Microsoft Visual Basic 6.

0 Tutorial

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Lesson 1: Introduction to Programming ---------------------------------------- 3-5

Lesson 2: Flowcharting ---------------------------------------- 5 – 15
Lesson 3: Intro to Visual Basic 6.0 Programming Language------------------------------------- 16 - 21
Lesson 4: Building Visual Applications ---------------------------------------- 21-24
Lesson 5: Working With Controls ---------------------------------------- 24-31
Lesson 6: Writing the Code ---------------------------------------- 32-33
Lesson 7: Managing Visual Basic Data ---------------------------------------- 34-37
Lesson 8: Working with Variables ---------------------------------------- 37 -38
Lesson 9: Using If ....Then....Else....End If ---------------------------------------- 39 - 40
Lesson 10: Select Case....End Select   ---------------------------------------- 40 - 42
Lesson 11: Looping ---------------------------------------- 42 - 44
Lesson 12: VB Built-in Functions ---------------------------------------- 44 - 48
Lesson 13: Mathematical Functions ---------------------------------------- 48 - 50
Lesson 14: Formatting Functions ---------------------------------------- 51 - 52
Lesson 15: String Manipulation Functions ---------------------------------------- 53 - 55
Lesson 16: Creating User-Defined Functions ---------------------------------------- 55 - 57
Lesson 17: Creating VBA Functions for MS  Excel ---------------------------------------- 58 - 60
Lesson 18: Arrays  ---------------------------------------- 60 - 62
Lesson 19: Working with Files ---------------------------------------- 62 - 64
Lesson 20: Graphics ---------------------------------------- 65 - 69
Lesson 21: Creating Multimedia Applications : Part I ---------------------------------------- 69 - 70
Lesson 22: Creating Multimedia Applications  : Part II ---------------------------------------- 70 - 72
Lesson 23: Creating Multimedia Applications : Part III ---------------------------------------- 72 - 74
Lesson 24:  Creating Multimedia Applications : Part IV ---------------------------------------- 74 - 76
Lesson 25: Creating Database Applications -Part I ---------------------------------------- 76 - 77
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Lesson 26: Creating Database Applications -Part II ---------------------------------------- 78 - 79
Lesson 27:  Creating  Database Applications using ADO Control------------------------------- 79 - 83
Lesson 28: Using Microsoft DataGrid Control 6.0 ---------------------------------------- 83 - 86
Lesson 29: Using SQL Queries ---------------------------------------- 86 - 89
Lesson 30: More SQL Queries ---------------------------------------- 89 - 92
Lesson 31: Creating an Advanced  Database Application---------------------------------------- 93 - 98
Lesson 32: Animation- Part I ---------------------------------------- 98 - 101
Lesson 33: Animation-Part II ---------------------------------------- 101 - 104
Lesson 34: Animation-Part III ---------------------------------------- 104 - 106
Lesson 35: Creating Internet and Web Applications Part 1: The Web Browser -------------- 106 - 107
Lesson 36: Creating Internet and Web Applications Part 2: The FTP Program--------------- 107 - 112
Lesson 37: Errors Handling in VB ---------------------------------------- 112 - 114
Lesson 38: Compiling and Distributing Your Programs ---------------------------------------- 115 - 117
Lesson 39: Creating Menus for Your Applications ---------------------------------------- 117 - 125
Lesson 40: Keyboard Handling ---------------------------------------- 125 - 128
Lesson 41: Using the Printer ---------------------------------------- 128 - 131
Lesson 42: Creating Reports in Visual Basic 6 ---------------------------------------- 131 - 136

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Lesson 1: Introduction to Programming

Introduction to Programming
Program is a set of step-by-step instructions that tells or directs the computer what to do. It
sequences the tasks a user wants to be done and produces the results or output needed.

The set of rules of or instructions that tells the computer what to perform is done through a
programming language. There are various types of programming languages you can choose from.
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 A programmer is the person who designs a program. It converts problem solutions into
instructions for the computer. The programmer designs the program, decides which of the programs or set
of instructions to use and tests the program to see if it is working as designed.

Program Life Cycle

The steps to follow in writing or creating a program include the following:

1. Identify the problem

This is the first step. It involve determines the requirement of the program. For example,
suppose that you are the programmer and somebody seeks you services in creating a program. As
the client gives the desired output requirements, you are to analyze the need to be able to come
up with a suitable programming solution.
2. Planning the Solution
There are two ways of planning the solution to a problem, they are; 1) draw a flowchart
and 2) write a pseudo code. Flowchart is a graphical representation of the step-by-step instruction
to be done in a program while pseudo code is listing down the set of instruction to be used in the
program.
These two approaches are not executable in a programming language; you are just
planning the solution.
3. Coding the Program
As you designed the solution the next step is to code the program with the use of a chosen
programming language. In this book we will use Visual Basic as our programming language.
If human language follows grammar in writing and speaking, programming languages have
their own set of rules to follow, this is called syntax. Violation of the rule set by programming
language used in a certain program will produce an error called syntax error. One of the common
causes of syntax error is misspelling.
4. Testing the Program
After coding the program, it is important to test if it is running. If it runs properly, then it is
free from syntax error, however, there will be instances that it does meet the requirements of the
program.
For example, a program can be set that after three tries of incorrect password the
program will be locked. But, if after the third try and the program still accepts the password, then
it means that the program has a problem with its logic. It may be running but it does not meet the
specified requirement. Testing the program involves three phases:

1. Desk checking – in this phase the programmer just mentally traces or checks the logic
of the program to make sure that it is error free.
2. Translation – in this phase the programming language uses a translator to ensure that
the programmer did not violate any language rules by the chosen programming
language. This program translates the program line by line to locate any syntax error.
3. Debugging – this means detecting, locating and correcting bugs. In programming,
error or mistakes are called bugs. In debugging phase you run the program and use
dummy data or test data. Then, the programmer checks the flow of the program if its
logic is error free and if it meets the requirement of the specified program.
5. Documentation
In this step, the programmer makes a detailed description on how the program was
created. It contains a brief narrative process undergone by the program, from the identification of
the problem, planning of the solution through flowcharting and pseudo code, coding of the

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 program up to the testing results. Codes used for the program are also included in this
documentation as reference for the next programmer who will upgrade the designed program.

Level of Programming Languages

There are five levels of programming languages. These languages are used in their respective
generation. Basically each generation is an improvement of the latter generation.

1. Machine Language or First Generation Programming Language

This is considered to be the lowest level of programming language. The program is
represented by 1s and 0s. We all know that 1s and 0s or binary number is the only language the
computer understands. Machine language programming is a very tedious task because for just a
simple task, the program code required would be very long.
2. Assemble Languages or Second Generation Programming Language
This is also considered as low level language. However, programmers would find this
language easier to use than machine language. Instead of using 1s and 0s , assemble language uses
mnemonic codes. Mnemonic codes are abbreviations that are easy to remember. Each type of
computer has its own assembly language. This means that once have started your programming,
you cannot use a different computer to continue your work.
3. High Level Language or Third Generation Programming Language (3GL)
This language transformed programming in the early 1960s. It makes programming easier
since the language is now written in English like manner. If assembler is used by assembly
language, third generation languages use translator to convert the program into a machine
language.
4. Very High Level Languages or Fourth Generation Languages (4GL)
Fourth generation languages (4GL) simplifies further the third level generation languages
(3GL) because there is a reduction in the number of instructional statements. One hundred
(100) lines of instructions in 3GLs can be reduced to five (5) to twenty (20) lines of
instructions in 4GLs.
5. Natural Languages
These language are considered to be that fifth generation languages. These programming
languages are called natural languages because of their resemblance to English language. Natural
Languages have the capability to translate human instructions into code that a computer
understands. If it gets confused with the user’s instructions, it asks for further explanation.

Procedural and Non-Procedural Languages

Procedural Languages

Programming languages which are considered procedural uses a series of instructions or

statements which are sequential from the beginning to the end. This means that execution of instruction is
line by line and it is terminated after the last instruction.

Examples of Procedural Languages are:

 BASIC (Beginner’s All –Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)

 COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language)
 PASCAL
 FORTRAN (Formula Translator)
 C
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  PL1(Programming Language 1)

Non-Procedural Languages

These programming languages are considered as object-oriented programming languages. They

are event-drive which means that a programmer selects an event that needs to occur before the
instruction or statements is executed. It is different from a procedural language since statements are not
executed line per line instead series of instructions are executed as a whole when an event occurs.
Examples of events are click, double click, drag and drop, mouse over and other event.

Examples of Non-Procedural Languages are:

 VISUAL BASIC
 C++
 JAVA
 DELPHI

Lesson 2: Flowcharting

Flowchart is one of the processes used in designing or planning the solution to a problem. It is a
graphical representation to the problem. It uses shapes to show instructions and arrow lines and heads to
display the flow.

Symbol Action
Picture Shape Name Represented
Represents start and end of
Oval Terminal Symbol
program

Parallelogram Input / Output Indicates input and output

This represents processing of

Rectangle process action. e.g. mathematical
operator
Since computer only answer
the question yes / no, this is
Diamond Decision
used to represent logical test
for the program.
This is used to prepare memory
Hexagon Initialization for repetition of an action.

Arrow Lines & This show the flow of the

Direction
Arrow Heads program.
This is used to describe action
Annotation or variables.

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 This is used to show connector
On page
Circle or part of program to another
connector
part.
This is used to connect part of a
Off-page program to another part on the
Pentagon
connector other page or paper.

Structure of a Flowchart

The structure means that a flowchart should start and end with an oval and written inside the
symbols are the statements of actions. This is shown below:

Entry

Statement

Statement

End

Problem Number 1

Draw a flowchart that will display the sum of two entered integers.

Requirement of the Problem Number 1

1. Ask the user to enter 2 integers.

2. Process it with sum
3. Display result

Problem Number 2

Draw a flowchart that will compute for the average of three input quizzes. Then display the result.

Requirement of the Problem Number 2

1. Ask the user to input three quiz scores.

2. Get the average of the three quizzes. Average is getting the sum of three score divided by three.
Therefore the formula is (score1+score2+score3)/3.
3. Display result.

Use of Decision Symbol

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 One of the symbol used in flowcharting is the decision symbol or the diamond. This symbol
requires logical test that could be determined by using conditional statements or characters which are
listed below. Through logical test, this symbol provides two answers, if the value evaluated by the decision
symbol produces a “true” result or if it did not meet the value on the conditional statement it renders a
“false” value.

Mathematical Notation Flowchart Notation Meaning

= = equal
<> Unequal
< < Less than
> > Greater than
<= <= Less than or equal to
>= >= More than or equal to
Equal

The operator is used compare two values for similarity. Syntax of the operator is:

Is Value1 = Value2

If value 1 and value 2 have the same value then they will move to the true side of the symbol. If
both values hold different values, on the decision symbol it will move to the false side. This is illustrated
below.

Start

Enter
V1 and V2

Is
V1=V2

Process for Process for

true value false value

End

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Problem Number 3

Draw a flowchart that will display “Access Granted” if the password entered is equal to
“Computer” else will display Access denied. Explain the action inside the flowchart and write it inside the
box.

Requirement of the Problem Number 3

1. Ask the user to enter the password.

2. Display “Access Granted” if the password entered is equal to “Computer”, on the false side display
“Access Denied”.

Not Equal

The operator is used to compare if the two values are not equal or show inequality. This is the
inverse of equal operator. Syntax of the operator is:

Is Value1 <> Value2

If value 1 and value 2 are not equal or not alike, the flow of the flowchart will move to the “true”
side of the decision symbol. If both values hold the same value then it will move or flow to the “false” side.
This is illustrated below:

Start

Enter
V1 and V2

Is
V1<>V2

Process for Process for

true value false value

Start

Problem Number 4

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 Draw a flowchart that will display “A Foreigner” if the country entered is not equal to Philippines
else flowchart should display “A Filipino”. Explain the action inside the flowchart and write your
explanation inside the box.

Requirement of the Problem Number 4

1. Ask the user to enter country.

2. Use decision symbol and use logical test: if country <> Philippines
3. True side of the symbol is, if country is not equal to Philippines display “A Foreigner”.
4. False side of the symbol I, if country is equal to Philippines then display “A Filipino”.
5. End the program.

Less Than

The operator used to test if value1 is less than value2 and vice versa. If value1 is less than value2 it will
flow up to the “true” side of the decision symbol else (value2 is less than value1) the direction will flow to
“false” side of the decision symbol. This is illustrated below:

Start

Enter
V1 and V2

Is
V1<V2

Process for Process for

true value false value

Start

More Than
The operator used to test if value1 is more than value2 and voice versa. If value1 is more than
value2 it will flow to “true” side of the decision symbol else (value2 is more than vale hold by value1) the
direction will flow to the “false” side of the decision symbol. This is illustrated below:
Start

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V1 and V2

Is
V1>V2
 Process for Process for
true value false value

Start

PROBLEM NUMBER 5

Draw a flowchart that will display the higher number between two entered integers.

Requirement of the Program

1. Ask user to enter two numbers.

2. Use decision symbol to determine which has the higher integer.
a. If N1 holds a value that is greater or higher than N2.

PROBLEM NUMBER 6

Draw a flowchart that will display the highest integer among the three entered integers. Complete
the statements that will be inserted inside the flowchart symbols used. You may use the statements listed
on the requirement of the problem to complete the flowchart.

Requirement of the Problem Number 6

1. Ask user to enter three integers.

2. Use decision symbols to test if the integer entered is the highest.
a. If first integer is higher than the second test it to the third integer
If it is higher than the third integer then display the first integer.
b. If first integer is not higher than second integer test it to the third integer, if it is higher than
the third integer then display the second integer.
c. If first integer is higher than the second integer then test it to the third integer, if the third
integer is higher than the first integer.
d. If the second integer is higher than the first integer then test it to the third integer, if the third
integer is higher than the second.
e. End of the program.

PROBLEM NUMBER 7

Draw a flowchart inside the box that will display the highest integer among the four entered
integers. Draw your flowchart inside the box.

Requirement of Problem Number 7

1. Ask user to enter four integers.

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 2. Use decision symbols to entered is the highest.
a. If first integer is higher than the second test it to the third integer
If it is higher than the third integer then test it with the fourth integer, if it higher, then display
first integer.
b. If first integer is not higher than second integer test it to the third integer, if it is higher than
the third integer then test it with the fourth integer, if it is higher, then print second integer.
c. Do the same thing with the third and the fourth number.
3. End of the program

Less than Equal

The operator is used to test if the value of value1 is less than or equal to the decision
symbol else (value2 is less than value1) the direction will flow to the “false” side of the decision symbol.
Also, if value1 is equal to value2, the flow of the program will go to the “true” side.
Start

Enter
V1 and V2

Is
V1<=V2

Process for Process for

true value false value

Start

PROBLEM NUMBER 8

Draw a flowchart that will display “you are not yet eligible to have loans” if the contribution is less
than or equal 10,000 else display ‘You are allowed to make loan. “Describe your explanation for the
flowchart on the space provided.

Requirement of the Problem

1. Ask user to enter amount of contribution.

2. Use decision for logic test if contribution <=10,000.
a. If logic test retrieved true, display are not yet eligible to have loans”.
b. If logic test retrieved false, display “You are allowed to make loans”.
3. End of the program.

More than Equal

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 The operator is used to test if the value of value1 is more than or equal to the value of value2. If
the value1 is more than or equal to the value of value2 it will flow to the “true” side of the decision symbol
else (Value2 is more than the value2) the direction will flow to the “false” side of the decision symbol.

Start

Enter
V1 and V2

Is
V1>=V2

Process for Process for

true value false value

Start

PROBLEM NUMBER 9

Draw a flowchart that will compute for the age as birth date is entered. Display “you are eligible
to vote” If the age is more than or equal to 18 else display “you are not allowed to vote.”

Requirement of the Problem

1. Ask user to enter birth date.

2. Compute for the birthday by subtracting birth date from today’s date.
3. Use decision symbol to determine if the age is eligible to vote.
a. If true value is retrieved, display “you are eligible to vote.
b. If false value is retrieved, display “you are not allowed to vote.”
c. End the problem.

Iteration

The iteration is a looping mechanism. It repeats the process as prescribed by the loop. It uses
counter and accumulator.

Counter

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 Counter is a register that is used to count the number of occurrences of an event. This serves as
counter to the number of times a certain action is repeated. Example, in a photocopying machine you
specify how many times a paper will be copied and when the number is met, the photocopier will stop
automatically.

