Wiley Beginning Microsoft Visual Basic 2008
Contents
1. Both of these products enable you to create your own applications for the Windows platform The installation procedure is straightforward In fact the Visual Studio Installer is smart enough to figure out exactly what your computer requires to make it work The descriptions in the following Try It Out exercise are based on installing Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition Most of the installation processes are straightforward and you can accept the Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 default installation options for most environments So regardless of which edition you are installing the installation process should be smooth when accepting the default installation options Try it Out Installing Visual Basic 2008 1 The Visual Studio 2008 DVD has an auto run feature but if the Setup screen does not appear after inserting the DVD you need to run Setup exe from the root directory of the DVD To do this click the Windows Start menu at the bottom left of your screen and then select the Run start menu item or browse to the Setup program on the DVD In the Run dialog box you can click the Browse button to locate the setup exe program on your DVD Then click the OK button in the Run dialog box to start the setup program After the setup program initializes you will see the initial screen as shown in Figure 1 1 8 Visual Studlo 2008 Setup ea aes Microsoft a Visual Studio 2008 Setup r Install Visual Studio 2002. 4 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Start Page Microsoft Visual Studlo amp late File Edt View Tools Test Window Help D066 3 ne s2 3 a Start Page Solution Explorer OPR a rove ae Visual Studio Recent Projects MSDN Visual Basic Map LINQ Create Dynamic Maps with Visual Basic 9 0 and WPF Mon 3 Dee 2007 23 50 05 0800 Learn now to use LINQ and the new XML features in Visual Basic to easily visualize map data and dynamically draw them with Windows Presentation foundabon Visual Bask 2008 Express Edition Now Available Mon 19 Nov 2007 14 52 52 0000 Ihe Visual Basic 2008 Express Editon is the ideal deal tool for productively building object oriented applications for Windows on the NET Framework MSDN Subscribers Get Visual Studio 2008 RTM Now Mon 19 Nov 2007 14 52 28 0000 Get it here First With Visual Studio 2008 you can develop connected compelling sppibrstions for Windows Vista the 2007 Office system mobile devic the Web Microsoft NET Framework 3 5 Runtime Now Available Mon 19 Now 2007 22 23 38 0000 NET Framework 3 5 builds incrementally on the new features added in NET Framework 3 0 and is now availsble as a separate download Basic Instincts Extension Methods in Visual Basic 2008 Tue 30 Oct 2007 204854 0000 Learn how extension methods let you Oper Project Web Site Create Project How Dot What s new in Visual Basic Create Yo
3. Suppose you are working with a text box perhaps the text box in the HelloUser application and want to find out some information you just select the text box on your form or in the code window and then use Dynamic Help to see all the help topics that pertain to text boxes as shown in Figure 1 22 Dynamic Help Ix How Dol Q Search QD Help TextBox Control Overview Wind How to Select Text in the Winde gt aus How to View Multiple Lines in t How to Put Quotation Marks in TextBox Control Windows Form How to Create a Read Only Text How to Create 4 Password Text How to Control the Insertion Pc How to Create a Simple Bound TextBox Members System Windc 4 m J yt Properties E Oynamic Help Figure 1 22 23 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 The other help commands in the Help menu Search Contents and Index function just as they would in any other Windows application The How Do I menu item displays the Visual Studio Help collection with a list of common tasks that are categorized This makes finding help on common tasks fast and efficient Summary Hopefully you are beginning to see that developing basic applications with Visual Basic 2008 is not that difficult You have taken a look at the IDE and have seen how it can help you put together software very quickly The Toolbox enables you to add controls to your form and design a user interface very quickly and easily The Prope
4. cation to exercise the source code in various scenarios Q Window The Window menu has become standard for any application that allows more than one window to be open at a time such as Word or Excel The commands on this menu allow you to switch between the windows in the IDE Q Help The Help menu provides access to the Visual Studio 2008 documentation There are many different ways to access this information for example through the help contents an index or a search The Help menu also has options that connect to the Microsoft web site to obtain updates or report problems The Toolbars Many toolbars are available within the IDE including Formatting Image Editor and Text Editor which you can add to and remove from the IDE through the View gt Toolbars menu option Each one provides quick access to often used commands preventing you from having to navigate through a series of menu options For example the leftmost icon New Project on the default toolbar called the Standard toolbar shown in Figure 1 6 is available from the menu by navigating to File gt New gt Project Uncomment tep Into New Web Add New the selected Navigate Break i Over Propertie Fte pem fo All opy Find lines Redo aaa All Step Out window Joolbox Immediate ji j m ga ad eT eee SE Bibi pw a Se Bt oe xg cL New Soen Save Cut Paste Comment out Undo Navigate Start stop ssiution Dbject Error Project File the selected Backward Debugging
5. it to make some changes When working with other developers it is very important to keep the coding style consistent One of the most commonly used styles for control names within application development in many languages was designed by Dr Charles Simonyi who worked for the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center XPARC before joining Microsoft He came up with short prefix mnemonics that allowed programmers to easily identify the type of information a variable might contain Because Simonyi is from Hungary and the prefixes make the names look a little foreign the name Hungarian Notation came into use for this system Because the original notation was used in C C development the notation for Visual Basic 2008 is termed Modified Table 1 1 shows some of the commonly used prefixes that you will be using in this book Table 1 1 Common Prefixes in Visual Basic 2008 Control Prefix Button btn ComboBox cbo CheckBox chk Label 1b1 ListBox ist MainMenu mnu RadioButton rdb PictureBox pic TextBox eats Hungarian Notation can be a real time saver when you are looking at code someone else wrote or at code that you wrote months earlier However by far the most important thing is to be consistent in your naming When you start coding choose a convention for your naming It is recommended that you use the de facto standard Modified Hungarian for Visual Basic 2008 but it is not required After you pick a convention stick to it When modifying others c
