COMPUTER APPLICATION PROGRAMMING USING VISUAL BASIC

Introduction

Visual is an event driven language which has some features of Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Actions are tied to the occurrence of events e.g. an action may be triggered by clicking the mouse. This approach make application programs more friendly and natural to the end user. In this unit students are introduced to the concept of working with graphical objects and the general Visual Basic Programming concepts.

Learning To Run Visual Basic Applications

These sessions will include learning how to work with graphical objects in the Visual Basic Environment and using general Visual Basic Programming concepts. How To Design A Project From The Application Wizard.


A project is a collection of files that make up your application. A single application might consist of several files, and the project is the collection of those files.

The application wizard can be selected from the New Project dialog box. If you cancel the New Project dialog box, and then later want to start the Application wizard, select File, New Project to display the New Project dialog box once again. The screen you see looks like that in Figure 1.

visual basic

Figure 1 

When you select the icon labeled VB Application Wizard on the New tab, the wizard begins its work. The interface type you select will determine how your application will process multiple windows. See figure 2.

Figure 2 

Figure 3 

You can select the options you want your application’s menu to contain as shown in Figure 3 above. The options are common Windows options found on most Windows programs. The ampersand (&) next to a letter in a menu name indicates the underscored accelerator key letter; in other words, &New indicates that New appears on the menu and that the use can select the option by pressing Alt+N.
The next wizard screen, shown in Figure 4, lets you select the toolbar buttons that your application will have. Click next to accept all the default toolbar settings.

Figure 4 

The next wizard screen to appear is the Resource screen from which you can select to use resources in your program. The next one is the Internet Connectivity screen from which you can add an Internet interface to your program if you want one. The next screen gives the option of adding one of these standard screens to your application:

 Splash screen is an opening title screen that appears when your application first begins.

1.  Login dialog is a dialog box that asks for the user’s ID and password as a part of 
2. application security that you can add. 
3. • Options dialog is tabbed blank dialog box from which your users can specify 
4. attributes that you set up for the application. 
5. • About box is a dialog box that appears when your users select Help, About from the application menu. 
6. You can also select a form template from here. A form template is model of a form that you can customize. 
7. Click Next to get to the last screen and click the Button labeled Finish to instruct Visual Basic to complete your initial application. 

How To Create A Project From The New Project Window

The New Project window appears, when you first start Visual Basic or when you select File, New Project. You will always need toolbars in your project. Visual Basic has a total of four toolbars:

•Debug. This toolbar appears when you use the interactive debugging tools to trace and correct problems.
• Edit. This toolbar aids your editing of Visual Basic code.
• Form Editor. This toolbar helps you adjust objects on forms.
Standard. This toolbar is the default toolbar that appears beneath the menu bar.
You can display and hide these toolbars from the View, Toolbars menu.
Using the Toolbox


The Toolbox window differs from the toolbar. The toolbox is a collection of tools that act as a repository of controls you can place on a form. Figure 5 shows the most common collection of toolbox tools that you’ll see.

Figure 5 

The Form Window

Most of your work goes on inside the Form window. You’ll design all your application’s forms, which are the background windows that your users see, in the central editing area where the Form window appears. You can resize the Form window to make the windows you create in your application as large or small as needed. An application may contain multiple forms: you can display one or more of those forms in their own Form window editing areas. Activate a form by clicking a form by clicking anywhere within the window or on the title bar.

The Form Layout Window

The Form Layout window is an interesting little window connected closely to the Form window, because the Form Layout window shows you a preview of the Form window’s location.

Conclusion

Visual Basic programming language is one of the most popular application programming languages which is easy to learn. It is event driven and have some attributes of Object Oriented Programming. These attributes has made it one of the most preferred languages in Windows environment.