Visual Basic 2008 is just one of the languages you can use to program your applications. The language is only one aspect of a Windows application. The visual interface of the application isn’t tied to a specific language, and the same tools you’ll use to develop your application’s interface will also be used by all… [Continue Reading]
Getting Started with Visual Basic 2008
Starting a New Project in Visual Basic 2008
To start new project in Visual Basic 2008, you can create a new project and start working with Visual Studio. To best explain the various items of the IDE, we will build a simple form. The form is the window of your application — it’s what users will see on their Desktop when they run… [Continue Reading]
Using the Windows Form Designer in Visual Basic 2008
To design the form, you must place on it all the controls you want to display to the user at runtime. The controls are the components of the Windows interface (buttons, text boxes, radio buttons, lists, and so on). Open the Toolbox by moving the pointer over the Toolbox tab at the far left; the… [Continue Reading]
Creating Your First VB Application in Visual Basic 2008
In this section, we’ll develop a simple application to demonstrate not only the design of the interface, but also the code behind the interface. We’ll build an application that allows the user to enter the name of his favorite programming language, and the application will evaluate the choice. Objectively, VB is a step ahead of… [Continue Reading]
Making Your VB Application More User-Friendly
Start a new project: the WindowsApplication2 project and rename it to HelloWorld2. Do not select the Create Directory For Solution check box; we’ll save the project from within the IDE. As soon as the project is created, open the File menu and choose Save All to save the project. When the Save Project dialog box… [Continue Reading]
The IDE Components in Visual Basic 2008
The IDE of Visual Studio 2008 contains numerous components, and it will take you a while to explore them. It’s practically impossible to explain in a single chapter what each tool, window, and menu command does. We’ll discuss specific tools as we go along and as the topics get more and more advanced. In this… [Continue Reading]
Toolbox Window, Solution Explorer Window and Properties Window
Toolbox Window The Toolbox window contains all the controls you can use to build your application’s interface. This window is usually retracted, and you must move the pointer over it to view the Toolbox. The controls in the Toolbox are organized in various tabs, so take a look at them to become familiar with the… [Continue Reading]
Output Window, Command and Immediate Windows and Error List Window
Output Window The Output window is where many of the tools, including the compiler, send their output. Every time you start an application, a series of messages is displayed in the Output window. These messages are generated by the compiler, and you need not understand them at this point. If the Output window is not… [Continue Reading]
Setting Environment Options in Visual Basic 2008
The Visual Studio IDE is highly customizable. I will not discuss all the customization options here, but I will show you how to change the default settings of the IDE. Open the Tools menu and select Options (the last item in the menu). The Options dialog box appears, in which you can set all the… [Continue Reading]
Building a Console Application
Apart from Windows applications, you can use Visual Studio 2008 to build applications that run in a command prompt window. The command prompt window isn’t really a DOS window, even though it looks like one. It’s a text window, and the only way to interact with an application is to enter lines of text and… [Continue Reading]
