VB Lesson 1 For SY BCA students

The Development Environment

Learning the ins and outs of the Development Environment before you learn visual basic is somewhat like learning for a test you must know where all the functions belong and what their purpose is. First we will start with labelling the development environment. The above diagram shows the development environment with all the important points labelled. Many of Visual basic functions work similar to Microsoft word eg the Tool Bar and the tool box is similar to other products on the market which work off a single click then drag the width of the object required. The Tool Box contains the control you placed on the form window. All of the controls that appear on the Tool Box controls on the above picture never runs out of controls as soon as you place one on the form another awaits you on the Tool Box ready to be placed as needed.

The project explorer window

The Project explorer window gives you a tree-structured view of all the files inserted into the application. You can expand these and collapse branches of the views to get more or less detail (Project explorer). The project explorer window displays forms, modules or other separators which are supported by the visual basic like class'es and Advanced Modules. If you want to select a form on its own simply double click on the project explorer window for a more detailed look. And it will display it where the Default form is located.

Properties Window

Some programmers prefer the Categorisized view of the properties window. By defaulting, the properties window displays its properties alphabetically (with the exception of the name value) when you click on the categorized button the window changes to left picture.

The Default Layout

When we start Visual Basic, we are provided with a VB project.A VB project is a collection of the following modules and files.

• The global module( that contains declaration and procedures)
• The form module(that contains the graphic elements of the VB application along with the instruction )
• The general module (that generally contains general-purpose instructions not pertaining to anything graphic on-screen)
• The class module(that contains the defining characteristics of a class, including its properties and methods)
• The resource files(that allows you to collect all of the texts and bitmaps for an application in one place)

On start up, Visual Basic will displays the following windows :

• The Blank Form window
• The Project window
• The Properties window

It also includes a Toolbox that consists of all the controls essential for developing a VB Application. Controls are tools such as boxes, buttons, labels and other objects draw on a form to get input or display output. They also add visual appeal.

Understanding the tool box.

You may have noticed that when you click on different controls the Properties Window changes slightly this is due to different controls having different functions. Therefore more options are needed for example if you had a picture then you want to show an image. But if you wanted to open a internet connection you would have to fill in the remote host and other such settings. When you use the command () you will find that a new set of properties come up the following will provide a description and a property.

Opening an existing Visual Basic project.

Microsoft have included some freebies with visual basic to show its capabilities and functions. Dismantling or modifying these sample projects is a good way to understand what is happening at runtime. These files can be located at your default directory /SAMPLES/
To Open these projects choose 'Open Project' from the 'File' menu. Then Double click on the samples folder to open the directory then Double click on any project to load it.

Opening a new visual basic file & Inserting Source code.

From looking at the examples it time to make your own application. Choose 'New Project' from the 'File' menu. Use the blank form1 to design a simple interface for an estate agents database, have some textboxes for names and other details. Insert some controls and make it look professional. Textboxes can be used to store there name and other details, make sure you put a picture box in for a picture of the house.
Now insert the following source code for your application.
Private Sub Form_Load()
Picture1.Picture = LoadPicture("C:\Program Files\VB\Graphics\Icons\Misc\MISC42.ICO")
End Sub

Running and viewing the project in detail.

Once an application is loaded it can be run by click on the icon from the toolbar, to pause press and to terminate use .
Once a project is loaded, the name of the form(s) that it contains is displayed in the project window. To view a form in design mode, select the form required by clicking with the mouse to highlight its name, then clicking on the view form button.

In this example the project has been loaded and the maillist.frm has been selected for viewing. This Ms Mail example project useds 6 forms and 1 modules. In Design mode, when the form is viewed, the code attached to any screen object may be inspected by double clicking on that object. The screen shots below show the interface of the Ms Mail example (.../samples/Comtool/VBMail/MaiLLST.FRM) to view the code for this form select from the project window item.

Private Sub SetupOptionForm(BasePic As Control)
BasePic.Top = 0
BasePic.Left = 0
BasePic.Visible = True
BasePic.enabled = True
OKBt.Top = BasePic.Height + 120
Me.width = BasePic.Width + 120
Me.Heigh = OkBt.Top + OkBt.Height + 495
End Sub

Making your first *.exe!?

To make an excutable from a project choose 'MakeMake project.exe from the 'File' menu. Then click once on the Make project.exe choose a default location to store your executable, you can also change some advanced options by clicking on the Options.. tag before saving your exe
The above image will be displayed in the comment's value type some comments company name name etc... The Title tag represents the caption you will see if you press Control + Alt + Del. And the icon is the icon that will be available on the execute icon. As you can see it is quite simple to understand. All the comments, data and name appear when you click on the compiled (execute) exe and click properties.

Saving your visual basic project.

Save your work to disk. Use the Windows Explorer or any desktop windows to check that all files have been saved. There should be one Visual Basic Project (.VBP) file and separate Form (.FRM) and Module (.BAS) files for each form and module used in the current project.

Button Properties for reference

,Command Button & labels properties

Property	Description
Name	The name of the object so you can call it at runtime
BackColor	This specifies the command button's background color. Click the BackColor's palette down arrow to see a list of common Windows control colours, you must change this to the style property from 0 - standard to 1 - graphical
Cancel	Determines whether the command button gets a Click event if the user presses escape
Caption	Holds the text that appears on the command button.
Default	Determins if the command button responds to an enter keypress even if another control has the focus
Enable	Determines whether the command button is active. Often, you'll change the enable property at runtime with code to prevent the user pressing the button
Font	Produces a Font dialog box in which you can set the caption's font name , style and size.
Height	Positions the height of the object - can be used for down
Left	Positions the left control - can be used for right
MousePointer	If selected to an icon can change the picture of the mouse pointer over that object
Picture	Hold's the name of an icon graphic image so that it appears as a picture instead of a Button for this option to work the graphical tag must be set to 1
Style	This determins if the Command Button appears as a standard windows dialog box or a graphical image
Tab index	Specifies the order of the command button in tab order
Tab Stop	Whether the object can be tabbed to ( this can be used in labels which have no other function )
Tool Tip Text	If the mouse is held over the object a brief description can be displayed (for example hold your mouse over one of the above pictures to see this happening
Visible	If you want the user to see the button/label select true other wise just press false
Width	Show the width of the object