Accumulator

Accumulator is a register that is used to store a value from performed arithmetic operation.

PROBLEM NUMBER 10

Draw a flowchart that will display “Access Granted” if the password entered is equal to
“Computer” else display “Incorrect Password”. One of the requirements of the program is to display
“Systems Blocked” if the user entered three incorrect passwords.

Requirement of the Problem

1. Accept password.
2. Use decision symbol to determine if the password entered is correct or not.
a. If the password entered is computer the display “Access Granted”.
b. If the password is incorrect display “Incorrect Password”. Count the number of incorrect
password.
c. Use the formula error=error + 1 to count the incorrect passwords.
d. Use decision symbol to determine if the user has already entered three incorrect passwords. If
the password is equal to three then display “System Blocked”.
3. End the program.
Start

Error – represents counter

that will count how many
Err
or times user will enter incorrect
B
=0 password.
Enter
Password

Is
Password=Computer

Incorrect
Access Password
Granted

Error=error + 1
C

Error=3
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B System
Blocked

C
Stop
Explanation

Hexagon Symbol

Error=0 The hexagon symbol serves as memory. This is needed as an initialization of the memory
for the variable that is declared. The variable initialization on this program is an error,
and this error variable was initialized to zero, meaning there is no error yet counted at
the beginning. Every time an incorrect password is entered, it will be counted and stored in memory.

First Decision Symbol

Is
Password=Computer This symbol is used to determine if the password entered is equal to ‘Computer” if
it is not it will flow to the “No” side wherein it will display “Incorrect Password”.
On the “Yes” side, it will display “Access Granted.”

Process Symbol
Error=error + 1 This symbol is used to count the number of times the user entered incorrect
password. As you will see on the variable error one (1) is added every time an error
was made.

Pentagon Symbol
C This is used as a connector; this connects one pat of the flowchart to another part within
the page to another page.

Second Decision Symbol

Error=3 This is used to test if the user has already entered three incorrect passwords, if so,
the decision symbol gets a true value and the program will display “System Blocked”
and end the program. If the user has entered less than three incorrect passwords, it
will flow to the left side of the decision symbol wherein it will loop back to “Enter
password” following circle connector B.

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Lesson 3: Introduction to Visual Basic 6 Programming Language

Introduction to Visual Basic 6.0

Visual Basic 6.0 is an Object-oriented program produced by Microsoft. It is different from other
programming languages like Pascal, C or BASIC which makes the writing of program tedious because they
are text oriented i.e. they work well in text only environment. Visual Basic supports the graphical interface
needed for today’s program because of the operating system Windows which supports GUI (Graphical
User Interface) programs. GUI requires programs to interact which the screen, keyboard and mouse.

Visual Basic’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) allows the user to create, run and debug
Windows program in one application without the need to open additional programs, this is very unlikely of
other programming languages that need a program to create the program, a program to execute the
program or a program to debug the program.

Visual Basic 6.0 has three major versions, they are:

 Visual Basic Enterprises Edition

Created for team programming environments where applications distribute processing and data
among several computers.
 Visual Basic Professional Edition
This edition includes a full set of tools and wizards that help the user package and distribute
applications.
 Working Model or Learning Edition
This edition includes all essential features one needs to get started programming.

What programs can you create with Visual Basic 6?

With VB 6, you can create any program depending on your objective. For example, if you are a college or
university lecturer, you can create  educational programs to teach business, economics, engineering,
computer science, accountancy , financial management, information system and more to make teaching
more effective and interesting. If you are in business, you can also create business programs such as
inventory management system, point-of-sale system, payroll system, financial program as well as
accounting program to help manage your business and increase productivity. For those of you who like
games and working as games programmer, you can create those programs as well. Indeed, there is no limit
to what program you can create ! There are many such programs in this tutorial, so you must spend more
time on the tutorial in order to learn how to create those programs.

Step in Loading Visual Basic Program

1. Click “Start” Button , “All Programs”; click Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 and then click
he Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 application to open the program.
2. When Visual Basic is loaded, the New Project dialog box will display open as show in Figure 1.2,
which will be seen at the center of the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 screen. This dialog box allows the
user or programmer to create a Standard EXE or also know as standard executable, which is
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 selected by default. The main part of this window is a tabbed dialog box with three tabs. New,
Existing and Recent.

Figure 1.1

 New – for creating new project

 Existing – for opening an existing project
 Recent – for opening a project that has been previously loaded into IDE.

The number of project icons display is either thirteen (If using professional or enterprise version) or three
(if using Visual Basic Learning Edition)

Figure 1.2

3. Click Standard EXE if it is not selected and click open to load the Visual Basic screen. (Double
clicking Standard EXE icon will show the same effect)

Pressing Cancel closes the new project dialog box without opening a project. A project is collection of
files that make up an application. An application might consist of several files and the project is a
collection of those files. The Project – Form1 *=(Form) window contains a form which has default
name Form1. This Form1 window is a canvas where controls are added. These controls will be
discussed later as you go through this book.

Navigating Visual Basic Screen

A standard EXE project contains the following windows:

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  Menu Bar  Form Layout Window
 Tool Bar  Toolbox
 Project Explorer  Form Design
 Properties Window  Object Browser
TITLE BAR PROJECT CONTAINER WINDOW
MENU BAR Form1/FORM WINDOW
TOOLBAR

TOOLBOX WINDOW IMMEDIATE WINDOW PROJECT WINDOW

PROPERTY WINDOW PROPERTY WINDOW
FORM LAYOUT WINDOW FORM LAYOUT WINDOW

Toolbox Window
The Toolbox window can found on the left side of the Visual Basic Toolbox contains controls can
be placed on the form. With the default toolbox window, it only displays the most common collection of
toolbox controls or tools. On the other hand toolbar is a collection of icons that carry out standard
operations when clicked.

Display the standard Visual Basic controls plus any ActiveX controls and insertable objects you
have added to your project

Icon Control Name Description of Function

This is not a control. It is used to select control to be used and put
Pointer
on a form.

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 PictureBox A control that is used to display images
This is used to display text or as a caption to the function of a
Label
control.
A control that is used to accept an input value to end-user (user of a
Textbox
program)
Frame This control I used to hold controls in group.
CommandButton A control that initiates an action when pressed or clicked.
A control that provides user with choice or choices (choices because
CheckBox
users may choose as many among the given options.
This is also known as radio button; unlike the check box this only
OptionButton
allows the user to choose one among the given options.
ComboBox A control that provides list of items.
This is the same with the function of combo box which provides list
ListBox
of items.
HScrollBar This provides a horizontal scroll bar to a form or other control.
VScrollBar This provides a vertical scroll bar to a form or other control.
This is not visible to the user at run time. A control that performs
Timer
task at programmer-specified interval.
DriveListBox A control displaying and accessing the system disk drive.
DirListBox A control displaying and accessing system’s directories.
FileListBox A control displaying and accessing files inside a directory.
Shape A control for drawing common shapes.
Line A control for drawing lines.
This control is used to display images. This control has limited
Image
capabilities compared to the PictureBox.
Data This control is used to connect the program to a database.

OLE This is a control that is used to hold other window applications.

Properties Window
The properties window displays the properties or attribute for a form or control that is inserted and
selected. It contains the properties of the selected control. Properties are listed either alphabetically or
categorically. In clicking the Alphabetic tab the properties or attributes of a selected control or form are
listed in alphabetic order. On the other hand, when choosing Categorized tab, the properties are
categorically listed. Below this property window is the descriptive pane which display the description of
the function of the chosen property.

Return the name used in code to identify a form, control or data access object. Read only at run time.
Returns or set the name of a font object.

Form Layout Window Screen

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 The form layout window shows the position of the form on the screen at runtime. To use this
window, click the form inside this window and drag it to the center of the screen. When you run the
program you will notice that the form display at the center of your computer screen.

Title bar
Form
The title bar contains the name of the active project and programs.

Menu bar

Provides access to most of the commands that control the programming environment. Menus and
commands work as they do in all windows-based programs, and you can access them by using keyboard or
the mouse.

Toolbar

A collection of buttons that serves as shortcuts for executing commands and controlling the Visual
Basic programming environment.

Form Window

Allows you to create windows, dialog boxes, and controls in your application. You draw and view
controls on a form.

Project Container Window

Allows you to visually position your form at design time.

Project Window/Project Explorer

Display a hierarchical list of the projects and all the items contained in a project.

Control Object

An object you can place on a form that has its own set of recognized properties, method, and
event. You use controls to receive user input, display output, and trigger event procedures. You can
manipulate most control using methods. A Some controls are interactive (responsive to user action), while
other are static (Accessible only through code).

Applications

Application

A collection of code visual elements that work together as a single program. Developer can build
and run applications within the development environment, while users usually run application as
executable files outside the development environment.

Form

A window or dialog box. Forms are container for controls. A multiple - document interface (MDI)
form can a container for child forms and some controls.

Design Time
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 The time during which you build an application in the development environment by adding
controls, setting control or form properties, and so on. In contrast, during run time you interact with the
application like a user.

Run

The time during which code is running. During run time, you can’t edit the code.

Project Window Element

View Code=Display the code window so you can write and associated with the selected item.

View Object=Display the object windows for the elected item, an existing form, module, active Object, or
user control.

Toggle Folder= Hides and shows the object folders while still showing the individual items contained
within them.

Lesson 4: Building Visual Basic Applications

Creating Your First Application

 In this section, we will not go into the technical aspects of Visual Basic programming yet, what you need to
do is just try out the examples below to see how does in VB program look like:

Example 2.1.1 is a simple program. First of all, you have to launch Microsoft Visual Basic 6. Normally, a
default form with the name Form1 will be available for you to start your new project. Now, double click on
Form1, the source code window for Form1 as shown in figure 2.1 will appear. The top of the source code
window consists of a list of objects and their associated events or procedures. In figure 2.1, the object
displayed is Form and the associated procedure is Load.

Figure 2.1 Source Code Window

Object Box Procedure Box

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When you click on the object box, the drop-down list will display a list of objects you have inserted into
your form as shown in figure 2.2. Here, you can see a form with the name Form1, a command button with
the name Command1, a Label with the name Label1 and a Picture Box with the name Picture1. Similarly,
when you click on the procedure box, a list of procedures associated with the object will be displayed as
shown in figure 2.3. Some of the procedures associated with the object Form1 are Activate, Click, DblClick
(which means Double-Click) , DragDrop, keyPress and more. Each object has its own set of procedures. You
can always select an object and write codes for any of its procedure in order to perform certain tasks.

You do not have to worry about the beginning and the end statements (i.e. Private Sub Form_Load.......End
Sub.); Just key in the lines in between the above two statements exactly as are shown here. When you
press F5 to run the program, you will be surprise that nothing shown up .In order to display the output of
the program, you have to add the Form1.show statement like in Example 2.1.1  or you can just use
Form_Activate ( )  event procedure as shown in example 2.1.2. The command Print does not mean printing
using a printer but it means displaying the output on the computer screen. Now, press F5 or click on the
run button to run the program and you will get the output as shown in figure 2.4.

 You can also perform arithmetic calculations as shown in example 2.1.2. VB uses * to denote the
multiplication operator and / to denote the division operator. The output is shown in figure 2.3, where the
results are arranged vertically.

Figure 2.2: List of Objects  Figure 2.3: List of Procedures 

Figure 2.4 : The output of example 2

Example 2.1.1

Private Sub Form_Load ( )

Form1.show

Print “Welcome to Visual Basic

tutorial”

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 End Sub

Example 2.1.2 Figure 2.5: The output of example 2.1.2

Private Sub Form_Activate ( )

Print 20 + 10
Print 20 - 10
Print 20 * 10
Print 20 / 10

End Sub

You can also use the + or the & operator to join two or more texts (string) together like in example 2.1.4
(a) and (b)

Example 2.1.4(a) Example 2.1.4(b)

Private Sub Private Sub

A = Tom A = Tom
B = “likes" B = “likes"
C = “to" C = “to"
D = “eat" D = “eat"
E = “burger" E = “burger"
Print A + B + C + D + E Print A & B & C & D & E
End Sub End Sub

The Output of Example 2.1.4(a) &(b) is as shown in Figure 2.7.

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2.2 Steps in  Building  a Visual Basic Application

Step 1  : Design  the interface

Step 2  : Set properties of the controls (Objects)

Step 3  : Write the event procedures

Lesson 5: Working With Controls

The Control Properties

Before writing an event procedure for the control to response to a user's input, you have to set certain
properties for the control to determine its appearance and how it will work with the event procedure. You
can set the properties of the controls in the properties window or at runtime.

Figure 3.1 on the right is a typical properties window for a form. You can rename the
form caption to any name that you like best. In the properties window, the item
appears at the top part is the object currently selected (in Figure 3.1, the object
selected is Form1). At the bottom part, the items listed in the left column represent
the names of various properties associated with the selected object while the items
listed in the right column represent the states of the properties. Properties can be set
by highlighting the items in the right column then change them by typing or selecting
the options available. Figure 3.1

For example, in order to change the caption, just highlight Form1 under the name
Caption and change it to other names. You may also try to alter the appearance of the
form by setting it to 3D or flat. Other things you can do are to change its foreground
and background color, change the font type and font size, enable or disable minimize
and maximize buttons and etc.

You can also change the properties at runtime to give special effects such as change of
color, shape, animation effect and so on. For example the following code will change
the form color to red every time the form is loaded. VB uses hexadecimal system
to represent the color. You can check the color codes in the properties windows which
are showed up under ForeColor and BackColor .

Private Sub Form_Load()

Form1.Show
Form1.BackColor = &H000000FF&
End Sub

Another example is to change the control Shape to a particular shape at runtime by writing the following
code. This code will change the shape to a circle at runtime.

Private Sub Form_Load()

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Shape1.Shape = 3
End Sub

I would like to stress that knowing how and when to set the objects' properties is very important as it can
help you to write a good program or you may fail to write a good program. So, I advice you to spend a lot
of time playing with the objects' properties.

We are not going into the details on how to set the properties. However, I would like to stress a few
important points about setting up the properties.

 You should set the Caption Property of a control clearly so that a user knows what to do with that
command.
 Use a meaningful name for the Name Property because it is easier to write and read the event
procedure and easier to debug or modify the programs later.
 One more important property is whether to make the control enabled or not.
 Finally, you must also considering making the control visible or invisible at runtime, or when
should it become visible or invisible.

Inserting Controls in a Form

In inserting a control inside a form, click the needed control on the toolbox and drag it
inside the form.

 Resize the inserted control through its resizing nodules or sizing handles.
Drag the control on the form to remove the handles.
 Drag the control on the part of the form where you want to locate the inserted controls.
 You may also change the appearance of the inserted controls by manipulating the value of
it in the property window.

Event is the user’s action; it could be clicking, double clicking or pressing a key a on a keyboard.
Code is the statement that carries out the action when the event is triggered. Adding a code in an
event is known as event procedure.

The word Private indicates that the procedure is solely for the selected object and form. It cannot
be called up by other forms.

The word Sub indicates the beginning of the event procedure.

The End Sub or the last line indicates the termination of the event procedure.

Naming a Control

By default, Visual Basic assigns a name on the property of each control and form used in a
program, making programming easier. This also makes the control unique from one another. For example,
when you insert a textbox to a form, Visual Basic will name it Text1. However, when four (4) Textboxes and
four(4) other CommandButtons are added, Visual Basic will automatically name these additional controls
as Text2, Text3, Text4, Text5, command1, command2, command3, and command4 respectively. This will
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be hard on the part of the user or programmer for he/she might forget the name of the control that
should trigger the event because of similar names. Therefore, it is necessary to practice giving names to
controls and forms.

The practice on naming a control is as follows:

1. Select the control that you want to assign a name.

2. On the property window choose name and set its name by assigning the three-letter prefix used in
that describe the object, followed by the name you three-letter prefix that describe the object,
followed by the name you specified. Below are the prefix used in naming controls and forms.

