INTRODUCTION

Microsoft's Visual Studio (Visual Studio.NET) is a suite of products that includes the .NET Framework and
the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The .NET Framework supports several different programming
languages, which includes: Visual Basic, Visual C# (C sharp), C++ (cee-plus-plus), Visual F# (F sharp) and
Web Development (ASP.NET). These languages compile i.e. they are translated from human readable-form to
machine readable-form to the same Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL).
MSIL run within the Common Language Runtime (CLR) – a component of the .NET Framework.
VB is available in several editions including the free Express Edition that is downloaded from
Microsoft. Other editions are Professional, Premium, and Ultimate.
VB supports programming projects that run in both:
 Console Applications
 Windows Applications
 Web-based, Client-Server Applications

Microsoft .NET Framework

Provides a common set of services that can be used when programming in any supported language and enables
programmers to write programs that run on any operating system on any hardware platform
The .NET Framework encompasses the following:
 A new way to expose operating system and other APIs. For years, the set of Windows functionality that
was available to developers and the way that functionality was invoked were dependent on the language
environment being used. For example, the Windows operating system provides the ability to create
windows. Yet, the way this feature was invoked from a C++ program was dramatically different from
the way it was invoked from a Visual Basic program. With .NET, the way that operating system services
are invoked is uniform across all languages. This portion of .NET is commonly referred to as the .NET
Framework class library.
 A new infrastructure for managing application execution. To provide a number of sophisticated new
operating-system services—including code-level security, cross-language class inheritance, cross-
language type compatibility, and hardware and operating-system independence, among others—
Microsoft developed a new runtime environment known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The
CLR includes the Common Type System (CTS) for cross-language type compatibility and the Common
Language Specification (CLS) for ensuring that third-party libraries can be used from all .NET-enabled
languages. To support hardware and operating-system independence, Microsoft developed the Microsoft
Intermediate Language (MSIL or IL). IL is a CPU-independent machine language-style instruction set
into which .NET Framework programs are compiled. IL programs are compiled to the actual machine
language on the target platform prior to execution (known as just-in-time, or JIT, compiling) i.e. IL is
never interpreted.
 A new web server paradigm. To support high-capacity web sites, Microsoft replaced its Active Server
Pages (ASP) technology with ASP.NET.
 A new focus on distributed-application architecture. Visual Studio .NET provides top-notch tools for
creating and consuming web services -- vendor-independent software services that can be invoked over
the Internet.
The .NET Framework is designed top to bottom with the Internet in mind. For example, ADO.NET, the next
step in the evolution of Microsoft's vision of "universal data access," assumes that applications will work with
disconnected data by default. In addition, the DOT.NET classes provide sophisticated XML capabilities, further
increasing their usefulness in a distributed environment.

Visual Studio
You will use the VB component of Visual Studio to create and test projects.
 The programming applications you will design and develop are called solutions i.e. each Application
that you create is organized by Visual Studio into a Solution

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  A solution is a container for all your work on an application. A solution contains several folders that
define an application’s structure. Each solution files have a file suffix of .sln
 A solution contains one or more projects
o The project file is used to create an executable application
o A project file has a suffix of .vbproj

Visual Studio Components

When Visual Studio is installed on a computer, there are two mandatory components to the installation and an
optional third component.
 NET Framework Class Library (FCL). Contains files of pre-written code organized as classes. The
classes themselves are organized (grouped) into Java-like packages called namespaces. The groupings
are done according to the functionality of the classes. It enables you to quickly build a computer
application through the use of predefined objects such as forms, text boxes, labels, buttons, drop-down
list controls, and others, (mandatory).
 Common Language Runtime (CLR). This component manages the execution of a programming
project written in any of the languages that are included within Visual Studio including Visual Basic as a
language. This component is installed as part of the .NET Framework (mandatory).
 MSDN (Help). This is the help component and provides access to a help reference library. It is an
optional, but highly recommended component.
.NET Applications

Visual Basic Visual C# Visual C++ Visual J#

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Class Library

Windows Forms classes ASP.NET classes Other classes

Common Language Runtime

Managed applications Common Type System Intermediate Language

Operating System and Hardware

Windows 2000/2003 Windows XP Other Operating Systems

Object-Oriented Programming Terminology

VB is an object-oriented programming language i.e. you work with objects in building an application, e.g.,
Form objects, Button objects, TextBox objects, Label objects, ListBox objects, and more.
VB is also termed an event-driven programming language because you will write program code that responds
to events that are controlled by the system user. Example events include: Clicking a button or menu, Opening
or Closing a form or Moving the mouse over the top of an object such as a text box.

