Q: Can I send messages to functions whose windows don't have focus?
Programs can call grid functions and callback functions without regard to keyboard or mouse focus. Everything works the same with or without focus. The only thing focus does is route keyboard input to the focus window. Your program can set the keyboard focus to a particular grid by sending the grid a #SetKeyboardFocus message.

Q: Messages sent with Windows API function SendMessage() disappear. Why?
Windows messages are not the same as GraphicsDesigner or GuiDesigner messages. They have different names, different values, and different arguments. They are utterly and totally incompatible. But that's not all by a long shot !!!!!!!!

Any name similarities between Windows and GraphicsDesigner are coincidence! A Windows window handle is not a GraphicsDesigner window or grid number. A Windows window procedure is not a GuiDesigner window or grid function.

Windows API function SendMessage() is totally incompatible with XgrSendMessage() or XuiSendMessage() . SendMessage() calls a Windows "window procedure". This window procedure is not the same as any GraphicsDesigner window function or grid function.

The Windows message queue is not the GraphicsDesigner message queue !!! These message queues are completely independent, separate, and different. GraphicsDesigner processes some of the messages from the Windows message queue, and discards the rest. Sometimes GraphicsDesigner adds one of its own messages to its own message queue as a result of a Windows message, but your program never, ever sees or deals with the Windows messages. Programs should never call SendMessage() to deal with a GraphicsDesigner window or grid.

Q: Why does SPACE$(1) create a different width space with different fonts?
SPACE$(n) creates a string containing n space characters. When strings are displayed by a GuiDesigner grid, the character width of every character, including the space character is determined by the font - by typeface, size, boldness, italic. In monospace typefaces, the width of the space character is the same as the width of all other characters in the same font. In proportional typefaces, the width of every character varies by design, so no characters, including the space character, is necessarily the same width as any other character. In addition, when proportionally spaced text is "full justified", meaning a straight left and right margin, the apparent width of space characters is varied to flush the margins.