6. the lowest levels Visual Basic 2008 frees the programmer from having to deal with the mundane complexities of writing Windows applications You are free to concentrate on solving real problems Visual Basic 2008 helps you create solutions that run on the Microsoft Windows operating systems such as Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 and Windows Mobile 6 If you are looking at this book you might have already felt the need or desire to create such programs Even if you have never written a computer program before as you progress through the Try It Out exercises in this book you will become familiar with the various aspects of the Visual Basic 2008 language as well as its foundations in the Microsoft NET Framework You will find that it is not nearly as difficult as you had imagined Before you know it you will feel quite comfortable creating a variety of different types of programs with Visual Basic 2008 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Visual Basic 2008 can also be used to create web applications and web services as well as mobile applications that can run on Pocket PCs or SmartPhones However you will begin by focusing on Windows applications before extending your boundaries to other platforms This chapter covers the following topics Q Event driven programming The installation of Visual Basic 2008 A tour of the Visual Basic 2008 Integrated Development Environment IDE How to create a simple Windows program m Q
7. the programming world it helps developers write robust and maintainable applications in record time With the release of Visual Basic NET in February 2002 most of the restrictions that used to exist have been obliterated In the past Visual Basic was criticized and maligned as a toy language because it did not provide all of the features of more sophisticated languages such as C and Java Now Microsoft has removed these restrictions and made Visual Basic NET a very powerful development tool This trend has continued with the release of Visual Basic 2003 Visual Basic 2005 and the latest release Visual Basic 2008 Each new release of the Visual Basic NET programming language brings about many new trends features and improvements making it a great choice for programmers of all levels Installing Visual Basic 2008 You may own Visual Basic 2008 in one of the following forms Q As part of Visual Studio 2008 a suite of tools and languages that also includes C pronounced C sharp and Visual C The Visual Studio 2008 product line includes Visual Studio Professional Edition or Visual Studio Tools Team Editions The Team Edition versions come with progressively more tools for building and managing the development of larger enterprise wide applications Q As Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition which includes the Visual Basic 2008 language and a reduced set of the tools and features that are available with Visual Studio 2008
8. 8 F e Install Visual Studio 2008 features and required components msdn Install Product Documentation Lal lt Check for Service Releases A Figure 1 1 The dialog box shown in Figure 1 1 shows the order in which the installation will occur To function properly Visual Studio 2008 requires various updates to be installed depending on the operating system that you have for example Service Pack 2 on Windows XP The setup program will automatically inform you of these updates if they are not installed You should install those updates first and then return to the Visual Studio 2008 setup program The individual updates required are different from the service releases listed as the third option in Figure 1 1 Step 1 of the setup program will install Visual Studio 2008 so click the Install Visual Studio 2008 link shown in Figure 1 1 The next step in the installation process asks you if you want to send the setup information from the installation of Visual Studio 2008 to Microsoft This is a good idea to help streamline the installation process of future editions of Visual Studio and no personal information will be sent You can click the Next button at this screen after you have selected or cleared the check box indicating whether or not you want this information sent Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 The third step in the installation process is the license agreement Read the license agreement
9. DE are beginning to show their purposes and you should take a brief look at them now before you come back to the Try It Out exercise Note that if any of these windows are not visible on your screen you can use the View menu to show them Also if you do not like the location of any particular window you can move it by clicking its title bar the blue bar at 11 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 12 the top and dragging it to a new location The windows in the IDE can float stand out on their own or be docked as they appear in Figure 1 8 The following list introduces the most common windows lello User Microsoft Visual Studio E eim Bile Edt View projet Build Debug Dats Formst Jools Tes Window Help E N E r EET TE NESE ET r gt na Ss E E Er Toolbox 3x Formi vb Design Start Page x Solution Explorer FX AB Windows Forms Alf Kou C2 1 Sh Comman Controis I Helio User K Pointer Bi My Pragect 4 Button E Formtvb El CheckBox BE heckedtistBox FE combofor FE Daterimericker S A labet 7 Uritabel EN usttox 35 ListView solution Expo Fy Dats Sources E MaskedTestBox L IT Monthcalendar mr FommLyd File Properties T Notityicon E Numericuppown pua Ei Ficturesox Build Action Compile D ProgressBar Copy to Output D Do not copy RadioButton Custom Tool 5 RichTertBox Custom Too Name fail TestBox Ea Toomp Th Treeview File Na
10. Debugging Explorer Browser List lines Figure 1 6 The toolbar is segmented into groups of related options which are separated by vertical bars The first six icons provide access to the commonly used project and file manipulation options available through the File and Project menus such as opening and saving files Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 The next group of icons is for editing Cut Copy and Paste The next icon is for finding and replacing items in your code The third group of icons is used for commenting out and un commenting sections of code This can be useful in debugging when you want to comment out a section of code to determine what results the program might produce by not executing those lines of code The fourth group of icons is for undoing and redoing edits and for navigating through your code The fifth group of icons provides the ability to start via the green triangle pause and stop your application You can also use the last three icons in this group to step into your code line by line step over entire sections of code and step out of a procedure These icons will be covered in depth in Chapter 10 The final group of icons provides quick links to the Solution Explorer Properties window Object Browser Toolbox Error List and the Immediate window If any of these windows is closed clicking the appropriate icon will bring it back into view If you forget what a particular icon does you can hover y