In order to work with VB, you need to understand "object" terminology as defined below.
Terminology Definition
Object An entity – like a noun in English. Examples include forms and controls
you place on forms such as buttons, text boxes, and icons.
Property Objects have properties – like adjectives in English. Properties describe
object behaviors. Examples of properties include Text, Name, BackColor,
and Size. Refer to a property by the notation ObjectName.PropertyName
example: TotalDueTextBox.Text

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 Method Like a verb in English – these are the actions that objects exhibit. Examples
include methods to Show, Hide and Close forms. Refer to a method with
the notation ObjectName.MethodName – example Me.Close
Event Events are actions usually triggered by the system user such as clicking a
button; however, events can also be triggered by the actions of objects. For
example, closing a form can trigger an event.
Class This is an abstract term – it is a sort of template for an object. For example,
all forms belong to the Form class of object. All buttons belong to the
Button class of object. Classes include definitions for object properties,
methods, and associated events. Each class is assigned an identifying
namespace within the .NET Framework Class Library. Each new object you
create is defined based on its class – the new object is called a class
instance.

The Integrated Development Environment

The IDE is the interface between the programmer and the .NET tools. It is used to develop applications in any
of the supported programming languages (Console, Web, and Windows development, etc). It includes an editor
for all .NET languages as well as XML and HTML as well as a comprehensive set of tools for forms design and
code organization
The following are some of the components of Visual Basic IDE:
1). Form Designer (also termed the Document Window).
Displays open documents such as the Form1. Tabs along the top are used to allow you to switch rapidly
between open documents. The form can be resized by using the sizing handles.
2). Solution Explorer Window – displays filenames for files that comprise a project. It is used to manage the
elements of a solution.
 The View Code button displays the Code Editor for a module
 The View Designer button displays a visual designer
3). Properties Window – displays properties of the currently selected object
4). ToolBox Window – this is shown along the left edge of the IDE.
 Contains controls that are used to build forms.
 Can be expanded or collapsed with the Pin/Unpin icon.
 Used to add controls (tools) to a form by either double-clicking or dragging/dropping (your option on
which to use).
5). The Error List window displays syntax errors
6). The Output window displays information as a project is compiled

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Creating an Application
There are three steps for creating an application:
i) Designing the interface:
 Form object is drawn as the container
 Appropriate objects/controls are added to the form object from the toolbox
ii) Setting the Property values for forms and controls:
 Design time:
a) Select the object/control
b) Using the properties window choose the object properties and settings
 Run time:
a) Access the code window
b) Select the object/control and append code to the code event procedure
iii) Writing the program code:
 Instructions to be executed in response to the objects/controls events is written in the appropriate
event procedure within the code window

Creating a New Project

 In VS, you begin with the application you wish to create, and VS organizes everything you do into a
Solution (with one or more Projects)
 The Application, and everything related to it is encapsulated in a Visual Studio solution
o The solution takes on the name of the first Project created

Setup the Project and Form

There are several actions you need to take for every project.
 Change the form's FileName property – click the FileName in the Solution Explorer window – change
the FileName property in the Properties window.
 Changing the form's FileName also changes the Name property of the form – select the Form and
examine the Name property.
 Change the Title Bar value of a form by typing a new value into the Text property for the form.
o Type the new value VB University – Student Information in the Text property of the
Properties window.
 Size the form as needed by clicking the white squares around the form and dragging/dropping.
 Set the form's StartPosition property to CenterScreen. This will cause the project when it runs to
display in the center of the computer monitor screen.

Naming Rules and Conventions

Visual Basic automatically assigns a value to the Name property of each control, for example, Label1, Label2,
or TextBox1 or Button1,etc. However, it is difficult to remember the difference between Label1 and Label2
 if you are going to later refer to the controls, it is best to rename them to a more meaningful name,
 if you are not going to refer to the controls later, then just use the assigned default name such as
Label1.
When you name an object such as a Label or TextBox or Button, you must follow these rules:
 An object name can begin with an alphabetic letter or the special “underscore” character.
 An object name can include letters, digits, and underscores.
 An object name CANNOT include a space or a punctuation mark.
 An object name CANNOT be a VB reserved word such as Button, Close, or TextBox.
 An object name can contain a VB reserved word – object names such as PrintButton, CloseButton,
NameTextBox, and MajorTextBox are legal names.

