Introduction

About the Videos 1 Use the pause and re-wind buttons on the Windows Media Player
controls to review information you may have missed. Alternately,
you can use the following keyboard combinations to navigate
through the videos using Windows Media Player:

Pause Ctrl+P
Rewind Ctrl+Shift+B
Fast Forward Ctrl+Shift+F
Stop Ctrl+S
Volume Up F10
Volume Down F9
Mute F8

2 Our minds often work faster than an instructor can speak. If this is
the case, you can adjust the playback speed, increasing it by as
much as 25 to 30 percent. Select the following menu options:
Play > Play Speed > Fast.

Alternately:

Fast Ctrl+Shift+G
Normal Ctrl+Shift+N
Slow Ctrl+Shift+S

3 If you are having playback issues — for example, if the video

looks fuzzy — there are a couple of things that you can do to
improve performance:

http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/VideoProblems.aspx

Note: Members of LearnVisualStudio.NET have access to this

series encoded in different formats which can eliminate most
playback issues.
 About the Study Guides The study guides have one or two sections meant to help guide you
as you watch the lessons.

Important: There are no guide “chapters” for the last four lessons
... in these lessons we are creating an entire application from start
to finish. Please follow along by opening the source code for these
lessons provided on Microsoft’s site.

Active Participant

One study habit we’ve found effective with the videos is to formulate
questions about the content BEFORE you begin watching it. Use the
“Active Participant” section as a check list that you keep close while
viewing the videos, checking off (or even writing in answers in the
white space) for each of the questions. This keeps your mind attuned
to what you are viewing, how it fits into the context of the video as
a whole, and what significant information you should be focusing on
during the course of the lesson.

Exercises

The exercises are intended to be “homework” for you to stretch up

to and beyond what you learned in the video lesson. Attempt these
exercises on your own after you’ve watched the video.

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 Study Guide 02 / 11 Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition

Creating a Windows Application

Creating a Windows
User Interface
Application User Interface

Active Participant 1 Understand what the purpose of an IDE is, and how it helps you
develop software. What happens as you are dragging and
dropping controls on a form? When you double click on a control
in the Design View? When you modify properties of controls in the
Properties Window?

2 How to work with docked and hidden windows. How to pin and
unpin windows. How to move windows and dock them into other
areas of the IDE. How to work with tabbed windows. How to
open windows (View menu) and close windows (little red X button).

3 Pay attention to the properties we modify in the video. Many of

the controls have similar properties.

4 Become familiar with Best practices and tips for quick, accurate
layout of controls on a Windows Form.

5 Become familiar with the controls and the purpose that each of
them fulfill.

Best Practices 1 Arrange your controls in columns and rows.

2 Use standard fonts and colors.

3 Use standard, succint descriptions (names) for your controls.

Don’t make the user “think”.

4 Choose the correct control for the given task!

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 Tips * Make sure you have the right control selected before making
changes in the Properties window. (Use the control selector at the
top of the Properties window if necessary!)

* Since users will want to use the tab key to navigate through the
user interface, make sure to set the TabOrder property.
(Use View > Tab Order menu option.)

* Make sure your TabOrder starts with the control nearest to the
upper-left-hand corner and works its way in a logical fashion to
the lower-right-hand corner.

* Use the Layout toolbar and its buttons to help you layout your
form’s controls more accurately. Use various Align and Spacing
buttons to quickly layout form.

Exercise 1 Create a form for a movie rental application that allows your
company to rent DVDs to customers. Allow the store employee
The solutions to this exercise can be to select which videos the user wants to rent, to input the user’s
viewed in the following video file: name and address, as well as their credit card payment details
(credit card type, number, expiration date, etc.). Make sure the
02 - Solution to Exercise in Study
Guide for Lesson 02 (VB).wmv tab order is correct for quick input! (Use your imagination ... the
form might become rather large!)
available from the same place you
downloaded this Study Guide.

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