need to save a string into a binary file. Knowing the exact size of the file is important to me, and being as I have numeric values as well as strings, things can get confusing.

Brewguru99