11. Disk Size Available Requred Remaining C 74 5GB 454GB 3 5GB 41 9GB Figure 1 2 The first component that is installed is the Microsoft NET Framework version 3 5 During the installation of this component you will be required to restart your computer After your com puter has restarted and you log back in the setup program will continue Note to Windows Vista users you will be prompted that the setup program needs to run and will need to grant permission to let the setup program continue After the setup program continues you can sit back and relax while all of the features are being installed The setup program can take any where from 20 minutes on up depending on the installation features chosen and the speed of your computer Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 T 10 11 Once the installation has been completed you will be presented with a dialog box informing you of the status of the installation Here you can see any problems that the setup program encountered At this point you are encouraged to update your computer with the latest secu rity patches and a link is provided in the notes to Windows Update When you have finished reviewing the setup status click the Finish button to move on to the next step If you chose to have your setup information sent to Microsoft the next step will be a dialog box sending the setup information This dialog box requires no action on your part and it will automatically c
12. User Message End Sub Throughout this book you will be presented with code that you should enter into your program if you are following along Usually we will make it pretty obvious where you put the code but as we go we will explain anything that looks out of the ordinary The code with the gray background is code that you should enter After you have added the preceding code go back to the Design tab and double click the Exit button Add the following highlighted code to the btnExit_Click event procedure Private Sub btnExit_Click ByVal sender As System Object _ ByVal e As System EventArgs Handles btnExit Click End the program and close the form Me Close End Sub You may be wondering what Me is Me is a keyword that refers to the form Just like the pro noun me it is just shorthand for referring to one s self Now that the code is finished the moment of truth has arrived and you can see your creation First however save your work by using File gt Save All from the menu or by clicking the Save All button on the toolbar The Save Project dialog box is displayed as shown in Figure 1 18 prompting you for a name and location for saving the project By default a project is saved in a folder with the project name in this case Hello User Since this is the only project in the solution there is no need to create a separate folder for the solution which contains the same name as the project thus the Create directory f
13. Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 This is an exciting time to enter the world of programming with Visual Basic 2008 and Windows Vista Windows Vista represents the first Windows operating system upgrade since Windows XP was first released in 2002 A lot has changed in the Windows user interface and Visual Basic 2008 makes it easy to write professional looking Windows applications as well as web applications and web services Haven t upgraded to Windows Vista yet No worries Visual Basic 2008 also allows you to write professional looking applications for Windows XP as well The goal of this book is to help you use the Visual Basic 2008 programming language even if you have never programmed before You will start slowly and build on what you have learned in subsequent chapters So take a deep breath let it out slowly and tell yourself you can do this No sweat No kidding Programming a computer is a lot like teaching a child to tie his shoes Until you find the correct way of giving the instructions not much is accomplished Visual Basic 2008 is a language you can use to tell your computer how to do things But like a child the computer will understand only if you explain things very clearly If you have never programmed before this sounds like an arduous task and sometimes it can be However Visual Basic 2008 gives you an easy to use language to explain some complex tasks Although it never hurts to have an understanding of what is happening at
14. ame was entered in the text box on the form in this case Stephanie Hello User Message m Hello Stephanie Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Figure 1 20 21 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 T After you close the message box by clicking the OK button click the Exit button on your form The application closes and you will be returned to the Visual Basic 2008 IDE How It Works The code that you added to the Click event for the OK button will take the name that was entered in the text box and use it as part of the message that was displayed in Figure 1 20 The first line of text you entered in this procedure Display a message box greeting to the user is actually a comment text that is meant to be read by the human programmer who is writing or maintaining the code not by the computer Comments in Visual Basic 2008 begin with a single quote and everything following on that line is considered a comment and ignored by the compiler Comments will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3 The MessageBox Show method displays a message box that accepts various parameters As used in your code you have passed the string text to be displayed in the message box This is accomplished through the concatenation of string constants defined by text enclosed in quotes Concatenation of strings into one long string is performed through the use of the ampersand amp character The code that follows concatenates a string consta
15. and then select the option button indicating your acceptance of the licensing terms Then click the Next button to continue As with most setup programs you are presented with a choice of options to be installed as shown in Figure 1 2 The default installation installs the recommended product features as determined by Microsoft You have the option to choose the default installation a full installation or to customize the installation When choosing the custom installation feature you will be presented with a dialog box allowing you to choose the languages and features of each language to be installed If disk space allows it is recommended that you choose a full installation However if you choose to customize the installation and omit some features from being installed you can always install those features later by rerunning the setup program After choosing your installation option click the Install button to have those features installed C3 Microsoft Visual Studlo 2008 Setup Options Page ee gt Microsoft s a Visual Studio 2008 setup Select features to install Feature description D Default This option installs all of the features available for the hhatals the recommended features for the product produa Full hstals al features for the product 5 Custom i E Select features to include and exclude from the Pea OS ON art C Program Files Microsoft Visual Sudio 30 Browse Disk space requirements Volume