Assigning a name to a control is very important because you need to call a control that will
perform a task or an action. For example, if you need to call a label because it needs to display a text. (It is
like calling waiters or servants and instructing them to do certain tasks)

Example

1. If you are listing a textbox control, its name should contain txt + your preferred name for the
control (ex. txtanswer)
2. If you are inserting a label control, its name should contain lbl + your preferred name for the
control (ex. lblname)

Object Prefix
cbo ComboBox
chk CheckBox
cmd CommandButton
dir DirectoryListBox
drv DirectoryListBox
fil FilelistBox
fra Frame
frm Form
hsb HorizontalScrollBar
img Image
lbl Label
lst Line
mnu Menu
mod Module
ole OLE
opt OpionButton
pic PictureBox
shp Shape
tmr Timer
txt Textbox
vsb VerticalScroll

Handling some of the common controls

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3.2.1 The Text Box   

The text box is the standard control for accepting input from the user as well as to display the output. It
can handle string (text) and numeric data but not images or pictures. String in a text box can be converted
to a numeric data by using the function Val(text). The following example illustrates a simple program that
processes the input from the user. 

Example 3.1

In this program, two text boxes are inserted into the form together with a few labels. The two text boxes
are used to accept inputs from the user and one of the labels will be used to display the sum of two
numbers that are entered into the two text boxes. Besides, a command button is also programmed to
calculate the sum of the two numbers using the plus operator. The program use creates a variable sum to
accept the summation of values from text box 1 and text box 2.The procedure to calculate and to display
the output on the label is shown below. The output is shown in Figure 3.2

Private Sub Command1_Click()

‘To add the values in text box 1 and text box 2
Sum = Val(Text1.Text) + Val(Text2.Text)
‘To display the answer on label 1
Label1.Caption = Sum
End Sub 
Figure 3.2

3.2.2 The Label    

The label is a very useful control for Visual Basic, as it is not only used to provide instructions and guides to
the users, it can also be used to display outputs. One of its most important properties is Caption. Using the
syntax label.Caption, it can display text and numeric data . You can change its caption in the properties
window and also at runtime.  Please refer to Example 3.1 and Figure 3.1 for the usage of label.

3.2.3 The Command Button 

The command button is one of the most important controls as it is used to execute commands. It displays
an illusion that the button is pressed when the user click on it. The most common event associated with
the command button is the Click event, and the syntax for the procedure is

Private Sub Command1_Click ()

Statements
End Sub

3.2.4 The Picture Box 

-The Picture Box is one of the controls that is used to handle graphics. You can load a picture at design
phase by clicking on the picture item in the properties window and select the picture from the selected
folder. You can also load the picture at runtime using the LoadPicture method. For example, the statement
will load the picture grape.gif into the picture box.

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-Picture1.Picture=LoadPicture ("C:\VB program\Images\grape.gif")

-You will learn more about the picture box in future lessons. The image in the picture box is not resizable.

3.2.5 The Image Box

-The Image Box is another control that handles images and pictures. It functions almost identically to the
picture box. However, there is one major difference, the image in an Image Box is stretchable, which
means it can be resized. This feature is not available in the Picture Box. Similar to the Picture Box, it can
also use the LoadPicture method to load the picture. For example, the statement loads the picture
grape.gif into the image box.

-Image1.Picture=LoadPicture ("C:\VB program\Images\grape.gif")

3.2.6 The List Box

The function of the List Box is to present a list of items where the user can click and select the items from
the list. In order to add items to the list, we can use the AddItem method. For example, if you wish to add
a number of items to list box 1, you can key in the following statements

Example 3.2
 
Private Sub Form_Load ( )

  List1.AddItem “Lesson1”
List1.AddItem “Lesson2”
List1.AddItem “Lesson3”
List1.AddItem “Lesson4”

End Sub

The items in the list box can be identified by the ListIndex property, the value of the ListIndex for the first
item is 0, the second item has a ListIndex 1, and the third item has a ListIndex 2 and so on

3.2.7 The Combo Box 

The function of the Combo Box is also to present a list of items where the user can click and select the
items from the list. However, the user needs to click on the small arrowhead on the right of the combo box
to see the items which are presented in a drop-down list. In order to add items to the list, you can also use
the AddItem method. For example, if you wish to add a number of items to Combo box 1, you can key in
the following statements

Example 3.3
Private Sub Form_Load ( )

  Combo1.AddItem “Item1”
Combo1.AddItem “Item2”
Combo1.AddItem “Item3”
Combo1.AddItem “Item4”
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   End Sub

3.2.8 The Check Box

The Check Box control lets the user  selects or unselects an option. When the Check Box is checked, its
value is set to 1 and when it is unchecked, the value is set to 0.  You can include the statements
Check1.Value=1 to mark the Check Box and Check1.Value=0 to unmark the Check Box, as well as   use them
to initiate certain actions. For example, the program will change the background color of the form to red
when the check box is unchecked and it will change to blue when the check box is checked.  You will learn
about the conditional statement If….Then….Elesif in later lesson. VbRed and vbBlue are color constants
and BackColor is the background color property of the form.

Example 3.4
Private Sub Command1_Click()
If Check1.Value = 1 And Check2.Value = 0 Then
MsgBox "Apple is selected"
ElseIf Check2.Value = 1 And Check1.Value = 0 Then
MsgBox "Orange is selected"
Else
MsgBox "All are selected"
End If
End Sub

3.2.9 The Option Box

 The Option Box control also lets the user selects one of the choices. However, two or more Option Boxes
must work together because as one of the Option Boxes is selected, the other Option Boxes will be
unselected. In fact, only one Option Box can be selected at one time. When an option box is selected, its
value is set to “True” and when it is unselected; its value is set to “False”. In the following example, the
shape control is placed in the form together with six Option Boxes. When the user clicks on different
option boxes, different shapes will appear. The values of the shape control are 0, 1, and 2,3,4,5 which will
make it appear as a rectangle, a square, an oval shape, a rounded rectangle and a rounded square
respectively.

Example 3.5
Private Sub Option1_Click ( ) Private Sub Option2_Click()
Shape1.Shape = 0 Shape1.Shape = 1
End Sub
End Sub
Private Sub Option3_Click()
Private Sub Option4_Click()
Shape1.Shape = 2
Shape1.Shape = 3
End Sub
End Sub
Private Sub Option5_Click()
Private Sub Option6_Click()
Shape1.Shape = 4
Shape1.Shape = 5
End Sub End Sub

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3.2.10 The Drive List Box

The Drive ListBox is for displaying a list of drives available in your computer. When you place this control
into the form and run the program, you will be able to select different drives from your computer as
shown in Figure 3.3 

Figure 3.3 The Drive List Box

3.2.11 The Directory List Box

The Directory List Box is for displaying the list of directories or folders in a selected drive. When you place
this control into the form and run the program, you will be able to select different directories from a
selected drive in your computer as shown in Figure 3.4

Figure 3.4 The Directory List Box

3.2.12 The File List Box

-The File List Box is for displaying the list of files in a selected directory or folder. When you place this
control into the form and run the program, you will be able to shown the list of files in a selected directory
as shown in Figure 3.5

-You can coordinate the Drive List Box, the Directory List Box and the File List Box to search for the files
you want. The procedure will be discussed in later lessons. 

Lesson 6 : Writing the Code

In lesson 5, you have learned how to enter the program code and run the sample VB programs but
without much understanding about the logics of VB programming. Now, let’s get down to learning some
basic rules about writing the VB program code.

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Each control or object in VB can usually run many kinds of events or procedures; these events are listed in
the dropdown list in the code window  that is displayed when you double-click on an object and click on
the procedures’ box(refer to Figure 2.3). Among the events are loading a form, clicking of a command
button, pressing a key on the keyboard or dragging an object and more. For each event, you need to write
an event procedure so that it can perform  an action or a series of actions

To start writing an event procedure, you need to double-click an object. For example, if you want to write
an event procedure when a user clicks   a command button, you double-click on the command button and
an event procedure will appear as shown in Figure 2.1. It takes the following format: 

Private Sub Command1_Click

(Key in your program code here)

End Sub

You then need to key-in the procedure in the space between Private Sub Command1_Click............. End
Sub.  Sub actually stands for sub procedure that made up a part of all the procedures in a program. The
program code is made up of a number of statements that set certain properties or trigger some actions.
The syntax of Visual Basic’s program code is almost like the normal English language though not exactly
the same, so it is very easy to learn.  

The syntax to set the property of an object or to pass certain value to it is :

   Object.Property

where Object and Property is separated by a period (or dot). For example, the statement Form1.Show
means to show the form with the name Form1, Iabel1.Visible=true means label1 is set to be visible,
Text1.text=”VB” is to assign the text VB to the text box with the name Text1, Text2.text=100 is to pass a
value of 100 to the text box with the name text2, Timer1.Enabled=False is to disable the timer with the
name Timer1 and so on. Let’s examine a few examples below: 

Example 4.1
Example 4.3
Private Sub Command1_click Private Sub Command1_click
Pictuire1.Show=true
Label1.Visible=false Timer1.Enabled=True
Lable1.Caption=”Start Counting
Label2.Visible=True
End sub
Text1.Text=”You are correct!”
End sub

Example 4.2

Private Sub Command1_click

Label1.Caption=” Welcome”
Image1.visible=true
End sub

In Example 4.1, clicking on the command button will make label1 become invisible and label2 become
visible; and the text” You are correct” will appear in TextBox1.  In example 4.2, clicking on the command
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button will make the caption label1 change to “Welcome” and Image1 will become visible.   In example 4.3
, clicking on the command button will make Picture1 show up, timer starts running and the caption of
label1 change to “Start Counting”. 

 Syntaxes that do not involve setting of properties are also English-like, some of the commands are Print,
If…Then….Else….End If, For…Next, Select Case…..End Select , End and Exit Sub. For example, Print  “
Visual Basic” is to display the text Visual Basic on screen and End is to end the program. Other commands
will be explained in details in the coming lessons.

Program code that involve calculations is very easy to write, you need to write them almost like you do in
mathematics. However, in order to write an event procedure that involves calculations, you need to know
the basic arithmetic operators in VB as they are not exactly the same as the normal operators we use,
except for + and - . For multiplication, we use *, for division we use /, for raising a number x to the power
of n, we use x ^n and for square root, we use Sqr(x). VB offers many more advanced mathematical
functions such as Sin, Cos, Tan and Log, they will be discussed in lesson 10. There are also two important
functions that are related to arithmetic operations, i.e. the functions Val and Str$ where Val is to convert
text entered into a textbox to numerical value and Str$ is to display a numerical value in a textbox as a
string (text).  While the function Str$ is as important as VB can display a numeric values as string implicitly,
failure to use Val will results in wrong calculation. Let’s examine example 4.4 and example 4.5.   

Example 4.4  Example 4.5

Private Sub Form_Activate() Private Sub Form_Activate()

Text3.text=text1.text+text2.text Text3.text=val(text1.text)+val(text2.text)
End Sub  End Sub 

When you run the program in example 4.4 and enter 12 in textbox1 and 3 in textbox2 will give you a result
of 123, which is wrong. It is because VB treat the numbers as string and so it just joins up the two strings.
On the other hand, running exampled 4.5 will give you the correct result, i.e., 15.  

Lesson 7: Managing Visual Basic Data

There are many types of data that we come across in our daily life. For example, we need to handle data
such as names, addresses, money, date, stock quotes, statistics and more everyday. Similarly in Visual
Basic, we have to deal with all sorts of  of data, some can be mathematically calculated while some are in
the form of text or other forms. VB divides data into different types so that it is easier to manage when we
need to write the code involving those data.

5.1 Visual Basic Data Types

Visual Basic classifies the information mentioned above into two major data types, they are the numeric
data types and the non-numeric data types.

5.1.1 Numeric Data Types

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Numeric data types are types of data that consist of numbers, which can be computed mathematically
with various standard operators such as add, minus, multiply, divide and more. Examples of numeric data
types are examination marks, height, weight, the number of students in a class, share values, price of
goods, monthly bills, fees and others.

In Visual Basic, numeric data are divided into 7 types, depending on the range of values they can store.
Calculations that only involve round figures or data that does not need precision can use Integer or Long
integer in the computation. Programs that require high precision calculation need to use Single and Double
decision data types, they are also called floating point numbers. For currency calculation , you can use the
currency data types. Lastly, if even more precision is required to perform calculations that involve a many
decimal points, we can use the decimal data types. These data types summarized in Table 5.1

Table 5.1: Numeric Data Types       

 
Storage  Range of Values
Type
Byte 1 byte 0 to 255
Integer 2 bytes -32,768 to 32,767
Long  4 bytes -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,648
-3.402823E+38 to -1.401298E-45 for negative values
Single 4 bytes
1.401298E-45 to 3.402823E+38 for positive values.
-1.79769313486232e+308 to -4.94065645841247E-324 for negative values
Double 8 bytes
4.94065645841247E-324 to 1.79769313486232e+308 for positive values.
Currency 8 bytes -922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807
+/- 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,335 if no decimal is use
Decimal 12 bytes
+/- 7.9228162514264337593543950335 (28 decimal places).

5.1.2 Non-numeric Data Types

Nonnumeric data types are data that cannot be manipulated mathematically using standard arithmetic
operators. The non-numeric data comprises  text or string data types, the Date data types, the Boolean
data types that store only two values (true or false), Object data type and Variant data type .They are
summarized in Table 5.2

 Table 5.2: Nonnumeric Data Types 

Storage Range
Data Type
String(fixed length) Length of string 1 to 65,400 characters
String(variable length) Length + 10 bytes 0 to 2 billion characters
Date 8 bytes January 1, 100 to December 31, 9999
Boolean 2 bytes True or False
Object 4 bytes Any embedded object
Variant(numeric) 16 bytes Any value as large as Double
Variant(text) Length+22 bytes Same as variable-length string

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5.1.3 Suffixes for Literals

Literals are values that you assign to data. In some cases, we need to add a suffix behind a literal so that VB
can handle the calculation more accurately. For example, we can use num=1.3089# for a Double type data.
Some of the suffixes are displayed in Table 5.3.

Table 5.3

Suffix Data Type

& Long
! Single
# Double
@ Currency

In addition, we need to enclose string literals within two quotations and date and time literals within two #
sign. Strings can contain any characters, including numbers. The following are few examples:

memberName="Turban, John."
TelNumber="1800-900-888-777"
LastDay=#31-Dec-00#
ExpTime=#12:00 am#

5.2 Managing Variables

Variables are like mail boxes in the post office. The contents of the variables changes every now and then,
just like the mail boxes. In term of VB, variables are areas allocated by the computer memory to hold data.
Like the mail boxes, each variable must be given a name. To name a variable in Visual Basic, you have to
follow a set of rules.

5.2.1 Variable Names

The following are the rules when naming the variables in Visual Basic

 It must be less than 255 characters

 No spacing is allowed
 It must not  begin with a number
 Period is not permitted

Examples of valid and invalid variable names are displayed in Table 5.4

                                                  Table 5.4

Valid Name Invalid Name

My_Car My.Car 
ThisYear 1NewBoy
Long_Name_Can_beUSE He&HisFather                  *& is not acceptable

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5.2.2 Declaring Variables

In Visual Basic, one needs to declare the variables before using them by assigning names and data types.
They are normally declared in the general section of the codes' windows using the Dim statement.
The format  is as follows:

Dim Variable Name As Data Type

Example 5.1

Dim password As String

Dim yourName As String
Dim firstnum As Integer
Dim secondnum As Integer
Dim total As Integer
Dim doDate As Date

You may also combine them in one line , separating each variable with a comma, as follows:

Dim password As String,  yourName As String, firstnum As Integer,.............

If data type is not specified, VB will automatically declare the variable as a Variant.
For string declaration, there are two possible formats, one for the variable-length string and another for
the fixed-length string. For the variable-length string, just use the same format as example 5.1 above.
However, for the fixed-length string, you have to use the format as shown below:

Dim VariableName as String * n, where n defines the number of characters the string can hold.

Example 5.2:

Dim yourName as String * 10

yourName can holds no more than 10 Characters.  

5.3 Constants

Constants are different from variables in the sense that their values do not change during the running of
the program.

