VB Forum / General / November 2004

A resource file is nothing to do with VB - it is simply a container for a
number of resources.  Resources are blocks of data which can be embedded
into an executable file.  Each resource has a type and a number e.g.
Bitmap - 101 .  There are standard resource types, and private resource
types (which can contain any types of data).  Windows knows how to deal with
standard types of resources e.g. Bitmaps and Menus.  VB has built-in
functions for pictures e.g. LoadResPicture(), strings LoadResString(), and
all other types as byte arrays LoadResData().

Advantages of using resources are that there are standard ways of load data
from executeable files (which means that you could embed BMP files which
would normally be put in a Pictures folder, for instance).  When you compile
bitmaps into VB embedded in standard controls, the bitmaps are "hidden" in
the executeable.  If you instead put the bitmaps into resources, any of your
applications would be able to read the bitmaps from the executeable.  This
could be a good and a bad thing.  :-)
They are also very helpful if you want to have internationalised
applications, since you can add multiple resources for a single resource ID,
each one for a different target language, and the resource function will
load the appropriate one (although there are better ways to do this).

If you have VB6, there is a Resource file Add-In which comes with the
standard installation.  With VB5 you had to download it (and I wouldn't be
surprised if you can't any more).

As for online help - it does exist.  However, I recommend you go and read up
in depth on this topic in MSDN.

--
Mark Bertenshaw
Kingston upon Thames
UK