16. control on the form The snap lines assist you in aligning controls to the left right top or bottom of each other depending on where you are trying to position the new control The light blue line provides you with a consis tent margin between the edge of your control and the edge of the form Set the Name property to btnExit and the Text property to E amp xit Your form should look similar to Figure 1 16 a Hello from Visual Basic 2008 E3 a2 Hello from Visual Basic 2008 E3 Enter Your Name Enter Your Name Figure 1 15 Figure 1 16 17 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Now before you finish your sample application let us briefly discuss some coding practices that you should be using Modified Hungarian Notation You may have noticed that the names given to the controls look a little funny Each name is prefixed with a shorthand identifier describing the type of control it is This makes it much easier to understand what type of control you are working with when you are looking through the code For example say you had a control called simply Name without a prefix of 1b1 or txt You would not know whether you were working with a text box that accepted a name or with a label that displayed a name Imagine if in the previous Try It Out exercise you had named your label Name1 and your text box Name2 you would very quickly become confused What if you left your application for a month or two and then came back to
17. e modules or controls were originally referred to as VBXs named after their file extension Prior to Visual Basic 5 0 if you did not like the way a button behaved you could either buy or create your own but those controls had to be written in C or C Database access utilities were some of the first controls available Version 5 of Visual Basic introduced the concept of ActiveX which allowed developers to create their own ActiveX controls When Microsoft introduced Visual Basic 3 0 the programming world changed significantly Now you could build database applications directly accessible to users so called front end applications completely with Visual Basic There was no need to rely on third party controls Microsoft accomplished this task with the introduction of Data Access Objects DAO which allowed programmers to manipulate data with the same ease as manipulating the user interface Versions 4 0 and 5 0 extended the capabilities of Version 3 0 to allow developers to target the new Windows 95 platform They also made it easier for developers to write code which could then be manipulated to make it usable to other language developers Version 6 0 provided a new way to access databases with the integration of ActiveX Data Objects ADO The ADO feature was developed by Microsoft to aid web developers using Active Server Pages ASP to access databases All of the improvements to Visual Basic over the years have ensured its dominant place in
18. en with the following code This is the shell of the button s Click event and is the place where you enter the code that you want to run when you click the button This code is known as an event handler and sometimes is also referred to as an event procedure Private Sub btnOK_Click ByVal sender As System Object _ ByVal e As System EventArgs Handles btnOK Click End Sub 19 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 20 As a result of the typographic constraints in publishing it is not possible to put the Sub declaration on one line Visual Basic 2008 allows you to break up lines of code by using the underscore character _ to signify a line continuation The space before the underscore is required Any whitespace preceding the code on the following line is ignored Sub is an example of a keyword In programming terms a keyword is a special word that is used to tell Visual Basic 2008 to do something special In this case it tells Visual Basic 2008 that this is a subroutine a procedure that does not return a value Anything that you type be tween the lines Private Sub and End Sub will make up the event procedure for the OK button Now add the highlighted code into the procedure Private Sub btnOK_Click ByVal sender As System Object _ ByVal e As System EventArgs Handles btnOK Click Display a message box greeting to the user MessageBox Show Hello amp txtName Text amp _ Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 _ Hello
19. he visual definition and the code behind it exist in separate files HelloUser Designer vb and HelloUser vb This is actually the reason why building applications with Visual Basic 2008 is so slick and easy Using the Design view you can visually lay out your application and then using Code view you add just the bits of code to implement your desired functionality Note also that there are two combo boxes at the top of the window These provide shortcuts to the various parts of your code Hover your mouse on the combo box on the left and you ll see a tooltip appear telling you that it is the Class Name combo box If you expand this combo box you will see a list of all the objects within your application If you hover your mouse on the combo box on the right you ll see a tooltip telling you that this is the Method Name combo box If you expand this combo box you will see a list of all defined functions and subroutines for the object selected in the Class Name combo box If this particular form had a lot of code behind it these combo boxes would make navigating to the desired code area very quick jumping to the selected area in your code However since all of the code for this project so far fits in the window there are not a lot of places to get lost Try It Out Adding Code to the HelloUser Project 1 To begin adding the necessary code click the Design tab to show the form again Then double click the OK button The code window will op
20. hole projects QO Edit The Edit menu provides access to the common items you would expect Undo Redo Cut Copy Paste and Delete Q View The View menu provides quick access to the windows that exist in the IDE such as the Solution Explorer Properties window Output window Toolbox and so on Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Q Project The Project menu allows you to add various files to your application such as forms and classes Q Build The Build menu becomes important when you have completed your application and want to run it without the use of the Visual Basic 2008 environment perhaps running it directly from your Windows Start menu as you would any other application such as Word or Access Q Debug The Debug menu allows you to start and stop running your application within the Visual Basic 2008 IDE It also gives you access to the Visual Studio 2008 debugger The debugger allows you to step through your code while it is running to see how it is behaving Q Data The Data menu enables you to use information that comes from a database It allows you to view and add data sources and preview data Chapters 16 and 17 will introduce you to work ing with databases Q Tools The Tools menu has commands to configure the Visual Studio 2008 IDE as well as links to other external tools that may have been installed Q Test The Test menu provides options that allow you to create and view unit tests for your appli
