Essential Visual Basic 4.0 Fast: How to Develop Applications in Visual Basic

If you are developing software either as a professional programmer, a student, or simply for fun then it is very likely that you will be working in a Windows environment. If you are, and you are looking to build your own Windows applications, you will find Visual Basic provides an easy and effective means of doing so. This book is written specifically to help users get up and running fast on Visual Basic and focusses on how to develop useful programs quickly and effectively. If you are an undergraduate wanting a simple way to program applications, a professional programmer who needs a broad introduction to Visual Basic 3, or even an amateur programmer interested in building Windows applications, then this book will tell you all you need to know.

1 Why Use Visual Basic?.- Why Use Visual Basic.- Is This Book For You?.- How to Use This Book.- New Features in Version 4.- What Computer You Need to Run Visual Basic.- Conventions.- Running Visual Basic.- Starting Visual Basic.- Before you Start.- The Visual Basic Design Screen.- The Form.- The Toolbox.- The Control Properties Window.- The Project Window.- The Visual Basic Menu Bar and Toolbar.- Event-Driven Software.- Outline of the Add Program.- Creating a New Project.- Defining the User Interface.- Moving and Scaling.- The Properties Window.- Changing Captions.- Writing the Code.- Running the Program.- Using Properties.- Enabled and Name Properties.- Control Values.- Controlling Form Properties.- 2 How Projects are Organised.- The File Menu.- Application Files.- FRM Files.- BAS Files.- VBX and OCX Files.- FRX Files.- Creating and Saving Modules.- The Autoload File.- 3 The Toolbar and Menu.- The Toolbar.- Project and File Management.- Displaying Windows.- Running and Debugging Applications.- The Menu.- The Print Dialog Box.- The Edit Menu.- Finding and Replacing Text.- Image Priority.- The Tools Menu.- The View Menu.- 4 General Procedures and Dlls.- General Procedures.- Event Procedures.- The Scope of Event and General Procedures.- Using Event Procedures.- Making a New General Procedure.- Passing Arguments.- Function Procedures.- Naming Conventions.- DLLs.- Using DLLs.- Declaring a DLL.- Calling a DLL.- 5 Controls.- The Toolbox Appearance.- Common Toolbox Controls.- Command Buttons.- Labels.- Text Boxes.- Text Boxes and Passwords.- Captions and Hot Keys.- Frames.- Check Boxes.- Option Buttons.- Scroll Bars.- List Boxes.- The AddItem Method.- The Sorted Property.- Combo Boxes.- The Simple Combo Box.- The Drop-down Combo Box.- The Drop-down Combo List.- The Timer Control.- Selecting Controls.- Setting Properties of Groups.- Custom Controls.- The Common Dialog Control.- The Slider Control.- The StatusBar Control.- 6 The Insurance Quote Form.- Design of the Quote Screen.- Using Options Buttons.- Creating Check Boxes.- Creating Combo and List Boxes.- Running the Program.- Initialising the List and Combo Box.- Tablndex and TabStop.- 7 Dialog Boxes.- Creating a Message Box.- The Message Box Function.- The Message Box Statement.- Using Messages Boxes.- Message Box Text.- MsgBox Icons.- Changing MsgBox Headers.- MsgBox Buttons.- Getting Button Input.- The Input Box Function.- Specifying Default Text.- 8 Operators and Variables.- Data Types.- Range of Data Types.- Declaring Variables.- Static Variables.- Variables Scope.- Arithmetic Operations.- Integer Division.- The Mod Operator.- The Comparison Operators.- String Concatenation.- The Logical Operators.- The And Operator.- The Eqv Operator.- The Imp Operator.- The Or Operator.- The Xor Operator.- The Not Operator.- 9 Controlling Program Flow.- Types of Program Control.- The If…Then…Else Statement.- Nested Ifs.- The Else If Clause.- The Select Case Structure.- The Switch Function.- The GoTo Statement.- 10 Looping Constructs.