Visual Basic .Net

Visual Basic .NET Tutorial
by: Paul Michelbrink Jan 15, 2004

This tutorial was originally prepared by Sarah Thompson for Visual Basic 4.0.

INTRODUCTION PROGRAMMING TOOLS TOOL BAR TOOL BOX PROPERTIES WINDOW HOW TO BEGIN IMPLEMENTING THE VISUAL STACK PROGRAM Step 1 : “The blank form properties” ADDING AN ICON Step 2 : “Adding objects to our form” Step 3 : “Changing the Properties of thecontrols.” COMMAND BUTTONS: PICTURES: LABELS: TEXT BOX: MENUS: ADDING NEW FORMS ADDING THE CODE TO THE FORMS THE SOURCE CODE: ABOUT FORM: DEFINITION FORM: STACK FORM: STACK FORM CODE: Text Box Code: PUSH: POP: PEEK: INITIALIZE: MENU CODE

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INTRODUCTION
Visual Basic is a programming language that is designedespecially for windows programming. This tutorial will step through and demonstrate some of the features of Visual Basic. It will explain most of the tools available for implementing GUI based programs. After introducing the basic facilities and tools provided by Visual Basic, we apply our knowledge to implementing a small VB program. Our program will implement a visual interface for a commonly know“stack” abstract data type.

PROGRAMMING TOOLS
First, we must look at the different tools that we have to work with. When you are creating a program you must interact with four main windows. They are the Tool bar, Tool box, Project box, and the Properties window.

TOOL BAR
The tool bar is the bar is at the very top of the editing window. It consists of the dropdown menus: File, Edit, View,Project, Build, Debug, Data, Tools, Window, and Help. Below those options are the “quick buttons”. These buttons, reading from left to right are: New Project, New Form, Open File, Save File, Save All, Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo, Navigate Backward, Navigate Forward, Solution Configurations, Find, Solution Explorer, Properties, Toolbox, and Class View.

TOOL BOX
The Tool box contains the tools youuse to place various controls on your forms. It displays all the standard Visual Basic controls plus any custom controls and objects you have added to your project with the Custom Controls dialog box. There are 47 basic tools in the Toolbox: Pointer: This is the only item in the Toolbox that doesn't draw a control. It is used to resize or move a control after it's been drawn on a form. Label: Usedfor text that you don't want the user to change, such as a caption under a graphic. Link Label: A Hyperlink label Command Button: Used to create a button that the user can choose to carry out a command. Text Box: Used to hold text that the user can either enter or change. Main Menu: Adds menus under the titles bar of the form. i.e. File, Edit, … Check Box: Used to create a box that the user caneasily choose to indicate if something is true or false, or to display multiple choices when the user can choose more than one. Radio Button: Used in a group of option buttons to display multiple choices from which the user can choose only one. Group Box: Typically used to serve as a border for control with similar needs Picture Box: Used to display graphical images (either decorative or active), asa container that receives output from graphics methods, or as a container for other controls. Panel: Used to host or hold other controls that belong to the same group Datagrid: Allows users see and edit multiple rows of data simultaneously, also useful for rapid entry of large amounts of data List Box: Used to display a list of items from which the user can choose one. The list can be scrolled ifit has more items than can be displayed at one time Checked List Box: Allows the user to select multiple items in a list by providing a check box for each item. Combo Box: Used to draw a combination list box and text box. The user can either choose an item from the list or enter a value in the text box. List View: Displays a list of items with icons, similar to Windows explorer. Tree View:...