5.3.1 Declaring a Constant

The format to declare a constant is

Const  Constant Name  As Data Type = Value

Example 5.3

Const Pi As Single=3.142
Const Temp As Single=37
Const Score As Single=100
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Lesson 8: Working with Variables

6.1  Assigning Values to Variables

 After declaring various variables using the Dim statements, we can assign values to those variables. The
general format of an assignment is

Variable=Expression

The variable can be a declared variable or a control property value. The expression could be a
mathematical expression, a number, a string, a Boolean value (true or false) and more. The following are
some examples:

firstNumber=100
secondNumber=firstNumber-99
userName="John Lyan"
userpass.Text = password
Label1.Visible = True
Command1.Visible = false
Label4.Caption = textbox1.Text
ThirdNumber = Val(usernum1.Text)
total = firstNumber + secondNumber+ThirdNumber   

6.2 Operators in Visual Basic

To compute inputs from users and to generate results, we need to use various mathematical operators. In
Visual Basic, except for + and -, the symbols for the operators are different from normal mathematical
operators, as shown in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1: Arithmetic Operators

Mathematical function Example

Operator
^ Exponential 2^4=16
* Multiplication 4*3=12,  
/ Division 12/4=3
Modulus (returns the remainder from an integer
Mod 15 Mod 4=3   
division)
\ Integer Division(discards the decimal places) 19\4=4
+ or & String concatenation "Visual"&"Basic"="Visual Basic"
Example 6.1 Example 6.2

Dim firstName As String  Dim number1, number2, number3 as Integer

Dim secondName As String Dim total, average as variant
Dim yourName As String
Private sub Form_Click
  Private Sub Command1_Click() number1=val(Text1.Text)
firstName = Text1.Text number2=val(Text2.Text)
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 secondName = Text2.Text number3= val(Text3.Text)
yourName = secondName + "  " + firstName Total=number1+number2+number3
  Label1.Caption = yourName Average=Total/5
Label1.Caption=Total
End Sub Label2.Caption=Average
End Sub
In this example, three variables are declared as  In the example above, three variables are declared as
string. For variables firstName and secondName integer and two variables are declared as variant.
will receive their data from the user’s input into Variant means the variable can hold any data type. The
textbox1 and textbox2, and the variable yourName program computes the total and average of the three
will be assigned the data by combining the first two numbers that are entered into three text boxes.
variables.  Finally, yourName is displayed on
Label1.

In previous lessons, we have learned how to create Visual Basic code that can  accept input from the user
and display the output without controlling the program flow. In this chapter, you will learn how to crreate
VB code that can make decision when it process input from the user, and control the program flow in the
process. Decision making process is an important part of programming because it can help to solve
practical problems intelligently so that it can provide useful output or feedback to the user. For example,
we can write a  program that can ask the computer to perform certain task until a certain condition is met.

Lesson 9:  Using If ....Then....Else....End If

7.1  Conditional Operators

To control the VB program flow, we can use various conditional operators. Basically, they resemble
mathematical  operators. Conditional operators are very powerful tools, they let the VB program compare
data values and then decide what action to take, whether to execute a program or terminate the program
and more. These operators are shown in Table 7.1.

7.2  Logical Operators

In addition to conditional operators, there are a few logical operators which offer added power to the VB
programs. There are shown in Table 7.2.

Table 7.1: Conditional Operators Table 7.2:Logical Operators

Operator Meaning
Meaning
Operator
= Equal to And Both sides must be true
> or One side or other must be true
More than
One side or other must be true
< Xor
Less Than but not both
Not Negates truth
>= More than or equal

<= Less than or equal

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 <> Not Equal to
* You can also compare strings with the above operators. However, there are certain rules to follows:
Upper case letters are less than lowercase letters, "A"<"B"<"C"<"D".......<"Z" and number are less than
letters.

7.3  Using  If.....Then.....Else  Statements  with Operators

To effectively control the VB program flow, we shall use If...Then...Else statement together with the
conditional operators and logical operators.
The general format for the if...then...else statement is

If  conditions Then

VB expressions
Else
VB expressions
End If

any If..Then..Else statement must end with End If. Sometime it is not necessary to use Else.

Example:

  Private Sub OK_Click()

      firstnum=Val(usernum1.Text)

      secondnum=Val(usernum2.Text)

      If total=firstnum+secondnum And Val(sum.Text)<>0 Then

      correct.Visible = True
    wrong.Visible = False
  Else
      correct.Visible = False
      wrong.Visible = True
  End If

  End Sub

Lesson 10 : Select Case....End select Control Structure

In the previous lesson, we have learned how to control the program flow using the If...ElseIf control
structure. In this chapter, you will learn  another way to control the program flow, that is, the Select Case
control structure. However, the Select Case control structure is slightly different from the If....ElseIf control
structure .

The difference is that the Select Case control structure basically only make decision on one expression or
dimension (for example the examination grade) while the If ...ElseIf statement control structure may
evaluate only one expression, each If....ElseIf statement may also compute entirely different dimensions.
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Select Case is preferred when there exist many different conditions because using If...Then..ElseIf
statements might become too messy.
The format of the Select Case control structure is show below:

Select Case expression

    Case value1
              Block of one or more VB statements
    Case value2
              Block of one or more VB Statements
    Case value3
            .
        .
    Case Else
              Block of one or more VB Statements

End Select

Example 8.1 Example 8.2

 
Dim grade As String Dim mark As Single

Private Sub Compute_Click( ) Private Sub Compute_Click()

'Examination Marks
grade=txtgrade.Text   mark = mrk.Text
 
Select Case grade Select Case mark
  Case Is >= 85
  Case  "A"  
            result.Caption="High  Distinction"         comment.Caption = "Excellence"
Case Is >= 70
  Case "A-"  
          result.Caption="Distinction"       comment.Caption = "Good"
 
  Case "B" Case Is >= 60
              result.Caption="Credit"     comment.Caption = "Above Average"
 
  Case "C" Case Is >= 50
              result.Caption="Pass" comment.Caption = "Average"
 
  Case Else Case Else
              result.Caption="Fail" comment.Caption = "Need to work harder"
 
End Select
  End Select
 
End Sub
End Sub

Example 8.3
 
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 Example 8.2 can be rewritten  as follows:
 
Dim mark As Single

Private Sub Compute_Click()

'Examination Marks
  mark = mrk.Text
 
Select Case mark
  Case 0 to 49
        comment.Caption = "Need to work harder"
Case 50 to 59
      comment.Caption = "Average"
Case 60 to 69
    comment.Caption = "Above Average"
Case 70 to 84
comment.Caption = "Good"
Case Else
comment.Caption = "Excellence"
 
End Select
 
End Sub

Lesson 11: Looping

Another procedure that involves decision making is looping. Visual Basic allows a procedure to be
repeated many times until a condition or a set of conditions is fulfilled. This is generally called looping .
Looping is a very useful feature of Visual Basic because it makes repetitive works easier. There are  two
kinds of loops in Visual Basic,  the Do...Loop  and the For.......Next loop

9.1  Do Loop
 
The formats are
 
a)   Do While condition
            Block of one or more VB statements
      Loop
 
b)   Do
            Block of one or more VB statements
      Loop While condition
 
c)    Do Until condition
              Block of one or more VB statements
       Loop
 

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d)    Do
             Block of one or more VB statements
       Loop Until condition
 9.2 Exiting the Loop

Sometime we need exit to exit a loop prematurely because of a certain condition is fulfilled. The syntax to
use is known as Exit Do. You can examine Example 9.2 for its usage.

Example 9.1
 
            Do while counter <=1000
                        num.Text=counter
                        counter =counter+1
            Loop
The above example will keep on adding until counter >1000.
The above example can be rewritten as
        Do
                            num.Text=counter
                            counter=counter+1
            Loop until counter>1000
 
 
Example 9.2
 
Dim sum, n As Integer
  Private Sub Form_Activate()
List1.AddItem "n" & vbTab & "sum"
Do
   n = n + 1
    Sum = Sum + n
  List1.AddItem n & vbTab & Sum
  If n = 100 Then
  Exit Do
  End If
  Loop
End Sub
 
Explanation
 
In the above  example, we  compute the summation of 1+2+3+4+……+100.  In the design stage, you need to
insert a ListBox into the form for displaying the output, named List1. The program uses the AddItem
method to populate the ListBox. The statement List1.AddItem "n" & vbTab & "sum" will display the
headings in the ListBox, where it uses the vbTab function to create a space between the headings n and
sum.
Example 9.3 b
Example 9.3 a  
  For counter=1 to 1000 step 10  
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 For  counter=1 to 10   counter=counter+1
display.Text=counter   Next
  Next
Example 9.3 d
Example 9.3 c  
  For counter=1000 to 5 step -5 Private Sub Form_Activate( )
  counter=counter-10 For n=1 to 10
    Next If n>6 then
*Notice that increment can be negative Exit For
End If
 
Else
Print n
End If
End Sub

9.3  For....Next Loop

The format is:
For counter=startNumber to endNumber (Step increment)
      One or more VB statements
Next
 
Please refer to example 9.3a,9.3b and 9.3 c for its usage.

Sometimes the user might want to get out from the loop before the whole repetitive process is executed,
the command to use is Exit For. To exit a For….Next Loop, you can place the Exit For statement within the
loop; and it is normally used together with the If…..Then… statement. Let’s examine example 9.3 d.

Lesson 12: Introduction to VB Built-in Functions

A function is similar to a procedure but the main purpose of the function is to accept a certain input from
the user and return a value which is passed on to the main program to finish the execution. There are two
types of functions, the built-in functions (or internal functions) and the functions created by the
programmers.

The general format of a function is

 FunctionName (arguments)

 The arguments are values that are passed on to the function.

In this lesson, you will learn two very basic but useful internal functions of Visual basic , i.e.  the MsgBox( )
and InputBox ( ) functions.

10.1 MsgBox ( ) Function

The objective of MsgBox is to produce a pop-up message box that prompt the user to click on a command
button before he /she can continues. This  format is as follows:

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          yourMsg=MsgBox(Prompt, Style Value, Title)
 

 The first argument, Prompt, will display the message in the message box. The Style Value  will determine
what type of command buttons appear on the message box, please refer Table 10.1 for types of command
button displayed. The Title argument will display the title of the message board.

Table 10.1: Style Values

Style Value Named Constant Buttons Displayed
0 vbOkOnly Ok button
1 vbOkCancel Ok and Cancel buttons
2 vbAbortRetryIgnore Abort, Retry and Ignore buttons.
3 vbYesNoCancel Yes, No and Cancel buttons
4 vbYesNo Yes and No buttons
5 vbRetryCancel Retry and Cancel buttons

We can use named constant in place of integers for the second argument to make the programs more
readable. In fact, VB6 will automatically shows up a list of names constant  where you can select one of
them.

        Example: yourMsg=MsgBox( "Click OK to Proceed", 1, "Startup Menu")

             and yourMsg=Msg("Click OK to Proceed". vbOkCancel,"Startup Menu")

are the same.

 yourMsg is a variable that holds values that are returned by the MsgBox ( ) function. The values are
determined by the type of buttons being clicked by the users. It has to be declared as Integer data type in
the procedure or in the general declaration section. Table 10.2 shows the values, the corresponding
named constant and buttons.

Table 10.2 : Return Values and Command Buttons

 Value Named Constant Button Clicked 
1 vbOk Ok button
2 vbCancel Cancel button
3 vbAbort Abort button
4 vbRetry Retry button
5 vbIgnore Ignore button
6 vbYes Yes button
7 vbNo No button
Example 10.1 ii. The procedure for the test button:
i. The Interface:
   You draw three command buttons and a label as Private Sub Test_Click()
shown in Figure 10.1 Dim testmsg As Integer
testmsg = MsgBox("Click to test", 1, "Test
message")

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 Figure 10.1 If testmsg = 1 Then
Display.Caption = "Testing Successful"
Else
Display.Caption = "Testing fail"
End If

End Sub
 

When the user click on the test button, the image

like the one shown in Figure 10.2 will appear. As
the user click on the OK button, the message
"Testing successful" will be displayed and when
he/she clicks on the Cancel button, the message
"Testing fail" will be displayed.
To make the message box looks more sophisticated,
you can add an icon besides the message. There are Figure 10.2
four types of icons available in VB as shown in  Table
10.3
Table 10.3
Named
Value Icon 
Constant

16 vbCritical
Example 10.2
32 vbQuestion
You draw the same Interface as in example 10.1
but modify the codes as follows:
48 vbExclamation  

64 vbInformation Private Sub test2_Click()

  Dim testMsg2 As Integer

testMsg2 = MsgBox("Click to Test", vbYesNoCancel
+ vbExclamation, "Test Message")
If testMsg2 = 6 Then
display2.Caption = "Testing successful"
ElseIf testMsg2 = 7 Then
display2.Caption = "Are you sure?"
Else
display2.Caption = "Testing fail"
End If

End Sub

In this example, the following message box will be

displayed:

Figure 10.3
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 10.2 The InputBox( ) Function

An InputBox( ) function will display a message box ii. The procedure for the OK button
where the user can enter a value or a message in
the form of text. The format is   Private Sub OK_Click()

myMessage=InputBox(Prompt, Title, Dim userMsg As String

default_text, x-position, y-position) userMsg = InputBox("What is your message?", "Message
Entry Form", "Enter your messge here", 500, 700)
myMessage is a variant data type but typically it is If userMsg <> "" Then
declared as string, which accept the message message.Caption = userMsg
input by the users. The arguments are explained Else
as follows: message.Caption = "No Message"
  End If

 Prompt       - The message displayed End Sub

normally as a question asked.
 Title            - The title of the Input Box. When a user click the OK button, the input box as shown in
 default-text  - The default text that Figure 10.5 will appear. After user entering the message and
appears in the input field where users can click OK, the message will be displayed on the caption, if he
use it as his intended input or he may click Cancel, "No message" will be displayed.
change to the message he wish to key in.
 x-position and y-position - the position or
the coordinate of the input box.

Example 10.3

i.  The Interface

Figure 10.4
 

Lesson 13: Mathematical Functions

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The mathematical functions are very useful and important in programming because very often we need to
deal with mathematical concepts in programming such as chance and probability, variables, mathematical
logics, calculations, coordinates, time intervals and etc. The common mathematical functions in Visual
Basic are Rnd, Sqr, Int, Abs, Exp, Log, Sin, Cos, Tan , Atn, Fix and Round.

(i) Rnd   is very useful when we deal with the concept of chance and probability. The Rnd function returns
a random value between 0 and 1. In Example 1. When  you run the program, you will get an output of 10
random numbers between 0 and 1. Randomize Timer is a vital statement here as it will randomize the
process.

 Example 1:
          Private Sub Form_Activate
Randomize Timer
For x=1 to 10
Print  Rnd
Next x
End Sub

The Output for example 1 is shown below:

Random numbers in its original form are not very useful in programming until we convert them to
integers. For example, if we need to obtain a random output of 6 random integers ranging from 1 to 6,
which make the program behave as a virtual die, we need to convert the random numbers using the
format  Int(Rnd*6)+1. Let’s study the following example:

In this example, Int(Rnd*6) will generate a random integer between 0 and 5 because the function Int
truncates the decimal part of the random number and returns an integer. After adding 1, you will get a
random number between 1 and 6 every time you click the command button. For example, let say the
random number generated is 0.98, after multiplying it by 6, it becomes 5.88, and using the integer function
Int(5.88) will convert the number to 5; and after adding 1 you will get 6.  

In this example, you place a command button and change its caption to ‘roll die’. You also need to insert a
label into the form and clear its caption at the designing phase and make its font bigger and bold. Then set
the border value to 1 so that it displays a border; and after that set the alignment to center. The statement
Label1.Caption=Num means the integer generated will be displayed as the caption of the label.

Example 2: 
                    Dim num as integer

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 Private Sub Command1_Click ( )
Randomize Timer
Num=Int(Rnd*6)+1
Label1.Caption=Num
End Sub

Now, run the program and then click on the roll die button, you will get an output like the figure below:

The Numeric Functions       

The numeric functions are Int, Sqr, Abs, Exp, Fix, Round and Log.

a) Int is the function that converts a number into an integer by truncating its decimal part and the resulting
integer is the largest integer that is smaller than the number. For example, Int(2.4)=2, Int(4.8)=4, Int(-4.6)=
-5, Int(0.032)=0 and so on.
b) Sqr is the function that computes the square root of a number. For example, Sqr(4)=2, Sqr(9)=2 and etc.
c) Abs is the function that returns the absolute value of a number. So Abs(-8) = 8 and Abs(8)= 8.
d) Exp of a number x is the value of e x. For example, Exp(1)=e1 = 2.7182818284590
e) Fix and Int are the same if the number is a positive number as both truncate the decimal part of the
number and return an integer. However, when the number is negative, it will return the smallest integer
that is larger than the number. For example, Fix(-6.34)= -6 while Int(-6.34)=-7.
f) Round is the function that rounds up a number to a certain number of decimal places. The Format is
Round (n, m) which means to round a number n to m decimal places. For example, Round (7.2567, 2)
=7.26
g) Log is the function that returns the natural Logarithm of a number. For example,
Log 10= 2.302585

Example 3
This example computes the values of Int(x), Fix(x) and Round(x,n) in a table form. It uses the Do Loop
statement and the Rnd function to generate 10 numbers. The statement x = Round (Rnd * 7, 7) rounds a
random number between 0 and 7 to 7 decimal places. Using commas in between items will create spaces
between them and hence a table of values can be created. The program  and output are shown below
Private Sub Form_Activate ()
n = 1Print " n", "          x", "Int(x)", "Fix(x)", "Round(x, 4)"
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 Do While n < 11
Randomize Timer
x = Round (Rnd * 7, 7)
Print n, x, Int(x), Fix(x), Round(x, 4)
n=n+1
Loop
End Sub

Lesson 14:   Formatting Functions

Formatting output is a very important part of programming so that the data can be presented
systematically and clearly to the users. Data in the previous lesson were presented fairly systematically
through the use of commas and some of the functions like Int, Fix and Round. However, to have better
control of the output format, we can use a number of formatting functions in Visual basic.

