vb linking images with websites

sound_wave

hey everyone..just checked the net and looked through my vb book here at college and found nothing on this subject so..just wondering is there any way to link an image to a website in its click event?
thanks

tommycahir

did you try using the ole component
the msdn lib also prob have some code on it

sound_wave

ok thanks..see we havent gotten that far yet in our lectures so ill be going out on a limb here..trying to impress the lecturer for my project
thanks

Talliesin

Not entirely sure I know what you want to do, but I'm guessing you want code that will open a browser and browse to a particular URL. If so this will do it.

First unless you have a typelibrary for the Windows API (if you aren't sure then the answer is no you don't) you'll need this in the declarations section of the Form or Usercontrol:

Private Const SW_SHOWDEFAULT = 10

Private Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nShowCmd As Long) As Long

Then the following function will open the URI passed to it:

Private Sub BrowseTo(URL As String)
    ShellExecute 0&, vbNullString, URL, vbNullString, vbNullString, SW_SHOWDEFAULT
End Sub

The explanation:

ShellExecute is a Windows API function that does something to a file. Just what it does varies (and is worth researching), but suffice to know that with the above parameters it will do whatever the system's default operation is for the file that is passed to URL. Because the Windows shell treats URLs it recognises in a similar manner to local files this means it does whatever the default thing to do with HTTP URLs, which is generally to open it in the default webbrowser on that system.

Other methods might give you more control (e.g. to open it in a particular browser), in general though it's best to let the default operation take place, since that is what the system user wants to happen to HTTP URLs.