21. isual Basic 2008 to write applications in the Visual Basic NET language The ability to run Visual Basic NET code is included with the NET Framework You could write all of your Visual Basic NET code using a text editor such as Notepad You could also hammer nails using your shoe as a hammer but that slick pneumatic nailer sitting there is a lot more efficient In the same way by far the easiest way to write in Visual Basic NET code is by using the Visual Studio 2008 IDE This is what you see when working with Visual Basic 2008 the windows boxes and so on The IDE provides a wealth of features unavailable in ordinary text editors such as code checking visual representations of the finished application and an explorer that displays all of the files that make up your project The Profile Setup Page An IDE is a way of bringing together a suite of tools that makes developing software a lot easier Fire up Visual Studio 2008 and see what you ve got If you used the default installation go to your Windows Start menu and then select All Programs gt Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 gt Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 A splash screen will briefly appear and then you see the Choose Default Environment Settings dialog box Select the Visual Basic Development Settings option and click Start Visual Studio After Visual Studio configures the environment based on the chosen settings the Microsoft Development Environment will appear as shown in Figure 1
22. le Hello from Visual Basic 2008 is displayed That was simple but your little application isn t doing much at the moment Let s make it a little more interactive To do this you are going to add some controls a label a text box and two buttons to the form This will let you see how the Toolbox makes adding functionality quite simple You may be wondering at this point when you will actually look at some code Soon The great thing about Visual Basic 2008 is that you can develop a fair amount of your application without writing any code Sure the code is still there behind the scenes but as you will see Visual Basic 2008 writes a lot of it for you The Toolbox 14 The Toolbox is accessed through the View gt Toolbox menu option by clicking the Toolbox icon on the Standard menu bar or by pressing Ctrl Alt X Alternatively the Toolbox tab is displayed on the left of the IDE hovering your mouse over this tab will cause the Toolbox window to fly out partially covering your form Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 The Toolbox contains a Node type view of the various controls and components that can be placed onto your form Controls such as text boxes buttons radio buttons and combo boxes can be selected and then drawn onto your form For the HelloUser application you will be using only the controls in the Common Controls node Figure 1 11 shows a listing of common controls for Windows Forms Toolbox lw FX All Wi
23. lled templates ai Windows Office 5o Bel L ls v ve ia Smart Device Windows Class Library WPF WPF Browser Console i a Forms Ap Application Application Application es WCF m Vi Vi Vi t Web S Eo ve we Workflow Crystal Empty Project Windows WPF Custom WPF User Other Languages Reports A Service Control Li Control Other Project Types S Test Projects Ve Wg a dl Windows Reports Forms Application mA project for creating an application with a Windows user interface NET Framework 3 5 Name Hello User a Figure 1 7 Visual Studio 2008 allows you to target your application to a specific version of the Microsoft NET Framework The combo box in the upper right corner of the New Project dialog box has version 3 5 selected but you can target your application to version 3 0 or even version 2 0 of the NET Framework The IDE will then create an empty Windows application for you So far your Hello User program consists of one blank window called a Windows Form or sometimes just a form with the default name of Form1 vb as shown in Figure 1 8 Whenever Visual Studio 2008 creates a new file either as part of the project creation process or when you create a new file it will use a name that describes what it is in this case a form followed by a number Windows in the Visual Studio 2008 IDE At this point you can see that the various windows in the I
24. lose when finished The next dialog box is the one shown earlier in Figure 1 1 with the option to install the production documentation enabled Click the Install Product Documentation link to install the MSDN library The first step in installing the MSDN library is choosing whether to send the setup informa tion to Microsoft Make the appropriate choice and then click the Next button to continue Again it is recommended to send this information to help streamline future MSDN library installations Next read and accept the license agreement After you click the option button to accept the license agreement click the Next button to continue Like the installation of Visual Studio 2008 the MSDN library installation provides you with the options to choose the installation that best suits your needs as shown in Figure 1 3 If you chose to install the complete Visual Studio 2008 product set then you ll most likely want to choose the full installation of the MSDN library After making your installation option choice click the Install button to begin the installation CA Microsoft MSDN Library for Visual Studlo 2008 Setup Options Page te i Select features to install Feature description ge Thi talls all of the feat lable for th Installs af features for the product pra opnan installs all of the features available for the P Minimum hstalis the recommended features for the product Custom i E Select festures to include and exclude fr
25. ly The properties can also be grouped together in categories Accessibility Appearance Behavior Data Design Focus Layout Misc and Window Style 13 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 HelloUser System Windows Forms als So RightToLeft No 4 RightToLeftLayou False Showlcon True ShowlnTaskbar True E Size 300 300 SizeGripStyle Auto StartPosition WindowsDefat Tag Text Form1 TopMost False Transparencykey __ 3 UseWaitCursor False WindowState Normal Text The text associated with the control Figure 1 10 4 Right now the title Text property of your form displayed in the bar at the top is Form1 This is not very descriptive so change it to reflect the purpose of this application Locate the Text property in the Properties window Change the Text property s value to Hello from Visual Basic 2008 and press Enter Note that the form s title has been updated to reflect the change If you have trouble finding properties click the little AZ icon on the toolbar toward the top of the Properties window This changes the property listing from being ordered by category to being ordered by name 5 You are now finished with the procedure Click the Start button on the Visual Studio 2008 toolbar the green triangle to run the application As you work through the book whenever we say run the project or start the project just click the Start button An empty window with the tit
