Beep Procedure

Beep Procedure

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Class

Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction

Syntax

 Beep 

Description

Sounds a tone through the computer's speaker

Example

 Private Sub Main(  )     iVoid = DoSomeLongFunction(  )     Beep     MsgBox "Finished!"      End Sub 

Programming Tips and Gotchas

• We have found the Beep statement to be completely unreliable, and therefore we never use it in applications intended for distribution.

• If you do decide to use the Beep statement, please remember that its overuse will not endear you to your users!

• The frequency and duration of the tone depends on the computer's hardware. Bear in mind that on some systems, a mouse click is louder than the beep!

• Since the successful operation of the Beep statement does not require the presence of any multimedia hardware (such as a sound card, for example), it can be used when a system is not configured to support sound. For example, if the following is defined in the declarations section of a code module:

   Declare Function waveOutGetNumDevs Lib "winmm.dll" (  ) As Long Declare Function PlaySound Lib "winmm.dll" _         Alias "PlaySoundA" (ByVal lpszName As String, _         ByVal hModule As Long, ByVal dwFlags As Long) _         As Long Public Const SND_APPLICATION = &H80 Public Const SND_ASYNC = &H1 Public Const SND_FILENAME = &H20000 Public Const SND_NODEFAULT = &H2 Public HasSound As Boolean Public Function IsSoundSupported(  ) As Boolean    If (waveOutGetNumDevs > 0) Then _       IsSoundSupported = True End Function 

  then the following procedure takes advantage of any existing sound hardware to play a wave file or simply beeps the built-in PC speaker if no sound hardware is found.

   Private Sub Form_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _                       ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _                       Handles MyBase.Load    Dim intCtr As Integer    HasSound = IsSoundSupported(  )    If HasSound Then       Call PlaySound("c:\windows\media\tada.wav", 0, _                      SND_FILENAME Or SND_NODEFAULT)    Else       For intCtr = 0 To 3          Beep        Next    End If End Sub