Visual Basic.net IDE

Integrated Development Environment

Visual Basic Workspace Menu bar Standard toolbar Toolbox window Project container window Form window Property description window Properties window Form layout window Project explorer window Note: VB.net IDE has added more features not available on VB 6.0

Menu bar Contains basic functions that appear in all Windows applications File Edit View Tools Help

Menu Bar

Standard Toolbar Add standard exe project Add form Menu editor Open project Save project Paste start Break End Project explorer Properties window Object browser Form layout window Toolbox

Standard Toolbar

Visual Basic Toolbox Pointer Label Frame Checkbox Combobox Hscrollbar Timer DirListBox Shape Image Picturebox Textbox Command button Option button List box Vscroll bar *note these are just a small sample of the tools in Visual Basic

Visual Basic Toolbox

Solution Explorer Window View Code button View object button Toggle folders button Form name and icon Project name and icon

Solution Explorer Window

Properties Window Properties list Properties settings

Properties Window

Visual Basic (Objects) Objects are the physical things you place onto a form. The form itself is an object Some examples of objects are labels, command buttons, & text boxes. Each object has a set of properties associated to It. The manipulation of these properties effects an object

Objects (Naming Conventions) Combo box (cbo) Text box (txt) Label (lbl) Form (frm) Frame (fra) Common dialog (dlg) Image (img) Timer (tmr) Option button (opt) Check box (chk) Menu (mnu) Toolbar (tlb) *note all objects should have a unique & descriptive name

Properties Properties tell something about an object, such as its name, color, size, location, or how it will behave You can think of properties as adjectives that describe objects When you refer to a property, you first name the object, add a period and then name the property Example: Form1.Caption

Methods Actions associated with objects are called methods Methods are the verbs of the object-oriented programming Some typical methods are Move, Print, Resize, and Clear You refer to methods as Object.Method For example, a Print method can apply to different objects. Printer.Print sends output to the printer object; Form1.Print sends output to the form called Form1