26. m m How to use the integrated Help system Event Driven Programming A Windows program is quite different from yesteryear s MS DOS program A DOS program follows a relatively strict path from beginning to end Although this does not necessarily limit the functionality of the program it does limit the road the user has to take to get to it A DOS program is like walking down a hallway to get to the end you have to walk down the hallway passing any obstacles that you may encounter A DOS program would only let you open certain doors along your stroll Windows on the other hand opened up the world of event driven programming Events in this context include clicking a button resizing a window or changing an entry in a text box The code that you write responds to these events In terms of the hallway analogy In a Windows program to get to the end of the hall you just click the end of the hall The hallway can be ignored If you get to the end and realize that is not where you wanted to be you can just set off for the new destination without returning to your starting point The program reacts to your movements and takes the necessary actions to complete your desired tasks Another big advantage in a Windows program is the abstraction of the hardware which means that Windows takes care of communicating with the hardware for you You do not need to know the inner workings of every laser printer on the market just to create output You do no
27. me EQ wensrawser Name of the file or folder Containers Ready Figure 1 8 Toolbox The Toolbox contains reusable controls and components that can be added to your application These range from buttons to data connectors to customized controls that you have either purchased or developed Design window The Design window is where a lot of the action takes place This is where you will draw your user interface on your forms This window is sometimes referred to as the Designer Solution Explorer The Solution Explorer window contains a hierarchical view of your solution A solution can contain many projects whereas a project contains forms classes modules and components that solve a particular problem Data Sources The Data Sources window allows you to connect to a database and choose the database objects for your application Properties The Properties window shows what properties the selected object makes available Although you can set these properties in your code sometimes it is much easier to set them while you are designing your application for example drawing the controls on your form You will notice that the File Name property has the value Form1 vb This is the physical file name for the form s code and layout information Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Try It Out Creating a HelloUser Project cont Next you ll give your form a name and set a few properties for it 1 Change the name of your f
28. nd right side of the control You can use these handles to resize the text box horizontally a Hello from Visual Basic 2008 gt Es Enter Your Name D a Figure 1 13 16 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 In the bottom left corner of the form add a Button control in exactly the same manner as you added the label and text box Set its Name property to btnOK and its Text property to amp OK Your form should now look similar to the one shown in Figure 1 14 The ampersand amp is used in the Text property of buttons to create a keyboard shortcut known as a hot key The letter with the amp sign placed in front of it will become underlined as shown in Figure 1 14 to signal users that they can select that button by pressing the Alt letter key combi nation instead of using the mouse on some configurations the underline doesn t appear until the user presses Alt In this particular instance pressing Alt O would be the same as clicking the OK button There is no need to write code to accomplish this a9 Hello from Visual Basic 2008 Co es Enter Your Name Figure 1 14 Now add a second Button control to the bottom right corner of the form by dragging the But ton control from the Toolbox onto your form Notice that as you get close to the bottom right of the form a blue snap line appears as shown in Figure 1 15 This snap line allows you to align this new Button control with the existing Button
29. ndows Forms ja Common Controis h Pointer Button E Checkbox Ha CheckedlistBox a ComboBox W DateTimePicker A Label A Linklabel EJ ListBox 33 ListView w MaskedTextBox Fa MonthCalendar Tal NotifyIcon RI NumericUpDown tal PictureBox D ProgressBar RadioButton BS RichTextBox m abl TextBox Toolfip EE TreeView EF WebBrowser Containers Figure 1 11 Controls can be added to your forms in any order so it does not matter if you add the label control after the text box or the buttons before the label In the following Try It Out exercise you start adding controls Try It Out Adding Controls to the HelloUser Application 1 Stop the project if it is still running because you now want to add some controls to your form The simplest way to stop your project is to click the close X button in the top right corner of the form Alternatively you can click the blue square on the toolbar which displays a ToolTip that says Stop Debugging if you hover over it with your mouse pointer 2 Adda Label control to the form Click Label in the Toolbox drag it over to the form s Designer and drop it in the desired location You can also place controls on your form by double clicking the required control in the Toolbox or clicking the control in the Toolbox and then drawing it on the form 3 Ifthe Label control you have just drawn is not in the desired location it really isn t a
30. nt of Hello followed by the value contained in the Text property of the txtName text box control followed by a string constant of Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 The second parameter being passed to the MessageBox Show method is the caption to be used in the title bar of the Message Box dialog box Finally the underscore _ character used at the end of the lines in the following code enables you to split your code onto separate lines This tells the compiler that the rest of the code for the parameter is continued on the next line This is really useful when building long strings because it allows you to view the entire code fragment in the Code Editor without having to scroll the Code Editor window to the right to view the entire line of code Private Sub btnOK_Click ByVal sender As System Object _ ByVal e As System EventArgs Handles btnOK Click Display a message box greeting to the user MessageBox Show Hello amp txtName Text amp _ Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 _ Hello User Message End Sub The next procedure that you added code for was the Exit button s Click event Here you simply enter the code Me Close As explained earlier the Me keyword refers to the form itself The Close method of the form closes the form and releases all resources associated with it thus ending the program Private Sub btnExit_Click ByVal sender As System Object _ ByVal e As System EventArgs Handles btnExit Click End the