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Several naming conventions exist within industry – the common ones are the Hungarian naming convention
and the Pascal naming Convention.
Naming conventions are simply guidelines to help other programmers read your code more easily. The Pascal
naming convention will be used. The rules are:
 Begin an object name with an uppercase alphabetic character.
 Capitalize each word that is part of an object name.
 Select object names that are meaningful.
 Append the full name of the control class to the end of the name.
 Avoid abbreviations unless they are standard abbreviations such as SSN (social security number).

This table gives examples of both the Camel Casing and Hungarian naming conventions.

Camel Casing (Pascal) and Hungarian Naming Conventions

Control Type and Example Camel Casing Hungarian Example Hungarian
Camel Casing Control Names Naming Control Names
Naming Suffix Prefix
TextBox NameTextBox, MajorTextBox txt txtName, txtMajor

Button ShippingButton, ExitButton, btn btnShipping, btnExit, btnReset

ResetButton
Label NameLabel, OutputLabel lbl lblName, lblOutput

Note: Label controls are often not renamed – they are not referred to later in writing computer code so the
default assigned name is unchanged.

Sample Application
Design and code the following sample application

1. Open the Toolbox – select the Common Controls node.

2. Place a Label control on the form by either double-clicking the Label tool or by drag/dropping a label to
the form.

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 Drag the new label to where you want it in the upper left corner of the form.
Change the label's Text property to Student Name:
The label also has a Name property – the first label is named Label1. This is a satisfactory name
and you will not refer to the label when you later write programming code so leave it named
Label1.
3. Add a second label control on the form. Set the Text property to Academic Major
4. Add two text box controls as shown.
 Name the first text box control NameTextBox.
 Name the second text box control MajorTextBox.
 These TextBox controls will only display output so set the properties ReadOnly = True and
TabStop = False.
5. Add six button controls as shown.
 Name the button controls Display1Button, Display2Button, Display3Button, ResetButton,
PrintButton, and ExitButton.
 Set the Text property of the buttons to display the text shown in the figure above. Use the
ampersand (&) symbol as part of the text in order to create button hot keys

Saving and Running a Project

To save a project, use the File-Save All menu –AVOID using File Save As menu options .
 Specify the solution name and the folder where the solution will be created. By default, a new folder is
created for a new solution
There are several ways to run a project to test it.
 Use the Debug menu, Start Debugging option, or
 Press the F5 function key to run the project, or
 Click the shortcut green arrow on the shortcut toolbar.

Compiling and Running Code

The following diagram illustrates how compilation and execution of solutions is carried in Visual
Studio
Visual Studio .NET Framework

Integrated Common
Visual Basic
Development Language
compiler
Environment Runtime

1 2 3

Solution Assembly

Project
Intermediate Language (IL)

Source files

Class references

Program Coding
Programming or writing program code is the means used to cause something to happen when an event, such as a
button click occurs.

Accessing an Event Procedure

Double-click the Display1Button control.
 This opens the coding window.

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 o The window is called the View Code window.
o You can also access the code view from the View menu or the View icon in the Solution
Explorer window.

o Double-clicking the Display1Button control causes VB to generate an event sub procedure

named Display1Button_Click to handle the Click event of the Display1Button control.

 The Handles clause indicates that this sub procedure handles the Click event of the button named
Display1Button. Generally, Visual Studio “wires” an event to a handler using the “handles clause” in the
handler header
 The sub procedure ends with the line of code End Sub.
 Each sub procedure must have a unique name – VB generates a name by combining the name of the
control + an underscore + the name of the event, e.g., Display1Button_Click.
 Each sub procedure has two parameters inside of the parentheses that accompany the event name – these
are named sender and e.
The form named StudentInfo is created as an instance of the general Form object defined in the .NET
Framework class library.
 It is declared by the Public Class StudentInfo statement.
 The End Class statement marks the end of the form's class definition.