- Types of Looping Constructions.- The Do…While Clause.- The Do…Until Clause.- Exit Do Statement.- The While…Wend Clause.- The For…Next Construct.- Terminating For Loops.- Exit For.- 11 Using Data Structures.- Arrays.- Declaring Arrays.- One-Dimensional Arrays.- Multi-Dimensional Arrays.- Re-dimensioning Arrays.- Multi Dimensional Arrays.- User-Defined Data Types.- The Erase Statement.- 12 Menus.- Using Menu Bars.- Amending the Menu.- Short-cut Keys.- Enabling and Disabling Controls.- Menu Properties.- 13 MDI Applications.- Creating an MDI Application.- Arranging Forms.- The Start-up Form.- Modal and Non-Modal Forms.- Loading and Unloading Forms.- The Hide Method.- 14 Grid Control.- Installing the Grid Control.- Creating a Grid.- Grid Properties.- Writing to the Grid.- Selecting Cells.- Adding and Removing Rows.- ColWidth and RowWidth Properties.- Aligning Text.- Scroll Bars.- Adding Text to Grids.- Confusing Row and Rows.- Editing Cell Contents.- 15 Creating Graphics.- Use of Graphics.- The Co-ordinate System.- The Image Control.- The Stretch Property.- Clipboard Images.- The PictureBox Control.- The AutoSize Property.- The Image and Picture Box Controls.- Adding a Picture at Run-Time.- Using Graphics Methods.- Controlling Individual Pixels.- Graphical Controls.- The Line Control.- Properties of the Line Control.- The Shape Control.- Properties of the Shape Control.- The Fill Style Property.- Drawing Lines.- Drawing Boxes.- Drawing Circles.- Drawing Ellipses.- Changing Units.- Using Colours.- The QBColor Function.- The RGB Function.- Assigning Colours Directly.- 16 Displaying and Printing.- Message Boxes, Text Boxes and Labels.- Controlling Fonts and Font Characteristics.- Using the Print Method.- Controlling Print Position.- Controlling Number Format.- Custom Formats.- Displaying Dates and Times.- Writing to a Printer.- The Printer Object.- The PrintForm Method.- 17 Mouse and Keyboard Events.- Mouse Events.- Mouse Event Arguments.- The Click Events.- The MouseDown, MouseUp Events.- The Button Argument.- The Shift, Ctrl and Alt Arguments.- Dragging and Dropping.- The Drag Method.- The DragIcon Property.- The DragOver Event.- Keyboard Events.- The KeyPress Event.- The KeyDown, KeyUp Events.- 18 Object Linking and Embedding (OLE).- Using OLE.- Linking and Embedding.- The OLE Control.- The OLE Pop-Up Menu.- Using Paste Special.- Creating OLE Objects at Run-Time.- OLE Update Options Property.- OLE AutoActivate Property.- OLE Verbs.- The AutoVerbMenu Property.- The Verb Property.- The ObjectVerbsCount Properties.- The Updated Event.- 19 Using Files.- Supported File Types.- Opening a File.- The FreeFile Function.- File Errors.- Closing Files.- Reading Files.- Reading ASCII Files.- Writing ASCII Files.- Copying and Deleting Files.- Random Access Files.- Using Random Access Files.- Binary Files.- The Seek Statement.- Finding Files.- The FileListBox.- The FileName Property.- Linking the Controls.- 20 Databases.- Using Databases.- Database Jargon.- Creating a Database.- Specifying Fields.- Adding an Index.- Adding Data.- The Data Control.- Connecting the Data Control.- Viewing the Database.- Bound Properties.- Properties for Data-Aware Controls.- The DataChanged Property.- The Traffic Sign Program.- Duplicating the Data Control.- Adding and Deleting Records.- Deleting a Record.- Adding a New Field to a Table.- Adding a New Table.- The Data Form Designer.- 21 Examples.- Creating a Simple Project.- Creating a Large Form.- Controlling Control Properties.- File Delete Program.- Finance Company.- Zoo Database.- Changing Text Styles.- MDI Viewer.- Creating and Using Grids.- Deleting Grid Rows.- Importing Graphics.- Drawing Pi Charts.- Printing to a Picture Box.- Printing Tabular Data.- Printing at a Specific Location Using Format.- The Scribble Program.- Using Navigation Keys.- File Handling.- Christmas Present Database.