Access™ 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference

H.1. API Viewer

Microsoft Office 2000 and XP offered a Developer Edition that contained many resources specifically aimed at the developer. In versions prior to that, developer tools were packaged in a separate product called the Developer Toolkit. These products included a utility called the API Viewer, which provided detailed information about the Windows APIs, including function, type, and constant declarations. With the release of Office 2007, Microsoft provides the Access Developer Extensions Toolkit, which unfortunately does not include the API Viewer. You can use the API Viewer from previous versions, or from Visual Basic 6.0.

Finding information about the API is difficult, especially detailed information about how to use it with Visual Basic. There are only two Win32 API viewers that we recommend for download from the Internet, and at the time of this writing, both of them are free. There are probably others around, but these two seem to be the best:

• The DX21 website provides a free online API viewer at:

  www.dx21.com/VISSTUDIO/WIN32API/INDEX.ASP?ST=Declarations

• The AllAPI website provides a good range of information, but the noteworthy point as far as this section is concerned, is that it offers a good (and free) API Viewer for download at:

  www.mentalis.org/agnet/apiviewer.shtml

Be advised that, as with many websites, you can never guarantee how long a site will remain in existence.