The three most common formatting functions in VB are Tab, Space, and Format

(i) The Tab function

Tab (n); x
The item x will be displayed at a position that is n spaces from the left border of the output form. There
must be a semicolon in between Tab and the items you intend to display (VB will actually do it for you
automatically).
 Example1
Private Sub Form_Activate
Print "I"; Tab(5); "like"; Tab(10); "to"; Tab(15); "learn"; Tab(20); "VB"
Print
Print Tab(10); "I"; Tab(15); "like"; Tab(20); "to"; Tab(25); "learn"; Tab(20); "VB"
                Print
                Print Tab(15); "I"; Tab(20); ; "like"; Tab(25); "to"; Tab(30); "learn"; Tab(35); “VB"
End sub
The Output for example 1 is shown below:

(ii) The Space function

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The Space function is very closely linked to the Tab function. However, there is a minor difference. While
Tab (n) means the item is placed n spaces from the left border of the screen, the Space function specifies
the number of spaces between two consecutive items. For example, the procedure
 Example 2
Private Sub Form_Activate()
Print "Visual"; Space(10); "Basic"
End Sub
Means that the words Visual and Basic will be separated by 10 spaces
(iii) The Format function
The Format function is a very powerful formatting function which can display the numeric values in various
forms. There are two types of Format function, one of them is the built-in or predefined format while
another one can be defined by the users.
(i) The format of the predefined Format function is
Format (n, “style argument”)
where n is a number and the list of style arguments is given in the table
Style Explanation Example
argument
General To display the number without  
Number having separators between
thousands. Format(8972.234, “General Number”)=8972.234
Fixed To display the number without  
having separators between
thousands and rounds it up to Format(8972.2, “Fixed”)=8972.23
two decimal places.
Standard To display the number with  
separators or separators
between thousands and rounds Format(6648972.265, “Standard”)= 6,648,972.27
it up to two decimal places.
Currency To display the number with the  
dollar sign in front, has
separators between thousands Format(6648972.265, “Currency”)=
as well as rounding it up to two $6,648,972.27
decimal places.
Percent Converts the number to the  
percentage form and displays a
% sign and rounds it up to two Format(0.56324, “Percent”)=56.32 %
decimal places.

Example 3
Private Sub Form_Activate()
Print Format (8972.234, "General Number")
Print Format (8972.2, "Fixed")
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Print Format (6648972.265, "Standard")
Print Format (6648972.265, "Currency")
Print Format (0.56324, "Percent")
End Sub

Now, run the program and you will get an output like the figure below:

Lesson 15: String Manipulation Functions

In this lesson, we will learn how to use some of the string manipulation function such as Len, Right, Left,
Mid, Trim, Ltrim, Rtrim, Ucase, Lcase, Instr, Val, Str  ,Chr and Asc.
(i)The   Len Function
The length function returns an integer value which is the length of a phrase or a sentence, including the
empty spaces. The format is
Len (“Phrase”)
For example,
Len (VisualBasic) = 11 and Len (welcome to VB tutorial) = 22
The Len function can also return the number of digits or memory locations of a number that is stored in
the computer. For example,
Private sub Form_Activate ( )
X=sqr (16)
Y=1234
Z#=10#
Print Len(x), Len(y), and Len (z)
End Sub
will produce the output  1, 4 , 8. The reason why the last value is 8 is because z# is a double precision
number and so it is allocated more memory spaces.

(ii) The Right   Function

The Right function extracts the right portion of a phrase. The format is

Right (“Phrase”, n)

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Where n is the starting position from the right of the phase where the portion of the phrase is going to be
extracted.  For example,

 Right(“Visual Basic”, 4) = asic

(iii)The Left Function

The Left$ function extract the left portion of a phrase. The format is

Left(“Phrase”, n)

Where n is the starting position from the left of the phase where the portion of the phrase is going to be
extracted.  For example,

 Left (“Visual Basic”, 4) = Visu

 (iv) The Ltrim Function

The Ltrim function trims the empty spaces of the left portion of the phrase. The format is

Ltrim(“Phrase”)

.For example,

 Ltrim (“  Visual Basic”, 4)= Visual basic

(v) The Rtrim Function

The Rtrim function trims the empty spaces of the right portion of the phrase. The format is

Rtrim(“Phrase”)

.For example,

Rtrim (“Visual Basic      ”, 4) = Visual basic

(vi)      The Trim function

The Ttrim function trims the empty spaces on both side of the phrase. The format is

Trim(“Phrase”)

.For example,

Trim (“   Visual Basic      ”) = Visual basic

(viii) The Mid Function

The Mid function extracts a substring from the original phrase or string. It takes the following format:

Mid(phrase, position, n)

Where position is the starting position of the phrase from which the extraction process will start and n is
the number of characters to be extracted. For example,

Mid(“Visual Basic”, 3, 6) = ual Bas

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(ix) The InStr function

 The InStr function looks for a phrase that is embedded within the original phrase and returns the starting
position of the embedded phrase. The format is

Instr (n, original phase, embedded phrase)

Where n is the position where the Instr function will begin to look for the embedded phrase. For example

Instr(1, “Visual Basic”,” Basic”)=8

(x) The Ucase and the Lcase functions

The Ucase function converts all the characters of a string to capital letters. On the other hand, the Lcase
function converts all the characters of a string to small letters. For example,

Ucase(“Visual Basic”) =VISUAL BASiC

Lcase(“Visual Basic”) =visual basic

(xi) The Str and Val functions

The Str is the function that converts a number to a string while the Val function converts a string to a
number. The two functions are important when we need to perform mathematical operations.

(xii) The Chr and the Asc functions

The Chr function returns the string that corresponds to an ASCII code while the Asc function converts an
ASCII character or symbol to the corresponding ASCII code. ASCII stands for “American Standard Code for
Information Interchange”. Altogether there are 255 ASCII codes and as many ASCII characters. Some of the
characters may not be displayed as they may represent some actions such as the pressing of a key or
produce a beep sound. The format of the Chr function is

Chr(charcode)

and the format of the Asc function is

Asc(Character)

The following are some examples:

Chr(65)=A, Chr(122)=z, Chr(37)=% , Asc(“B”)=66, Asc(“&”)=38

Lesson 16: Creating User-Defined Functions

14.1 Creating Your Own Function

The general format of a function is as follows:

Public  Function functionName (Arg As dataType,..........) As dataType

or

Private  Function functionName (Arg As dataType,..........) As dataType

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* Public indicates that the function is applicable to the whole project and
   Private indicates that the function is only applicable to a certain module or procedure.

Example 14.1

In this example, a user can calculate the future value of a certain amount of money he has today based on
the interest rate and the number of years from now,  supposing  he will invest this amount of money
somewhere .The calculation is based on the compound interest rate.

The code
Public Function FV(PV As Variant, i As Variant, n As Variant) As Variant

'Formula to calculate Future Value(FV)

'PV denotes Present Value
FV = PV * (1 + i / 100) ^ n

End Function

Private Sub compute_Click()

'This procedure will calculate Future Value

Dim FutureVal As Variant  
Dim PresentVal As Variant
Dim interest As Variant
Dim period As Variant
PresentVal = PV.Text
interest = rate.Text
period = years.Text

'calling the funciton

FutureVal = FV(PresentVal, interest, period)

MsgBox ("The Future Value is " & FutureVal)

End Sub
 

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Example 14.2

The following program will automatically compute examination grades based on the marks that a student
obtained. The code is shown on the right.

The Code
 
Public Function grade(mark As Variant) As String
Select Case mark
Case Is >= 80
grade = "A"
Case Is >= 70
grade = "B"
Case Is >= 60
grade = "C"
Case Is >= 50
grade = "D"
Case Is >= 40
grade = "E"
Case Else
grade = "F"
End Select
End Function
 
Private Sub compute_Click()
grading.Caption = grade(mark)
 
End Sub

Lesson17: Creating VBA Functions for MS  Excel

15.1 The Needs to Create VBA Functions in MS-Excel

You can create  your own functions to supplement the  built-in functions in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet,
which are quite limited in some aspects. These user-defined  functions are also called  Visual Basic for

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Applications functions, or simply VBA functions. They are very useful and powerful if you know how to
program them properly. One main reason we need to create user defined functions is to enable us to
customize our spreadsheet environment for individual needs. For example, we might need a function that
could calculate commissions payment based on the sales volume, which is quite difficult if not impossible
by using the built-in functions alone. The code for VBA is illustrated on the right.

Table 15.1: Commissions Payment Table

Sales Volume($) Commissons
<500 3%
<1000 6%
<2000 9%
<5000 12%
>5000 15%

In table 15.1, when a salesman attain a sale volume of  $6000, he will be paid $6000x15%=$720.00. A
visual basic function to calculate the commissions can be written as follows:

Function Comm(Sales_V  As Variant) as Variant

If Sales_V <500 Then
Comm=Sales_V*0.03
Elseif Sales_V>=500 and Sales_V<1000 Then
Comm=Sales_V*0.06
Elseif Sales_V>=1000 and Sales_V<2000 Then
Comm=Sales_V*0.09
Elseif Sales_V>=200 and Sales_V<5000 Then
Comm=Sales_V*0.12
Elseif Sales_V>=5000  Then
Comm=Sales_V*0.15
End If
End Function

15.2 Using Microsoft Excel Visual Basic  Editor

To create VBA functions in MS Excel, you can  click on tools,

select macro and then click on Visual Basic Editor as shown in Figure 15.1

Figure 15.1: Inserting MS_Excel Visual Basic Editor

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Upon clicking the Visual Basic Editor, the VB Editor windows will appear as shown in figure 15.2. To create
a function, type in the function as illustrated in section 15.1 above After typing, save the  file and then
return to the Excel windows.

Figure 15.2 : The VB Editor

In the Excel window, type in the titles Sales Volume and Commissions in any two cells. By referring to
figure 15.3, key-in the Comm function at cell C4 and by referencing the value in cell B4, using the format
Comm(B4). Any value appear in cell B4 will pass the value to the Comm function in cell C4. For the rest of
the rows, just copy the formula by  dragging  the bottom right corner of cell C4 to the required cells, a nice
and neat table that shows the commissions will automatically appear (as shown in figure 15.3). It can also
be updated anytime

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 Figure 15.3: MS Excel Windows- Sales Volume

Lesson 18: Arrays

Array definition, an array is a list of variables with the same data type and name. When we work with a
single item, we only need to use one variable. However, if we have a list of items which are of similar type
to deal with, we need to declare an array of variables instead of using a variable for each item

For example, if we need to enter one hundred names, it is difficulty to decalre 100 different names, this is
a waste of time and efforts. So,  instead of declaring one hundred different variables, we need to declare
only one array.  We differentiate each item in the array by using subscript, the index value of each item,
for example name(1), name(2),name(3) .......etc. , which will make declaring variables streamline and much
systematic.

16.2 Dimension of an Array

An array can be one dimensional or multidimensional. One dimensional array is like a list of items or a
table that consists of one row of items or one column of items.

A two dimensional array is a table of items that make up of rows and columns. The format for a one
dimensional array is ArrayName(x), the format for a two dimensional array is ArrayName(x,y) and a three
dimensional array is ArrayName(x,y,z) . Normally it is sufficient to use one dimensional and two
dimensional array ,you only need to use higher dimensional arrays if you need to deal more complex
problems. Let me illustrate the the arrays with tables.

Table 16.1. One dimensional Array

Name(2 Name(3 Name(4 Name(5 Name(6

Student Name Name(1)
) ) ) ) )

Table 16.2 Two Dimensional Array

Name(1, Name(1, Name(1, Name(1,

1) 2) 3) 4)

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 Name(2, Name(2, Name(2, Name(2,
1) 2) 3) 4)

Name(3, Name(3, Name(3, Name(3,

1) 2) 3) 4)

 16.2 Declaring Arrays

We can use Public or Dim statement to declare an array just as the way we declare a single variable. The
Public statement declares an array that can be used throughout an application while the Dim statement
declare an array that could be used only in a local procedure.

The general format to declare a one dimensional array is as follow:

Dim arrayName(subs) as dataType

where subs indicates the last subscript in the array.

Example 16.1

Dim CusName(10) as String

will declare an array that consists of 10 elements if the statement Option Base 1 appear in the declaration
area, starting from CusName(1) to CusName(10). Otherwise, there will be 11 elements in the array starting
from CusName(0) through to CusName(10)

CusName(2 CusName(3 CusName(5 CusName(6 CusName(7 CusName(8 CusName(9

CusName(1) CusName(4) CusName(10)
) ) ) ) ) ) )

Example 16.2

Dim Count(100 to 500) as Integer

 
declares an array that consists of the first element starting from Count(100) and ends at Count(500)
 
The general format to declare a two dimensional array is as follow:
 
Dim ArrayName(Sub1,Sub2) as dataType
 
Example 16.3
Dim StudentName(10,10) will declare a 10x10 table make up of 100 students' Names, starting with
StudentName(1,1)  and end with StudentName(10,10).

 16.3 Sample Programs

(i) The code (ii) The Code

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 Dim studentName(10) As String Dim studentName(10) As String
Dim num As Integer Dim num As Integer

Private Sub addName() Private Sub addName( )

For num = 1 To 10 For num = 1 To 10
studentName(num) = InputBox("Enter the student studentName(num) = InputBox("Enter the student
name", "Enter Name", "", 1500, 4500) name")
If studentName(num) <> "" Then List1.AddItem studentName(num)
Form1.Print studentName(num) Next
Else End Sub
End Private Sub Start_Click()
End If addName

Next End Sub

End Sub

The above program accepts data entry through an

input box and displays the entries in the form The above program accepts data entries through
itself. As you can see, this program will only allows an InputBox and displays the items in a list box.
a user to enter 10 names each time he click on the  
start button.

Lesson 19: Working with Files

17.1 Introduction

Up until lesson 13 we are only creating programs that could accept data at runtime, when the program is
terminated, the data also disappear. Is it possible to save data accepted by a VB program into a storage
device, such as a hard disk or diskette, or even CDRW? The answer is possible. In this chapter, we will learn
how to create files by writing them into a storage device and then retrieve the data by reading  the
contents of the files using a customized VB program.

17.2 Creating files

To create a file , we use  the following command
Open "fileName" For Output  As #fileNumber
Each file created must have a file name and a file number for identification. As for the file name, you must
also specify the path where the file will reside.
Examples:
Open "c:\My Documents\sample.txt" For Output As #1
will create a text file by the name of sample.txt in My Document folder. The accompany file number is 1. If
you wish to create and save the file in A drive, simply change the path, as follows"
Open "A:\sample.txt" For Output As #1
If you wish to  create a HTML file , simply change the extension to .html
Open "c:\My Documents\sample.html" For Output As # 2

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17.2.1 Sample Program : Creating a text file

Private Sub create_Click()

Dim intMsg As String

Dim StudentName As String

Open "c:\My Documents\sample.txt" For Output As #1

intMsg = MsgBox("File sample.txt opened")
StudentName = InputBox("Enter the student Name")
Print #1, StudentName
intMsg = MsgBox("Writing a" & StudentName & " to sample.txt ")

Close #1
intMsg = MsgBox("File sample.txt closed")

End Sub

* The above program will create a file sample.txt in the My Documents' folder and ready to receive input
from users. Any data input by users will be saved in this text file.

