i am using microsoft visual studio 6.0 and whenever i open the .rc file it gives me a hexidecimal problem, then after i cycle through the problem a bunch of times it lays out the .rc graphically. in the tutorial .doc they show it as being coded, not graphical.any help would be greatly appreciated!thanks

The .rc is a "resource script", so basically a text file where the used resources are listed. VC wants to open it graphically by default, but if you want to edit it, you have to open it in text mode (the lower selection box, if you open a file). To get rid of the hexadecimal warning use decimal resource ids. It is better anyway, since there are some special offsets 500 (decimal!) for high resoultion bitmaps and one for masks, and subsequent icons, so it is less error prone to use decimal resource ids instead of hexadecimal.Sometimes I feel it even convenient, if the resource ids are hex: if I try to open a .rc file without thinking about the warning, I have then the choice to open it in text mode, which I usually need.I found only one occasion where it is convenient to use the graphic opening: for error checking if all resources have proper ids. An id name has to be without "", because "" around an id name means there is a problem with this id (usually a missing or mispelled id declaration). If the "" are present, the numeric id couldn't be found by the resource compiler and the name is used literally as resource id. A literally used resource id might be OK for certain situations, but not for gauges.Arne Bartels

Be sure to open the RC file in text mode only as the VS environment will at worst completely damage the file adding its own information, and at best reformat it so you no longer know where things are.The .rc file gets compiled by the RC compiler and can include bitmaps (only bmp and tga), wav sound files, string, icon and cursors.The raw format is also supported but you need to manually process the data as the WIN32 API won't know how to handle it.