Event Handlers
 An event handler is a procedure containing statements that execute when the end user performs an
action. Activity happens when an event is fired.
o Windows executes different event handlers as different events fire
o Windows fires a Click event when the end user clicks a button
o Different types of controls support different events
 Notice that when an event is fired we get another process running – the event handler

Executing an Event Handler

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The Remark Statement
A Remark statement is a line of code shown in green.
 Remarks are very useful for large programs. They can be used to embed comments that only
programmers will read into programs for later reference.
 Each sub procedure should contain remarks that identify the purpose of the sub procedure.
 A Remark can also be placed in-line at the end of a line of programming code.

Note: Remark statements before the Public Class statement are used to identify the project, the programmer,
and the date the program was written and must ALWAYS be included in the project.
' VB University
'Author name
'Today's Date
'Illustrates displaying information to read-only TextBox
'controls by clicking Button controls

Accessing Intellisense
VB's Intellisense feature makes it easier for you to type programming statements. To access Intellisense simply
begin to type the name of an object such as the NameTextBox – VB will pop up a window that displays
possible selections – this makes it easier for you to type code and leads to fewer typing errors.

The Assignment Statement

The assignment statement is used to assign values to a property of an object such as a control. The general form
of the assignment statement is shown below.
Object.Property = Value

Assign a student name to the Text property of the TextBox control named NameTextBox and a student’s major
to the TextBox control named MajorTextBox. The assignment statements to do this are:

Private Sub Display1Button_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles Display1Button.Click
'Display information for the first student
NameTextBox.Text = "Douglas Bock"
MajorTextBox.Text = "Computer Management & Information Systems"
End Sub

The Clear Method

The Clear method is used to clear the contents of a TextBox control. The general way to execute a method is
shown here:
Object.Method()

Example
Private Sub ResetButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
Handles ResetButton.Click
NameTextBox.Clear()
MajorTextBox.Clear()
End Sub

The Close Method

The Close method is used to close a form. To close a form use the keyword Me to refer to the form.
Private Sub ExitButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
Handles ExitButton.Click
Me.Close()
End Sub

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Program Errors
VB has a smart editor that attempts to find and fix most errors. If VB cannot understand some of your code, it
will display a blue squiggly line under the part of the line; that cannot be interpreted.
Typical syntax errors include:
 Referring to an object such as a label or button control by the wrong name.
 Forgetting to use the syntax: object.property.
o Forgetting the dot between the object and property names will cause an error.
o Typing an incorrect or invalid property name will also cause an error.
VB lists errors in the View menu -> Error List window that opens when you run your VB project.
There are two other types of errors:
 Run-Time error – an error or exception that occurs while running a program.
 Logic error – a program error that causes the display of erroneous output.

Design Time, Run Time, Break Time

There are some additional terms for you to learn about designing and executing a VB program.
 Design Time – This is when you are designing a project using the IDE
 Run Time – This is when you execute or run a project.
 Break Time – occurs whenever VB encounters some type of processing error that prevents program
execution from continuing.

VB Help (MSDN)
The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) library contains books and technical articles to help you answer
questions that will arise as you learn the VB language.
 MSDN can be access from a hard drive, network drive, or the Web (requires an Internet connection).
 Hard drive installation is fastest and most convenient.
 Web access is from http://msdn.microsoft.com.
You can also obtain context-sensitive help on an object by placing the insertion point in a word in the coding
editor or by selecting a VB object and pressing the F1 function key.

Complete Solution
'Ch01VBUniversity
'Today's Date
'Illustrates displaying information to read-only TextBox
'controls by clicking Button controls

Public Class StudentInfo

Private Sub Display1Button_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles Display1Button.Click
'Display information for the first student
NameTextBox.Text = "Douglas Bock"
MajorTextBox.Text = "Computer Management & Information Systems"
End Sub

Private Sub Display2Button_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles Display2Button.Click
'Display information for the second student
NameTextBox.Text = "Jill Unverzagt"
MajorTextBox.Text = "Computer Management & Information Systems"
End Sub

Private Sub Display3Button_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles Display3Button.Click
'Display information for the third student

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 NameTextBox.Text = "John Meisel"
MajorTextBox.Text = "Economics"
End Sub

Private Sub ResetButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles ResetButton.Click
'Reset the form by clearing the TextBox controls
NameTextBox.Clear()
MajorTextBox.Clear()
End Sub

Private Sub ExitButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As

System.EventArgs) Handles ExitButton.Click
'Exit the application by closing it
Me.Close()
End Sub
End Class

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