Screen Resolutions
Now that you can retrieve both the current screen resolutions and number of colours that are selected in Windows, you will want to know how you can enumerate the resolutions and colour modes that a machine supports. This can be very useful especially with changing the screen resolution programmatically, as you must know whether the computer supports it.
EnumDisplaySettings
This API function retrieves information about the display drivers graphics modes. There are three parameters:
LpszDeviceName Leave this as null (0&)
IModeNum = This is the index of the display mode that you want to retrieve information about, starting with 0. You call this in a sequence, and it will continue returning modes until 0 is returned by the API function.
PDevMode This parameter points to a DevMode type structure in which to retrieve information about the graphics modes that are available.
The following properties of the DevMode structure will be retrieved:
- dmBitsPerPel This is the bits per pixel or colour depth that is available in the selected graphics mode
- dmPelsWidth This is the width of the screen or the x axis.
- dmPelsHeight This is the height of the screen or the y axis.
Now to create a function to do this.
Private Declare Function EnumDisplaySettings Lib _ "user32" Alias "EnumDisplaySettingsA" _ (ByVal lpszDeviceName As Long, ByVal iModeNum As Long, _ lpDevMode As Any) As Boolean 'Screen Resolution Private Const CCDEVICENAME = 32 Private Const CCFORMNAME = 32 Private Type DEVMODE dmDeviceName As String * CCDEVICENAME dmSpecVersion As Integer dmDriverVersion As Integer dmSize As Integer dmDriverExtra As Integer dmFields As Long dmOrientation As Integer dmPaperSize As Integer dmPaperLength As Integer dmPaperWidth As Integer dmScale As Integer dmCopies As Integer dmDefaultSource As Integer dmPrintQuality As Integer dmColor As Integer dmDuplex As Integer dmYResolution As Integer dmTTOption As Integer dmCollate As Integer dmFormName As String * CCFORMNAME dmUnusedPadding As Integer dmBitsPerPel As Integer dmPelsWidth As Long dmPelsHeight As Long dmDisplayFlags As Long dmDisplayFrequency As Long End Type Public Sub EnumDisplay() Dim lTemp As Long, tDevMode As DEVMODE, lIndex As Long ' Declare variables lIndex = 0 Do lTemp = EnumDisplaySettings(0&, lIndex, tDevMode) ' Call the API function with the current index If lTemp = 0 Then Exit Do ' If the API function returns 0 then no more ' data is availible or an error has occurred. ' As you increase the index on each call ' when there is no more data to enumerate the ' function will return 0 With tDevMode Debug.Print .dmPelsWidth & " pixels by " _ & .dmPelsHeight & " pixels, Color Mode " _ & .dmBitsPerPel & " bit" ' Print the mode information to the debug End With lIndex = lIndex + 1 Loop End Sub
This function will enumerate all the display modes and display them in the debug window.
The functions here are demonstrated in the EnumDisplayModes demo project.
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This article was originally published on November 20, 2002