31. ode use theirs A standard naming convention followed throughout a project will save countless hours when the application is maintained Now let s get back to the application It s now time to write some code 18 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 The Code Editor Now that you have the HelloUser form defined you have to add some code to make it actually do something interesting You have already seen how easy it is to add controls to a form Providing the functionality behind those on screen elements is no more difficult To add the code for a control you just double click the control in question This opens the code editor in the main window shown in Figure 1 17 amp Hello User Microsoft Visual Studio l E ltl Bile gdt Yiew Project Suid Debug Data Jools Test Window Heip dedia oO 4 Bl ALS S19 Oe Ss ee Oe Se SE E Hetiotises vb Start Pagel Hellouser Designs z i binor Fai E G Public Claaa He g l Priva Click ByVal sender As System Object ByVal e As System ZventArga Handles btnOK Click ji i End Sub rel End Class Figure 1 17 Note that an additional tab has been created in the main window Now you have the Design tab and the Code tab each containing the name of the form you are working on You draw the controls on your form in the Design tab and you write code for your form in the Code tab One thing to note here is that Visual Studio 2008 has created a separate file for the code T
32. om the Productia pons sant C Program Fies MSON MSDN3 0 _ Browse Disk space requirements Volume Disk Size Available Requred Remaining C 74 5GB 423GB 21GB 40 1 GB Figure 1 3 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 If you have the spare hard drive space it is a very good idea to install the full documentation That way you have access to the full library which will be important if you choose a limited set of options during the install and later add more features 12 After the MSDN documentation has been installed you are presented with a dialog box informing you of the status of the installation Click the Finish button to be returned to the initial setup screen again The Check for Service Releases option is now available It is a good idea to select Service Releases to check for updates Microsoft has done a good job of making software updates available through the Internet These updates can include anything from additional documentation to bug fixes You will be given the choice to install any updates through a Service Pack CD or the Internet Obviously the Internet option requires an active connection Since updates can be quite large a fast connection is highly recommended After you have performed the update process Visual Studio 2008 is ready to use Now the real fun can begin So get comfortable relax and enter the world of Visual Basic 2008 The Visual Basic 2008 IDE You don t need V
33. or solution check box has been unchecked Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Save Project ecm x Name Hello User Location C Users Thearon Documents Visual Studio 2008 Projects X olution Nam Hello User Micreate directory tor solution Figure 1 18 Now click the Start button on the toolbar You will notice a lot of activity in the Output window at the bottom of your screen Provided that you have not made any mistakes in enter ing the code this information just lets you know which files are being loaded to run your application At this point Visual Studio 2008 will compile the code Compiling is the activity of taking the Visual Basic 2008 source code that you have written and translating it into a form that the computer understands After the compilation is complete Visual Studio 2008 runs also known as executes the program and you ll be able to see the results Any errors that Visual Basic 2008 encounters will be displayed as tasks in the Task List window Double clicking a task transports you to the offending line of code You will learn more about how to debug the errors in your code in Chapter 10 When the application loads you see the main form Enter a name and click OK or press the Alt O key combination see Figure 1 19 Hello from Visual Basic 2008 PEE Enter Your Name Rephanie Figure 1 19 A window known as a message box appears as shown in Figure 1 20 welcoming the person whose n
34. orm to something more indicative of what your application is Click Form1 vb in the Solution Explorer window Then in the Properties window change the File Name property from Form1 vb to HelloUser vb and press Enter as shown in Figure 1 9 When changing properties you must either press Enter or click on another property for it to take effect HelloUser vb File Properties Ba ANE Build Action Compile Copy to Output Dire Do not copy Custom Tool Custom Tool Names File Name Name of the file or folder Figure 1 9 Note that the form s file name has also been updated in the Solution Explorer to read HelloUser vb Click the form displayed in the Design window The Properties window will change to display the form s Form properties instead of the File properties which you have just been looking at You will notice that the Properties window is dramatically different The differ ence is the result of two different views of the same file When the form name is highlighted in the Solution Explorer window the physical file properties of the form are displayed When the form in the Design window is highlighted the visual properties and logical properties of the form are displayed The Properties window allows you to set a control s properties easily Properties are a particular object s set of internal data they usually describe appearance or behavior In Figure 1 10 you can see that properties are displayed alphabetical
35. our mouse pointer over it so that a tooltip appears displaying the name of the toolbar option You could continue to look at each of the windows in the IDE by clicking on the View menu and choosing the appropriate window But as you can see they are all empty at this stage and therefore not too revealing The best way to look at the capabilities of the IDE is to use it while writing some code Creating a Simple Application To finish your exploration of the IDE you need to create a project so that the windows shown earlier in Figure 1 4 have some interesting content for you to look at In the following Try It Out exercise you are going to create a very simple application called HelloUser that will allow you to enter a person s name and display a greeting to that person in a message box Try It Out Creating a HelloUser Project 10 1 Click the New Project button on the toolbar 2 Inthe the New Project dialog box select Visual Basic in the Project Types tree view box to the left and then select Windows beneath it The Templates box on the right will display all of the available templates for the project type chosen Select the Windows Forms Application template Finally type Hello User in the Name text box and click OK Your New Project dialog box should look like Figure 1 7 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 7 a New Project en x j Broject types Templates NET Frameworks EE Visual Basic Visual Studio insta