17.3.1 Sample Program: Reading file

Private Sub Reading_Click()

Dim variable1 As String
Open "c:\My Documents\sample.txt" For Input As #1
Input #1, variable1
Text1.Text = variable1
Close #1

End Sub

* This program will open the sample.txt file and display its contents in the Text1 textbox.

Example 17.3.2 Creating and The syntax CommonDialog1.Filter = "Text files{*.txt)|*.txt" ensures
Reading files using Common Dialog that only the textfile is read or saved .The statement
Box CommonDialog1.ShowOpen is to display the open file dialog box and
This example uses the common the statement CommonDialog1.ShowSave is to display thesave file
dialog box to create and read the dialog box. Text1.Text = Text1.Text & linetext is to read the data and
text file, which is display them in the Text1 textbox
much easier than the previous
examples as many operations are The Output window is shown below:
handled by the
common dialog box. The following is
the program:

Dim linetext As String

Private Sub open_Click()
CommonDialog1.Filter = "Text
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 files{*.txt)|*.txt"
CommonDialog1.ShowOpen

If CommonDialog1.FileName <> ""

Then
Open CommonDialog1.FileName For
Input As #1
Do
Input #1, linetext
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & linetext
Loop Until EOF(1)
End If
Close #1
End Sub
Private Sub save_Click()
CommonDialog1.Filter = "Text  
files{*.txt)|*.txt"
CommonDialog1.ShowSave  
If CommonDialog1.FileName <> ""
Then
Open CommonDialog1.FileName For
Output As #1
Print #1, Text1.Text
Close #1
End If
End Sub

Lesson 20: Graphics

Graphics is a very important part of visual basic programming as an attractive interface will be appealing to
the users. In the old BASIC, drawing and designing graphics are considered as difficult jobs, as they have to
be programmed line by line in a text-based environment. However, in Visual Basic, these jobs have been
made easy. There are four basic controls in VB that you can use to draw graphics on your form: the line
control, the shape control, the image box and the picture box.

18.1The line and Shape controls

To draw a straight line, just click on the line control and then use your mouse to draw the line on the form.
After drawing the line, you can then change its color, width and style using the BorderColor, BorderWidth
and BorderStyle properties.

Similarly, to draw a shape, just click on the shape control and draw the shape on the form. The default
shape is a rectangle, with the shape property set at 0. You can change the shape to square, oval, circle and
rounded rectangle by changing the shape property’s value to 1, 2, 3 4, and 5 respectively. In addition, you
can change its background color using the BackColor property, its border style using the BorderStyle
property, its border color using the BorderColor pproperty as well its border width using the BorderWidth
property.

 Example 18.1
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The program in this example allows the user to change the shape by selecting a particular shape from a list
of options from a list box, as well as changing its color through a common dialog box. 

The objects to be inserted in the form are a list box, a command button, a shape control and a common
dialog box. The common dialog box can be inserted by clicking on ‘project’ on the menu and then select
the Microsoft Common Dialog Control 6.0 by clicking the check box. After that, the Microsoft Common
Dialog Control 6.0 will appear in the toolbox; and you can drag it into the form. The list of items can be
added to the list box through the AddItem method. The procedure for the common dialog box to present
the standard colors is as follows:

CommonDialog1.Flags = &H1&
CommonDialog1.ShowColor
Shape1.BackColor = CommonDialog1.Color

The last line will change the background color of the shape by clicking on a particular color on the common
dialog box as shown in the Figure below:

The Interface. The Code

   
Private Sub Form_Load()
List1.AddItem "Rectangle"
List1.AddItem "Square"
List1.AddItem "Oval"
List1.AddItem "Circle"
List1.AddItem "Rounded Rectangle"
List1.AddItem "Rounded Square"
 
End Sub
The color dialog box  
Private Sub List1_Click()
Select Case List1.ListIndex
Case 0
Shape1.Shape = 0
Case 1
Shape1.Shape = 1
Case 2
Shape1.Shape = 2
Case 3
Shape1.Shape = 3
Case 4
Shape1.Shape = 4
Case 5
Shape1.Shape = 5
End Select

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 End Sub
Private Sub Command1_Click()
CommonDialog1.Flags = &H1&
CommonDialog1.ShowColor
Shape1.BackColor =
CommonDialog1.Color
End Sub

18.2 The Image Box and the Picture Box

Using the line and shape controls to draw graphics will only enable you to create a simple design. In order
to improve the look of the interface, you need to put in images and pictures of your own. Fortunately,
there are two very powerful graphics tools you can use in Visual Basic which are the image box and the
picture box.

To load a picture or image into an image box or a picture box, Dim a, b, c As Integer
you can click on the picture property in the properties
Private Sub Command1_Click ()
window and a dialog box will appear which will prompt the
user to select a certain picture file. You can also load a Randomize Timer
picture at runtime by using the LoadPictrure ( ) method. The a = 3 + Int(Rnd * 3)
syntax is
b = 3 + Int(Rnd * 3)
Image1.Picture= LoadPicture("C:\path name\picture file
name") or c = 3 + Int(Rnd * 3)

picture1.Picture= LoadPicture("C:\path name\picture name")  

  If a = 3 Then

For example, the following statement will load the grape.gif Image1(0).Picture =
picture into the image box. LoadPicture("C:\My Folder\VB
program\Images\grape.gif")
Image1.Picture= LoadPicture("C:\My Folder\VB
program\Images\grape.gif") End If

  If a = 4 Then
Image1(0).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Example 18.2 Folder\VB program\Images\cherry.gif")
End If
In this example, each time you click on the ‘change pictures’
button as shown in Figure 19.2, you will be able to see three If a = 5 Then
images loaded into the image boxes. This program uses the Image1(0).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Rnd function to generate random integers and then uses the Folder\VB
LoadPicture method to load different pictures into the image program\Images\orange.gif")
boxes using the If…Then…Statements based on the random
numbers generated. The output is shown in Figure 19.2 End If
below If b = 3 Then
  Image1(1).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Folder\VB program\Images\grape.gif")

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 End If
If b = 4 Then
Image1(1).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Folder\VB program\Images\cherry.gif")
End If
If b = 5 Then
Image1(1).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Folder\VB
program\Images\orange.gif")
End If
  If c = 3 Then
Image1(2).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Folder\VB program\Images\grape.gif")
End If
If c = 4 Then
Image1(2).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Folder\VB program\Images\cherry.gif")
End If
If c = 5 Then
Image1(2).Picture = LoadPicture("C:\My
Folder\VB
program\Images\orange.gif")
End If
End Sub

18.3 PSet, Line and Circle Drawing Methods

Other than using the line and shape controls to draw graphics on the form, you can also use the Pset, Line
and Circle methods to draw graphics on the form.
(a) The Pset Method
The Pset method draw a dot on the screen, it takes the format
Pset (x , y ), color
(x,y) is the coordinates of the point and color is its color. To specify the color, you can use the color codes
or the standard VB color constant such as VbRed, VbBlue, VbGeen and etc. For example, Pset(100,200),
VbRed will display a red dot at the (100,200) coordinates.
The Pset method can also be used to draw a straight line on the form. The procedure is
For x= a to b
Pset(x,x)
Next x

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This procedure will draw a line starting from the point (a,a) and to the point (b,b). For example, the
following procedure will draw a magenta line from the point (0,0) to the point (1000,1000).
For x= 0 to 100
Pset(x,x) , vbMagenta
Next x
 (b) The Line Method
Although the Pset method can be used to draw a straight line on the form, it is a little slow. It is better to
use the Line method if you want to draw a straight line faster. The format of the Line command is shown
below. It draws a line from the point (x1, y1) to the point (x2, y2) and the color constant will determine the
color of the line.
Line (x1, y1)-(x2, y2), color
For example, the following command will draw a red line from the point (0, 0) to the point (1000, 2000).
Line (0, 0)-(1000, 2000), VbRed
The Line method can also be used to draw a rectangle. The format is
Line (x1-y1)-(x2, y2), color, B
The four corners of the rectangle are (x1-y1), (x2-y1), (x1-y2) and (x2, y2)
Another variation of the Line method is to fill the rectangle with a certain color. The format is
Line (x1, y1)-(x2, y2), color, BF
If you wish to draw the graphics in a picture box, you can use the following formats
·                Picture1.Line (x1, y1)-(x2, y2), color
·                Picture1.Line (x1-y1)-(x2, y2), color, B
·                Picture1.Line (x1-y1)-(x2, y2), color, BF
·                Picture1.Circle (x1, y1), radius, color   
(c) The Circle Method
The circle method takes the following format
Circle (x1, y1), radius, color
That draws a circle centered at (x1, y1), with a certain radius and a certain border color. For example, the
procedure
Circle (400, 400), 500, VbRed
draws a circle centered at (400, 400) with a radius of 500 twips and a red border.
Example: Plesae refer to the Drawing Program

Lesson 21: Creating Multimedia Applications-Part I

To be able to play multimedia files or multimedia devices, you have to insert Microsoft Multimedia
Control into your VB applications that you are going to create. However, Microsoft Multimedia Control is
not normally included in the startup toolbox, therefore you need to add the  MM control by pressing
Ctrl+T and select it from the components dialog box that is displayed.

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19.1 Creating a CD player

In this program, you can create a CD player that resembles an actual CD player. It allows the user select a
track to play, to fast forward, to rewind and also to eject the CD. It can also display the track being played.
The interface and code are shown below.

a) The Interface.

The Code
Private Sub Form_Load()
'To position the page at the center
Left = (Screen.Width - Width) \ 2 Private Sub Play_Click()
Top = (Screen.Height - Height) \ 2 myCD.Command = "Play"
'Initialize the CD
End Sub
myCD.Command = "Open"

End Sub
Private Sub Previous_Click()
myCD.Command = "Prev"
Private Sub myCD_StatusUpdate() End Sub

'Update the track number

Private Sub Stop_Click()
trackNum.Caption = myCD.Track
myCD.Command = "Stop"
End Sub
End Sub
 

Private Sub Next_Click()

myCD.Command = "Next"
End Sub

Lesson 22: Creating Multimedia Applications-Part II

In previous lesson, we have programmed a CD player. Now, by making some modifications, you canl
transform the CD player into an audio player. This player will be created in such a way that it could search
for wave and midi files in your drives and play them.

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 In this project, you need to insert a ComboBox, a DriveListBox, a DirListBox, a TextBox and a FileListBox
into your form. I Shall briefly discuss the function of each of the above controls. Besides, you must also
insert Microsoft Multimedia Control(MMControl) into your form , you may make it visible or invisible. In
my program, I choose to make it invisible so that I can use the command buttons created to control the
player.

 ComboBox- to display and enable selection of different type of files.

 DriveListBox- to allow selection selection of different drives available on your PC.
 DirListBox - To display directories
 TextBox - To display selected files
 FileListBox- To display files that are available

Relevant code must be written to coordinate all the above controls so that the application can work
properly. The program should follow in the following logical way:

Step 1: User chooses the type of files he wants to play.

Step2:User selects the drive that might contains the relevant audio files.

Step 3:User looks into directories and subdirectories for the files specified in step1. The files should be
displayed in the  FileListBox.

Step 4:  User selects the files from the FileListBox and click the Play button.

Step 5: User clicks on the Stop button to stop playing and Exit button to end the application.

The Interface

The Code Private Sub play_Click()

'To play WaveAudio file or Midi File
Private Sub Combo1_Change() Command2_Click
' to determine file type If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then
AudioPlayer.DeviceType = "WaveAudio"
If ListIndex = 0 Then ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 1 Then

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File1.Pattern = ("*.wav") AudioPlayer.DeviceType = "Sequencer"
ElseIf ListIndex = 1 Then End If
File1.Pattern = ("*.mid") AudioPlayer.FileName = Text1.Text
Else AudioPlayer.Command = "Open"
Fiel1.Pattern = ("*.*") AudioPlayer.Command = "Play"
End If 　
End Sub End Sub
　
Private Sub Dir1_Change() Private Sub stop_Click()
'To change directories and subdirectories(or folders and subfolders) If AudioPlayer.Mode = 524 Then Exit Sub
File1.Path = Dir1.Path If AudioPlayer.Mode <> 525 Then
If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then AudioPlayer.Wait = True
File1.Pattern = ("*.wav") AudioPlayer.Command = "Stop"
ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 1 Then End If
File1.Pattern = ("*.mid") AudioPlayer.Wait = True
Else AudioPlayer.Command = "Close"
File1.Pattern = ("*.*")
End If End Sub
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Load()
'To center the Audioplayer startup page
Private Sub Drive1_Change()
Left = (Screen.Width - Width) \ 2
'To change drives
Top = (Screen.Height - Height) \ 2
Dir1.Path = Drive1.Drive Combo1.Text = "*.wav"
End Sub Combo1.AddItem "*.wav"
Combo1.AddItem "*.mid"
Private Sub File1_Click() Combo1.AddItem "All files"
If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then End Sub
File1.Pattern = ("*.wav")
ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 1 Then
File1.Pattern = ("*.mid")
Else
File1.Pattern = ("*.*")
End If
If Right(File1.Path, 1) <> "\" Then
filenam = File1.Path + "\" + File1.FileName
Else
filenam = File1.Path + File1.FileName
End If
Text1.Text = filenam
End Sub

Lesson 23: Creating Multimedia Applications-Part III

In lesson 20, we have created an audio player. Now, by making further modifications, you can transform
the audio player into a picture viewer. This viewer will be created in such a way that it could search for all
types of graphics files in  your drives and displays them in a picture frame.

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Similar to the previous project, in this project, you need to insert a ComboBox, a DriveListBox, a
DirListBox, a TextBox and a FileListBox into your form. I Shall briefly explain again the function of each of
the above controls.

 ComboBox- to display and enable selection of different type of files.

 DriveListBox- to allow selection of different drives available on your PC.

 DirListBox - To display directories

 TextBox - To display selected files

 FileListBox- To display files that are available

 Relevant code must be written to coordinate all the above controls so that the application can
work properly. The program should flow in the following logical way:

 Step 1: The user chooses the type of files he wants to play.

 Step2:The user selects the drive that might contains the relevant graphic  files.

 Step 3:The user looks into directories and subdirectories for the files specified in step1. The files
should be displayed in the  FileListBox.

 Step 4: The user selects the files from the FileListBox and click the Show button.

 Step 5: The user clicks on  Exit button to end the application.

 The Interface

Private Sub File1_Click()

The Code
If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then
Private Sub Form_Load() File1.Pattern = ("*.bmp;*.wmf;*.jpg;*.gif")
Else

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 'To center the player File1.Pattern = ("*.*")
Left = (Screen.Width - Width) \ 2 EnId If
Top = (Screen.Height - Height)\2
                                                                 If Right(File1.Path, 1) <> "\" Then
Combo1.Text = "All graphic files" filenam = File1.Path + "\" + File1.FileName
Combo1.AddItem "All graphic files" Else
Combo1.AddItem "All files" filenam = File1.Path + File1.FileName
End If
End Sub　 Text1.Text = filenam

Private Sub Combo1_Change() End Sub

If ListIndex = 0 Then Private Sub show_Click()

File1.Pattern = ("*.bmp;*.wmf;*.jpg;*.gif")
Else If Right(File1.Path, 1) <> "\" Then
Fiel1.Pattern = ("*.*") filenam = File1.Path + "\" + File1.FileName
End If Else
filenam = File1.Path + File1.FileName
End Sub End If

'Specific the types of files to load 'To load the picture into the picture box
Private Sub Dir1_Change() picture1.Picture = LoadPicture(filenam)

File1.Path = Dir1.Path End Sub

File1.Pattern = ("*.bmp;*.wmf;*.jpg;*.gif") 　
End Sub

'Changing Drives

Private Sub Drive1_Change()

Dir1.Path = Drive1.Drive
End Sub                                                           

---------> Continue on the right column

Lesson 24: Creating Multimedia Applications-Part IV

A Multimedia Player

In lesson 20, we have created an audio player. Now, by making more modifications, you can transform the
audio player into a multimedia player. This player will be able to search for all types of movie files and
audio files in your drives and play them.

In this project, you need to insert a ComboBox, a DriveListBox, a DirListBox, a TextBox ,a FileListBox  and
a picture box (for playing movie) into your form. I Shall briefly discuss the function of each of the above
controls. Besides, you must also insert Microsoft Multimedia Control(MMControl) into your form , you
may make it visible or invisible. In my program, I choose to make it invisible so that I could use the
command buttons created to control the player.
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  ComboBox- to display and enable selection of different type of files.
 DriveListBox- to allow selection selection of different drives available on your PC.
 DirListBox - To display directories
 TextBox - To display selected files
 FileListBox- To display files that are available

Relevant codes must be written to coordinate all the above controls so that the application can work
properly. The program should flow in the following logical way:

Step 1: User chooses the type of files he wants to play.

