Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic is an entellus langur, also known as a hanuman langur. The entellus is the largest of the langurs, members of the Old World monkey family. These monkeys are found in northwestern India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the southern Himalayas. In India the entellus langur is a revered animal. An Indian legend tells the story of Prince Rama, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and his wife Sita. Sita was abducted and taken to an island. The king of the monkeys, Sugriva, and his minister, Hanuman, helped to free Sita and return her to her husband. As punishment, Sita's captor sentenced Hanuman to be burned at the stake. He was able to free himself, but not before his hands and face were burned. The legend says that all of Hanuman's descendants carry those burn marks on their hands and face to this day.

Entellus langurs are not as sociable as some other monkeys are. Although they live in groups of 8 to 125 individuals, they rarely band together for protection, instead seeking out solitary sanctuary. They can live in one of several social arrangements, but the single-male group is the most common. In these groups, there is one adult male living among several adult females and their offspring. Other groupings include multiple-male groups, in which several males of varying ranks live among females and young, and all-male groups, usually comprised of adult males who have been driven out of other groups. Competition for the single-male position can be fierce.

Entellus langurs eat a mostly vegetarian diet. Leaves are their principal food, but they also eat flowers, fruit, and seeds, and occasionally insects and fungi.Although quiet, the entellus langur can be an extremely active monkey. They are most active in the early morning, when they begin their first food forage of the day, and in the late afternoon, their second foraging time. During the hot afternoons they nap in a shady spot, and at night they sleep on i the edges of tree limbs, returning to the same spot to sleep every night. They leap from tree to tree, letting out joyous whoops as they go, and can jump distances of up to 10 meters. Jeffrey Liggett was the production editor for Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic; Beverly Goldfarb was the copyeditor; Judy Hoer and Anna Snow provided production assistance; Cindy Kogut was the proofreader; David Futato, Jeffrey Holcomb, and Claire Cloutier LeBlanc provided quality control. Robert Romano and Rhon Porter created the illustrations using Adobe Photoshop 5 and Macromedia FreeHand 8. Mike Sierra provided technical support. Ellen Troutman Zaig wrote the index.

Hanna Dyer designed the cover of this book based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The illustration was produced using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Kathleen Wilson produced the cover layout using QuarkXPress 3.32 and the ITC Garamond font. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover™'s limit, perfect binding is used.

Alicia Cech designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. The inside layout was implemented in FrameMaker 5.5.6 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.