36. problem When the control is on the form you can resize it or move it around Figure 1 12 shows what 15 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 the control looks like after you place it on the form To move it click the dotted border and drag it to the desired location The label will automatically resize itself to fit the text that you enter in the Text property i a Hello from Visual Basic 2008 gt E3 9 Label Figure 1 12 4 After drawing a control on the form you should at least configure its name and the text that it will display You will see that the Properties window to the right of the Designer has changed to Label1 telling you that you are currently examining the properties for the label In the Properties window set your new label s Text property to Enter Your Name Note that once you press Enter or click on another property the label on the form has automatically resized itself to fit the text in the Text property Now set the Name property to lbIName 5 Now directly beneath the label you want to add a text box so that you can enter a name You are going to repeat the procedure you followed for adding the label but this time make sure you select the TextBox control from the toolbar After you have dragged and dropped or double clicked the control into the appropriate position as shown in Figure 1 13 use the Properties window to set its Name property to txtName Notice the sizing handles on the left a
37. program and close the form Me Close End Sub 22 Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Using the Help System The Help system included in Visual Basic 2008 is an improvement over the Help systems in earlier versions As you begin to learn Visual Basic 2008 you will probably become very familiar with the Help system However it is worthwhile to give you an overview just to help speed your searches for information The Help menu contains the items shown in Figure 1 21 Help HowDol Ctri F1 Q Search Ctri Alt F3 gS Contents Ctrl Alt F1 Index Ctri Alt F2 E Help Favorites Ctri Alt F a Dynamic Help Ctrl Alt F4 E Index Results Shift Alt F2 MSDN Forums A Report a Bug Samples Customer Feedback Options Register Product Check for Updates amp Technical Support About Microsoft Visual Studio Figure 1 21 As you can see this menu contains a few more items than the typical Windows application The main reason for this is the vastness of the documentation Few people could keep it all in their heads but luckily that is not a problem because you can always quickly and easily refer to the Help system Think of it as a safety net for your brain One really fantastic feature is Dynamic Help When you select the Dynamic Help menu item from the Help menu the Dynamic Help window is displayed as a tab behind the Properties window with a list of relevant topics for whatever you may be working on
38. rties window makes configuring those controls a snap while the Solution Explorer gives you a bird s eye view of the files that make up your project You even wrote a little code In the coming chapters you will go into even more detail and get comfortable writing code Before you go too far into Visual Basic 2008 itself the next chapter will give you an introduction to the Microsoft NET Framework This Framework is what gives all of the NET languages their ease of use ease of interoperability and simplicity in learning To summarize you should now be familiar with Q The integrated development environment IDE Adding controls to your form in the Designer Q Q Setting the properties of your controls Q Adding code to your form in the code window Exercise 24 The answers for this exercise and those at the end of each chapter in this book can be found in Appendix A Create a Windows Application with a Textbox and Button control that will display whatever is typed in the text box when the user clicks on the button
39. t need to study the schematics for graphics cards to write your game Windows wraps up this functionality by providing generic routines that communicate with the drivers written by hardware manufacturers This is probably the main reason that Windows has been so successful The generic routines are referred to as the Windows application programming interface APT and the classes in the NET Framework take care of communicating with those APIs Before Visual Basic 1 0 was introduced to the world in 1991 developers had to be well versed in C and C programming as well as the building blocks of the Windows system itself the Windows API This complexity meant that only dedicated and properly trained individuals were capable of turning out software that could run on Windows Visual Basic changed all of that and it has been estimated that there are now as many lines of production code written in Visual Basic as in any other language Visual Basic changed the face of Windows programming by removing the complex burden of writing code for the user interface UI By allowing programmers to draw their own UL it freed them to concentrate on the business problems they were trying to solve When the UI is drawn the programmer can then add the code to react to events Chapter 1 Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 Visual Basic has also been extensible from the very beginning Third party vendors quickly saw the market for reusable modules to aid developers Thes
40. ur First Application Use a Starter Kit extend any existing lype s functionality even when a type is not inheritable Btension methods play a crucial role in the implementation of LINQ in Visual Basic UG Error bist Ready Figure 1 4 The Menu By now you may be eager to start writing some code Begin your exploration of the IDE by looking at the menu and toolbar which are not really all that different from the toolbars and menus you have seen in Microsoft Office 2003 although they differ from the ribbon bars in Microsoft Office 2007 The Visual Studio 2008 menu is dynamic which means items will be added or removed depending on what you are trying to do When looking at the blank IDE the menu bar consists only of the File Edit View Tools Window and Help menus When you start working on a project however the full Visual Studio 2008 menu appears as shown in Figure 1 5 File Edit View Project Build Debug Data Tools Test Window Help Figure 1 5 At this point there is no need to cover each menu topic in detail You will become familiar with each of them as you progress through the book Here is a quick rundown of what activities each menu item pertains to Q File Most software programs have a File menu It has become the standard where you should find if nothing else a way to exit the application In this case you can also find ways of opening and closing single files and w
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search