Step2:User selects the drive that might contains the relevant audio files.

Step 3:User looks into directories and subdirectories for the files specified in step1. The files should be
displayed in the  FileListBox.

Step 4:  User selects the files from the FileListBox and clicks the Play button.

Step 5: User clicks on the Stop button to stop playing and Exit button to end the application.

The Interface

The Code

Private Sub Form_Load() Private Sub Dir1_Change()

'To fix the player size         'To search the directories or folders for the
Left = (Screen.Width - Width) \ 2 media files
Top = (Screen.Height - Height) \ 2 File1.Path = Dir1.Path
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 Combo1.Text = "*.wav" If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then
Combo1.AddItem "*.wav" File1.Pattern = ("*.wav")
Combo1.AddItem "*.mid" ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 1 Then
Combo1.AddItem "*.avi;*.mpg" File1.Pattern = ("*.mid")
Combo1.AddItem "All files" ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 2 Then
File1.Pattern = ("*.avi;*.mpg")
End Sub Else
Private Sub Combo1_Change() File1.Pattern = ("*.*")
              'To select types of media files End If
If ListIndex = 0 Then End Sub
File1.Pattern = ("*.wav")
ElseIf ListIndex = 1 Then
File1.Pattern = ("*.mid") Private Sub Drive1_Change()
ElseIf ListIndex = 2 Then 'To Change Drives
File1.Pattern = ("*.avi;*.mpg") Dir1.Path = Drive1.Drive
Else End Sub
Fiel1.Pattern = ("*.*")
End If
Private Sub play_Click()
End Sub
MMPlayer.FileName = Text1.Text
Private Sub File1_Click() MMPlayer.Command = "Open"
'To load the selected file MMPlayer.Command = "Play"
If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then MMPlayer.hWndDisplay = videoscreen.hWnd
File1.Pattern = ("*.wav") End Sub
ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 1 Then
File1.Pattern = ("*.mid")
ElseIf Combo1.ListIndex = 2 Then Private Sub stop_Click()
File1.Pattern = ("*.avi;*.mpg") If MMPlayer.Mode = 524 Then Exit Sub
Else If MMPlayer.Mode <> 525 Then
File1.Pattern = ("*.*") MMPlayer.Wait = True
End If MMPlayer.Command = "Stop"
End If
If Right(File1.Path, 1) <> "\" Then MMPlayer.Wait = True
filenam = File1.Path + "\" + File1.FileName MMPlayer.Command = "Close"
Else
End Sub
filenam = File1.Path + File1.FileName
End If
Text1.Text = filenam
End Sub

Lesson 25: Creating database applications in VB-Part I

Visual basic allows us to manage databases created with different database programs such as MS Access,
Dbase, Paradox and etc. In this lesson, we are not dealing with how to create database files but we will see
how we can access database files in the VB environment. In the following example, we will create a simple
database application which enable one to browse customers' names.  To create this application,  insert the
data control into the new form. Place the data control somewhere at the bottom of the form. Name the
data control as data_navigator. To be able to use the data control, we need to connect it to any database.

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We can create a database file using any database application but I suggest we use the database files that
come with VB6. Let select NWIND.MDB as our database file.

To connect the data control to this database, double-click the DatabaseName property in the properties
window and select the above file, i.e NWIND.MDB.  Next, double-click on the RecordSource property to
select the customers table from the database. You can also change the caption of the data control to
anything but I use "Click to browse Customers" here. After that, we will place a label   and change its
caption to Customer Name. Last but not least, insert another label and name it as cus_name and leave the
label empty as customers' names will appear here when we click the arrows on the data control. We need
to bind this label to the data control for the application to work. To do this, open the label's DataSource
and select data_navigator that will appear automatically. One more thing that we need to do is to bind the
label to the correct field so that data in this field will appear on this label. To do this, open the DataField
property and select ContactName. Now, press F5 and run the program. You should be able to browse all
the customers' names by clicking the arrows on the data control.

The Design  Interface.

The Runtime Interface

You can also add other fields using exactly the same method. For example, you can add address, City and
telephone number to the database browser.

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Lesson 26: Creating database applications in VB-Part II

In Lesson 23, you have learned how to create a simple database application using data control. In this
lesson, you will work on the same application but use some slightly more advance commands. The data
control support some methods that are useful in manipulating the database, for example, to move the
pointer to a certain location. The following are some of the commands that you can use to move the
pointer around:

data_navigator.RecordSet.MoveFirst                                            ' Move to the first record

data_navigator.RecordSet.MoveLast                                          ' Move to the last record
data_navigator.RecordSet.MoveNext                                        ' Move to the next record
data_navigator.RecordSet.Previous                                            ' Move to the first record

You can also add, save and delete records using the following commands:

data_navigator.RecordSet.AddNew                                                ' Adds a new record

data_navigator.RecordSet.Update                                                  ' Updates and saves the new record
data_navigator.RecordSet.Delete                            ' Deletes a current record

*note: data_navigator is the name of data control

In the following example, you shall insert four commands and label them as First Record, Next Record,
Previous Record and Last Record . They will be used to navigator around the database without using the
data control. You still need to retain the same data control (from example in lesson 19) but set the
property Visible to no so that users will not see the data control but use the button to browse through the
database instead. Now, double-click  on the command button and key in the codes according to the labels.

Private Sub Command2_Click()

dtaBooks.Recordset.MoveFirst
End Sub
Private Sub Command1_Click()                                         
dtaBooks.Recordset.MoveNext         
End Sub
Private Sub Command3_Click()
dtaBooks.Recordset.MovePrevious

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End Sub

Private Sub Command4_Click()

dtaBooks.Recordset.MoveLast
End Sub

Run the application and you shall obtain the interface below and you will be able to browse the database
using the four command buttons.

Lesson 27: Creating VB database applications using ADO control

In Lesson 22 and Lesson 23, we have learned how to build VB database applications using data control.
However, data control is not a very flexible tool as it could only work  with limited kinds of data and must
work strictly in the Visual Basic environment.

 To overcome these limitations, we can use a much more powerful data control in Visual Basic,   known as 
ADO control. ADO stands for ActiveX data objects. As ADO is ActiveX-based, it can work in different
platforms (different computer systems) and different programming languages. Besides, it can access many
different kinds of data such as data displayed in the Internet browsers, email text and even graphics other
than the usual relational and non relational database information.

To be able to use ADO data control, you need to insert it into the toolbox. To do this, simply press Ctrl+T to
open the components dialog box and select Microsoft ActiveX Data Control 6. After this, you can proceed
to build your ADO-based VB database applications.

The following example will illustrate how to build a relatively powerful database application using ADO
data control. First of all, name the new  form as frmBookTitle and change its caption to Book Titles- ADO
Application.  Secondly, insert the ADO data control and name it as adoBooks and change its caption to
book. Next, insert the necessary labels, text boxes and command buttons. The runtime interface of this
program is shown in the diagram below, it allows adding and deletion as well as updating and browsing of
data.

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The properties of all  the controls are listed as follow:

Form Name frmBookTitle

Form Caption Book Titles -ADOApplication
ADO Name adoBooks
Label1 Name lblApp
Label1 Caption Book Titles
Label 2 Name lblTitle
Label2 Caption Title :
Label3 Name lblYear
Label3 Caption Year Published:
Label4 Name lblISBN
Label4 Caption ISBN:
Labe5 Name lblPubID
Label5 Caption Publisher's ID:
Label6 Name lblSubject
Label6 Caption Subject :
TextBox1 Name txtitle
TextBox1 DataField Title
TextBox1 DataSource adoBooks
TextBox2 Name txtPub
TextBox2 DataField  Year Published
TextBox2 DataSource adoBooks
TextBox3 Name txtISBN
TextBox3 DataField ISBN
TextBox3 DataSource adoBooks
TextBox4 Name txtPubID
TextBox4 DataField  PubID
TextBox4 DataSource adoBooks
TextBox5 Name txtSubject
TextBox5 DataField  Subject
TextBox5 DataSource adoBooks
Command Button1 Name  cmdSave
Command Button1 Caption &Save

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Command Button2 Name  cmdAdd
Command Button2 Caption &Add
Command Button3 Name  cmdDelete
Command Button3 Caption &Delete
Command Button4 Name  cmdCancel
Command Button4 Caption &Cancel
Command Button5 Name  cmdPrev
Command Button5 Caption &<
Command Button6 Name  cmdNext
Command Button6 Caption &>
Command Button7 Name  cmdExit
Command Button7 Caption E&xit

To be able to access and manage a database, you need to connect the ADO data control to a database file.
We are going to use BIBLIO.MDB that comes with VB6. To connect ADO to this database file , follow the
steps below:

a) Click on the ADO control on the form and open up the properties window.

b) Click on the ConnectionString property, the following dialog box will appear.

when the dialog box appear, select the Use Connection String's Option. Next, click build and at the Data
Link dialog box, double-Click the option labeled Microsoft Jet 3.51 OLE DB provider.

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 After that, click the Next button to select the file BIBLO.MDB. You can click on Text Connection to ensure
proper connection of the database file. Click OK to finish the connection.

Finally, click on the RecordSource property and set the command type to adCmd Table and Table name to
Titles. Now you are ready to use the database file.

Now, you need to write code for all the command buttons. After which, you can make the ADO control
invisible.

For the Save button, the program codes are as follow:

Private Sub cmdSave_Click()
adoBooks.Recordset.Fields("Title") = txtTitle.Text
adoBooks.Recordset.Fields("Year Published") = txtPub.Text
adoBooks.Recordset.Fields("ISBN") = txtISBN.Text
adoBooks.Recordset.Fields("PubID") = txtPubID.Text
adoBooks.Recordset.Fields("Subject") = txtSubject.TextadoBooks.Recordset.Update

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End Sub
For the Add button, the program codes are as follow:

Private Sub cmdAdd_Click()

adoBooks.Recordset.AddNew
End Sub

For the Delete button, the program codes are as follow:

Private Sub cmdDelete_Click()

Confirm = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to delete this record?", vbYesNo, "Deletion Confirmation")
If Confirm = vbYes Then
adoBooks.Recordset.Delete
MsgBox "Record Deleted!", , "Message"
Else
MsgBox "Record Not Deleted!", , "Message"
End If

End Sub　

For the Cancel button, the program codes are as follow:

Private Sub cmdCancel_Click()

txtTitle.Text = ""
txtPub.Text = ""
txtPubID.Text = ""
txtISBN.Text = ""
txtSubject.Text = ""

End Sub

For the Previous (<) button, the program codes are Private Sub cmdNext_Click()
Private Sub cmdPrev_Click() If Not adoBooks.Recordset.EOF Then
If Not adoBooks.Recordset.BOF Then adoBooks.Recordset.MoveNext
adoBooks.Recordset.MovePrevious If adoBooks.Recordset.EOF Then
If adoBooks.Recordset.BOF Then adoBooks.Recordset.MovePrevious
adoBooks.Recordset.MoveNext End If
End If End If
End If
End Sub End Sub

For the Next(>) button, the program codes are

Click here to view a related sample program

Lesson 28: Using Microsoft DataGrid Control 6.0

In the previous chapter, we use textboxes to display data by connecting them to a database via Microsoft
ADO data Control 6.0. The textbox is not the only control that can display data from a database, many
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other controls in Visual Basic can display data. One of the them is the DataGrid control. DataGrid control
can be used to display the entire table of a recordset of a database. It allows users to view and edit the
data.

DataGrid control is the not the default item in the Visual Basic control toolbox, you have add it from the
VB6 components. To add the DataGrid control, click on the project in the menu bar and select components
where a dialog box that displays all the available VB6 components. Select Microsoft DataGrid Control 6.0
by clicking the checkbox beside this item. Before you exit the dialog box, you also need to select the
Microsoft ADO data control so that you are able to access the database. Lastly, click on the OK button to
exit the dialog box. Now you should be able to see that the DataGrid control and the ADO data control are
added to the toolbox. The next step is to drag the DataGrid control and the ADO data control into the
form.

The components dialog box is shown below:

In the previous chapter, we use textboxes to display data by connecting them to a database via Microsoft
ADO data Control 6.0. The textbox is not the only control that can display data from a database, many
other controls in Visual Basic can display data. One of the them is the DataGrid control. DataGrid control
can be used to display the entire table of a recordset of a database. It allows users to view and edit the
data.

DataGrid control is the not the default item in the Visual Basic control toolbox, you have add it from the
VB6 components. To add the DataGrid control, click on the project in the menu bar and select components
where a dialog box that displays all the available VB6 components. Select Microsoft DataGrid Control 6.0
by clicking the checkbox beside this item. Before you exit the dialog box, you also need to select the
Microsoft ADO data control so that you are able to access the database. Lastly, click on the OK button to
exit the dialog box. Now you should be able to see that the DataGrid control and the ADO data control are
added to the toolbox. The next step is to drag the DataGrid control and the ADO data control into the
form.

The components dialog box is shown below:

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Before you proceed , you need to create a database file using Microsoft Access. Here I created a file to
store my the information of my books and I name the table book. After you have created the table, enter a
few records such as mine. The table is shown below:

 Now you need to connect the database to the ADO data control. To do that, right click on the ADO data
control and select the ADODC properties, the following dialog box will appear.

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Next click on the Build button and the Data Link Properties dialog box will appear (as shown below). In this
dialog box, select the database file you have created, in my case, the file name is books.mdb. Press test
connection to see whether the connection is successful. If the connection is successful, click OK to return
to the ADODC property pages dialog box. At the ADODC property pages dialog box, click on the
Recordsource tab and select 2-adCmdTable under command type and select book as the table name, then
click OK.

Finally you need to display the data in the DataGrid control. To accomplish this, go to the properties
window and set the DataSource property of the DataGrid to Adodc1. You can also permit the user to add
and edit your records by setting the AllowUpdate property to True. If you set this property to false, the
user cannot edit the records. Now run the program and the output window is shown below:

Finally you need to display the data in the DataGrid control. To accomplish this, go to the properties
window and set the DataSource property of the DataGrid to Adodc1. You can also permit the user to add
and edit your records by setting the AllowUpdate property to True. If you set this property to false, the
user cannot edit the records. Now run the program and the output window is shown below:

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Lesson 29: Using SQL queries in Visual Basic 6

In the previous chapter, we have learned to use the DataGrid Control to display data from a database in
Visual Basic 6 environment. However, it does not allow users to search for and select the information they
want to see. In order to search for a certain information, we need to use SQL query. SQL stands for
Structures Query Language. Using SQL keywords, we are able to select specific information to be displayed
based on certain criteria. The most basic SQL keyword is SELECT, it is used together with the keyword
FROM to select information from one or more tables from a database. The syntax is:

                                             SELECT fieldname1,fieldname2,.....,fieldnameN  FROM  TableName

fieldname1, fieldname2,......fieldnameN are headings of the columns from a table of a database. You can
select any number of fieldname in the query. If you wish to select all the information, you can use the
following syntax:

                                         SELECT  * FROM  TableName

In order to illustrate the usage of SQL queries, lets create a new database in Microsoft Access with the
following filenames ID, Title, Author, Year, ISBN, Publisher, Price and save the table as book and the
database as books.mdb in a designated folder.

Next, we will start Visual Basic and insert an ADO control, a DataGrid and three command buttons. Name
the three command buttons as cmdAuthor, cmdTitle and cmdAll. Change their captions to Display
Author ,Display Book Title and Display All respectively. You can also change the caption of the form to My
Books. The design interface is shown below:

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Now you need to connect the database to the ADO data control. Please refer to lesson 25 for the details.
However, you need to make one change. At the ADODC property pages dialog box, click on the
Recordsource tab and select 1-adCmdText  under command type and under Command Text(SQL) key in
SELECT * FROM book.

