Opening the Properties Window and Changing Form Properties

Besides a Project Explorer window, each form (or control) contains a Properties window.  As stated in Running a Visual Basic Program, a property is a named attribute of an object.  Properties are used to change the appearance or behavior of objects. Figure 2.6...

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The concept of Focus

The concept of focus is important in Visual Basic.  The object that is selected (such as a form, control, or menu bar selection) is said to have focus.  In order for Visual Basic to know what file to save, it is necessary to click the object to give it focus, making...

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Naming a Project

Each time you begin a new project, the default name, Project1, appears at top of the form.  Unless you change the name, every project you work on will be named Project1.  To change the name, choose Project, Project1 Properties (see Figure 2.2), and type a new project...

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Learning How to Manage Visual Basic Projects

In this section, you learn how to open and save a project, add and delete files from the Project window, give an object focus (further explained in later section “The Concept of Focus”), and use the other File commands provided with Visual Basic.  You will also work through several exercises to rest your knowledge of the concepts presented. Opening,...

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Understanding the Concept of a Visual Basic Project

Every Visual Basic application is defined and saved as a project.  Each project, in turn, consists of a collection of files.  These files can include modules, insertable objects, and a single resource file.  Projects themselves are tracked by a project file, which...

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Writing and Running first Visual Basic Program

Last week you have learned how to run a program that had been made for you.  You probably noticed that when working with Visual Basic, several types of windows could be inspected – even though you were not asked to examine any one window in detail.  Here, you learn about three types of windows: Project window Properties window ...

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Running Visual Basic Applications

Now that you are a bit more familiar with the Visual Basic design environment, let us run few Visual Basic Applications. Exercise 1.3  Running the Finance Calculator Demo Create a Folder with the name Finance on your Hard Drive. Copy the Finance Project Source...

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Running Sample Visual Basic Programs

Given this brief introduction to Visual Basic, it is time for you to become more familiar with the Visual Basic programming environment.  Still, you are not expected to write a Visual Basic program at this time; right now, you’ll start Visual Basic and become a bit more...

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Software Components

After all of this discussion of classes and objects, you might be asking yourself, why all the fuss about objects?  What are the advantages of using objects? The real benefit of objects is that, developed properly, they provide software that is reusable and robust. ...

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Invisible Objects in Visual Basic

Not all objects in Visual Basic are visible and displayed to the user.  Neither are all object windows.  Visual Basic contains system objects that are available to use, although they are not displayed in the toolbox, including the following: App – This object stores information about the application, including its name, path (where...

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Understanding Objects as Instances of Classes

In the last example the two text boxes and the form we have tried are referred to as windows as well as objects.  In a Windows program, just about everything that you see on the screen is a window, and many items that you don’t see are windows. In a standard Windows word processing program, such as Word or WordPerfect, every button on the toolbars...

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Visual Basic Statements and Instructions

The discussion of objects and encapsulation in "Forms and Controls", uses several lines of Visual Basic code, including examples of object properties being assigned values and methods being invoked.  The terms code and instructions can be used interchangeably, but the term statement means something specific in Visual Basic. Visual Basic Statements...

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A Closer Look at Encapsulation

Object properties, methods and events make up what is known as the objects interface.  this interface may be considered the private view of the object and it describes how that object can be manipulated.  Objects also have a private view: the data and code that the...

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Object Properties

A property is a named attribute of an object.  Properties are used to change the appearance and behavior of objects, such as forms and controls.  These properties include attributes affecting the color, size, and name of the object. Let’s take an everyday object, such as a shirt.  Suppose you write the following: Shirt.Color...

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Forms and Controls

What, exactly, does the phrase "encapsulates the Windows PI" mean?  Encapsulation is a key concept for any object-oriented programming language.  It refers to the capability of an object to hide its internal workings from other objects.  In turn, the object allows...

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