Next, click on the command buttton cmdAuthor and key in the following statements:

Private Sub cmdAuthor_Click()

Adodc1.RecordSource = "SELECT Author FROM book"
Adodc1.Refresh
Adodc1.Caption = Adodc1.RecordSource

End Sub

and for the command button cmdTitle, key in

Private Sub cmdTitle_Click()

Adodc1.RecordSource = "SELECT Title FROM book"
Adodc1.Refresh
Adodc1.Caption = Adodc1.RecordSource

End Sub

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Finally for the command button cmdAll, key in

Private Sub cmdAll_Click()

Adodc1.RecordSource = "SELECT * FROM book"
Adodc1.Refresh
Adodc1.Caption = Adodc1.RecordSource

End Sub

Now, run the program and when you click on the Display Author button, only the names of authors will be
displayed, as shown below:

and when you click on the Display Book Title button, only the book titles will be displayed, as show below:

Lastly, click on the Display All button and all the information will be displayed.

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Lesson 30: More SQL Keywords

In the previous chapter, we have learned to use the basic SQL keywords SELECT and FROM to manipulate
database in Visual Basic 6 environment. In this lesson, you will learn to use more SQL keywords. One of the
more important SQL keywords is WHERE. This keyword allow the user to search for data that fulfill certain
criteria. The Syntax is as follows:

ELECT fieldname1,fieldname2,.....,fieldnameN  FROM  TableName WHERE  Criteria

The criteria can be specified using operators such as =, >,<, <=, >=, <> and Like.

Using the database books.mdb created in the previous chapter, we will show you a few examples. First of
all,  start a new project and insert a DataGrid control and an ADO control into the form. . At the ADODC
property pages dialog box, click on the Recordsource tab and select 1-adCmdText  under command type
and under Command Text(SQL) key in SELECT * FROM book. Next, insert one textbox and put it on top of
the DataGrid control, this will be the place where the user can enter SQL query text. Insert one command
button and change the caption to Query. The design interface is shown below:

Example 21d1: Query based on Author

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Run the program and key in the following SQL query statement
SELECT Title, Author FROM book WHERE Author='Liew Voon Kiong'

Where you click on the query button, the DataGrid will display the author name Liew Voon Kiong. as
shown below:

Example 21d2:Query based on year

Run the program and key in the following SQL query statement:

SELECT * FROM book WHERE Year>2005

Where you click on the query button, the DataGrid will display all the books that were published after the
year 2005.

You can also try following queries:

 SELECT * FROM book WHERE Price<=80

 SELECT * FROM book WHERE Year=2008
 SELECT * FROM book WHERE Author<>'Liew Voon Kiong'

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You may also search for data that contain certain characters by pattern matching. It involves using the Like
operator and the % symbol. For example, if you want to search for a author name that begins with
alphabet J, you can use the following query statement

SELECT * FROM book WHERE Author Like 'J%'

Where you click on the query command button, the records where authors' name start with the alphabet J
will be displayed, as shown below:

Next, if you wish to rank order the data, either in ascending or descending order, you can use the ORDER
By , ASC (for ascending) and DESC(Descending) SQL keywords.

The general formats are

SELECT fieldname1, fieldname2.....FROM table ORDER BY fieldname ASC

SELECT fieldname1, fieldname2.....FROM table ORDER BY fieldname DESC

xample 21d3:

The following query statement will rank the records according to Author in ascending order.

                        SELECT Title, Author FROM book ORDER BY Author  ASC

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Example 21d4

The following query statement will rank the records according to price in descending order.

SELECT Title, Price  FROM book ORDER BY Price  DESC

Lesson 31: Creating Advanced VB database application using ADO control

In previous lessons, you have learned how to design database applications using data control and ADO
control. However, those applications are very simple and plain . In this lesson, you will learn how to create
a more advanced database application using ADO control. The application you are going to create is known
as an electronic library. This electronic library will be able to accept the user registration as well as
handling login command that require the user's  password, thus enhancing the security aspect of the
database. Basically, the application will constitute a welcome menu, a registration menu, a Login menu
and the main database menu. The sequence of the menus are illustrated as follow:

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2.1 The Welcome Menu

First of all, you need to design the Welcome menu. You can follow the example as follow:

In this form, you need to insert three command buttons and set their properties as follow:

Form name main_menu

command button 1  Name cmdRegister
command button 1 Caption Register
command button 2 Name cmdLogin
command button 2 Caption Login
command button 3 Name cmdCancel
command button 3 Caption Cancel

The code is as follows:

Private Sub cmdCancel_Click()
End
End Sub

Private Sub cmdLogin_Click()

main_menu.Hide
Login_form.Show
End Sub

Private Sub cmdRegister_Click()

main_menu.Hide
Register.Show
End Sub

29.2 The Registration Form

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If a new user click the Register button, the registration form will appear. An example is illustrated as
follow:

This registration forms consist of two text boxes , three command buttons and an ADO control. Their
properties are set as follow:

Form name Register

textbox 1 name txtName
textbox 2 name txtpassword
textbox 2 PasswordChar *
command button 1 name cmdConfirm
command button 1 Caption Confirm
command button 2 name cmdClear
command button 2 Caption Clear
command button 3 name cmdCancel
command button 3 Caption Cancel
ADO control name UserInfo

note that the PasswordChar of textbox 2 is set as * which means users will not be able to see the actual
characters they enter, they will only see the * symbol.

The codes are as follow:

Private Sub cancel_Click( )
End
End Sub
Private Sub cmdClear_Click( )
txtName.Text = ""
txtpassword.Text = ""

End Sub

Private Sub cmdConfirm_Click()

UserInfo.Recordset.Fields("username") = txtName.Text
UserInfo.Recordset.Fields("password") = txtpassword.Text
UserInfo.Recordset.Update

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Register.Hide
Login_form.Show

End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()

UserInfo.Recordset.AddNew
End Sub

29.3 The Login Menu

The Login menu is illustrated as follow:

There are two text boxes and a command button,  their properties are set as follow:

Textbox 1 name txtName

Textbox 2 name txtpassword
Command button 1 name cmdLogin
Command button 1 Caption Login
Form name Login_form

The codes are as follow:

Private Sub cmdLogin_Click()

Dim usrname As String

Dim psword As String
Dim usernam As String
Dim pssword As String
Dim Msg As String

Register.UserInfo.Refresh
usrname = txtName.Text
psword = txtpassword.Text

Do Until Register.UserInfo.Recordset.EOF
If Register.UserInfo.Recordset.Fields("username").Value = usrname And

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Register.UserInfo.Recordset.Fields("password").Value = psword Then
Login_form.Hide
frmLibrary.Show
Exit Sub

Else
Register.UserInfo.Recordset.MoveNext
End If

Loop

Msg = MsgBox("Invalid password, try again!", vbOKCancel)

If (Msg = 1) Then
Login_form.Show
txtName.Text = ""
txtpassword = ""

Else
End
End If
End Sub

29.4 The Main Database Manager

The main database manager is illustrated as follow:

The properties of all controls are listed in the table below:

Form name frmLibrary

ADO control name adoLibrary
ADO visible False
TextBox 1 name txtTitleA
TextBox 2 name txtAuthor
TextBox 3name txtPublisher
TextBox 4 name txtYear
TextBox 5 name txtCategory

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Command button 1 name cmdSave
Command button 1 caption &Save
Command button 2 name cmdNew
Command button 2 caption &New
Command button 3 name cmdDelete
Command button 3 caption &Delete
Command button 4 name cmdCancel
Command button 4 caption &Cancel
Command button 5 name cmdNext
Command button 5 caption N&ext
Command button 6 name cmdPrevious
Command button 6 caption &Previous
Command button 7 name cmdExit
Command button 7 caption E&xit

The codes are as follow:

Private Sub cmdCancel_Click() Private Sub cmdNext_Click()

txtTitle.Text = "" If Not adoLibrary.Recordset.EOF Then
txtAuthor.Text = "" adoLibrary.Recordset.MoveNext
txtPublisher.Text = "" If adoLibrary.Recordset.EOF Then
txtYear.Text = "" adoLibrary.Recordset.MovePrevious
txtCategory.Text = "" End If
End Sub End If
End Sub
Private Sub cmdDelete_Click()
Confirm = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to Private Sub cmdPrevious_Click()
delete this record?", vbYesNo, "Deletion If Not adoLibrary.Recordset.BOF Then
Confirmation") adoLibrary.Recordset.MovePrevious
If Confirm = vbYes Then If adoLibrary.Recordset.BOF Then
adoLibrary.Recordset.Delete adoLibrary.Recordset.MoveNext
MsgBox "Record Deleted!", , "Message" End If
Else End If
MsgBox "Record Not Deleted!", , "Message" End Sub
End If
End Sub Private Sub cmdSave_Click()

Private Sub cmdExit_Click() adoLibrary.Recordset.Fields("Title").Value =

End txtTitle.Text
End Sub adoLibrary.Recordset.Fields("Author").Value =
Private Sub cmdNew_Click() txtAuthor.Text
adoLibrary.Recordset.AddNew adoLibrary.Recordset.Update

End Sub End Sub

Lesson 32 : Animation-Part I

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Animation is always an interesting and exciting part of programming. Although visual basic is not designed
to handle advance animations, you can still create some interesting animated effects if you put  in some
hard thinking. There are many ways to create animated effects in VB6, but for a start we will focus on
some easy methods.

The simplest way to create animation is to set the VISIBLE property of a group of images or pictures or
texts and labels to true or false by triggering a set of events such as clicking a button. Let's examine the
following example:

This is a program that create the illusion of moving the jet plane in four directions, North, South ,East,
West. In order to do this, insert five images of the same picture into the form. Set the visible property of
the image in the center to be true while the rest set to false. On start-up, a user will only be able to see the
image in the center. Next, insert four command buttons into the form and change the labels to Move
North, Move East, Move West and Move South respectively. Double click on the move north button and
key in the following procedure:

Sub Command1_click( )

Image1.Visible = False
Image3.Visible = True
Image2.Visible = False
Image4.Visible = False
Image5.Visible = False

End Sub

By clicking on the move north button, only image 3 is displayed. This will give an illusion that the jet plane
has moved north. Key in similar procedures by double clicking other command buttons. You can also insert
an addition command button and label it as Reset and key in the following codes:

Image1.Visible = True
Image3.Visible = False
Image2.Visible = False
Image4.Visible = False
Image5.Visible = False

Clicking on the reset button will make the image in the center visible again while other images become
invisible, this will give the false impression that the jet plane has move back to the original position.

You can also issue the commands using a textbox, this idea actually came from my son Liew Xun (10 years
old). His program is shown below:

Private Sub Command1_Click() ElseIf Text1.Text = "w" Then

If Text1.Text = "n" Then Image1.Visible = False
Image1.Visible = False Image3.Visible = False
Image3.Visible = True Image2.Visible = False
Image2.Visible = False Image4.Visible = False
Image4.Visible = False
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 Image5.Visible = False Image5.Visible = True
ElseIf Text1.Text = "e" Then ElseIf Text1.Text = "s" Then
Image1.Visible = False Image1.Visible = False
Image4.Visible = True Image3.Visible = False
Image2.Visible = False Image2.Visible = True
Image3.Visible = False Image4.Visible = False
Image5.Visible = False Image5.Visible = False
End If
End Sub

Another simple way to simulate animation in VB6 is by using

the Left and Top properties of an object. Image.Left give the distance of the image in twips from the left
border of the screen, and Image.Top give the distance of the image in twips from the top border of the
screen, where 1 twip is equivalent to 1/1440 inch. Using a statement such as Image.Left-100 will move the
image 100 twips to the left, Image.Left+100 will move the image 100 twip away from the left(or 100 twips
to the right), Image.Top-100 will move the image 100 twips to the top and Image.Top+100 will move the
image 100 twips away from the top border (or 100 twips down).Below is a program that can move an
object up, down. left, and right every time you click on a relevant command button.

The Code

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Image1.Top = Image1.Top + 100
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()

Image1.Top = Image1.Top - 100
End Sub

Private Sub Command3_Click()

Image1.Left = Image1.Left + 100
End Sub

Private Sub Command4_Click()

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Image1.Left = Image1.Left - 100
End Sub

 The fourth example let user magnify and diminish an object by changing the height and width properties
of an object. It is quite similar to the previous example. The statements  Image1.Height = Image1.Height +
100  and Image1.Width = Image1.Width + 100 will increase the height and the width of an object by 100
twips each time a user click on the relevant command button. On the other hand, The statements 
Image1.Height = Image1.Height - 100  and Image1.Width = Image1.Width -100 will decrease the height
and the width of an object by 100 twips each time a user click on the relevant command button

The Code

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Image1.Height = Image1.Height + 100
Image1.Width = Image1.Width + 100
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()

Image1.Height = Image1.Height - 100

Image1.Width = Image1.Width - 100

End Sub

You can try to combine both programs above and make an object move and increases or decreases in size
each time a user click a command button.

Lesson 33: Animation - Part II

31.1 Animation using a DragDrop Procedure

Drag and drop is a common windows application where you can drag and drop an object such as a file into
a folder or into a recycle bin. This capability can be easily programmed in visual basic. In the following
example, I am creating a simulation of dragging the objects into a recycle bin, then drop a fire and burn
them away.

In this program, I put 6 images on the form, one of them is a recycle bin, another is a burning recycle bin ,
one more is the fire, and three more images. In addition, set  the property dragmode of all the
images( including the fire) that are to be dragged to  1(Automatic) so that dragging is enabled, and set the
visible property of  burning recycle bin to false at start-up. Besides, label the tag of fire as fire in its
properties windows. If you want to have better dragging effects, you need to load an appropriate icon
under the dragIcon properties for those images to be dragged, preferably the icon should be the same as
the image so that when you drag the image, it is like you are dragging the image along.

The essential event procedure  in this program is as follows:

Private Sub Image4_DragDrop(Source As Control, X As Single, Y As Single)

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Source.Visible = False
If Source.Tag = "Fire" Then
Image4.Picture = Image5.Picture
End If

End Sub

Source refer to the image to be dragged. Using the code Source.Visible=False means it will disappear after
being dragged into the recycle bin(Image4).If  the source is Fire, then the recycle bin will changed into a
burning recycle bin , which is accomplished by using the code  Image4.Picture = Image5.Picture, where
Image 5 is the burning recycle bin.

For details of this program, please refer to my game and fun programming page or click this link, Recycle
Bin.

31.2 Animation for a complete motion

So far those examples of animation shown in lesson 23 only involve movement of static images. In this
lesson, you will be able to create true animation where an action finish in a complete cycle, for example, a
butterfly flapping its wings. In the following example, I used eight picture frames of a butterfly which
display a butterfly flapping its wing at different stages.

You can actually copy the above

images and use them in your program. You need to put all the above images overlapping one another, 
make image1 visible while all other images invisible at start-up. Next, insert a command button and label it
as Animate. Click on the command button and key in the statements that make the images appear and
disappear successively by using the properties image.visible=true and image.visible=false. I use If..... Then
and Elseif to control the program flow. When you run the program, you should be able to get the following
animation.

. The Interface

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The Code
Private Sub Command1_Click()

If Image1.Visible = True Then

Image1.Visible = False
  Image2.Visible = True
ElseIf Image2.Visible = True Then
Image2.Visible = False
Image3.Visible = True
ElseIf Image3.Visible = True Then
Image3.Visible = False
Image4.Visible = True
ElseIf Image4.Visible = True Then
Image4.Visible = False
Image5.Visible = True
ElseIf Image5.Visible = True Then
Image5.Visible = False
Image6.Visible = True
ElseIf Image6.Visible = True Then
Image6.Visible = False
Image7.Visible = True
ElseIf Image7.Visible = True Then
Image7.Visible = False
Image8.Visible = True
ElseIf Image8.Visible = True Then
Image8.Visible = False
Image1.Visible = True
End If

End Sub

If you wish to create the effect of the butterfly flapping its wing and flying at the same time, then you
could use the Left and Top properties of an object, such as the one used in the examples of lesson 23.
Below is an example of a subroutine where the butterfly will flap its wing and move up at the same time.
You can also write subroutines that move the butterfly to the left, to the right and to the bottom.

Sub move_up( )
If Image1.Visible = True Then
Image1.Visible = False
Image2.Visible = True
Image2.Top = Image2.Top - 100

ElseIf Image2.Visible = True Then

Image2.Visible = False
Image3.Visible = True
Image3.Top = Image3.Top - 100

ElseIf Image3.Visible = True Then

Image3.Visible = False

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Image4.Visible = True
Image4.Top = Image4.Top - 100
ElseIf Image4.Visible = True Then
Image4.Visible = False
Image5.Visible = True
Image5.Top = Image5.Top - 100
ElseIf Image5.Visible = True Then
Image5.Visible = False
Image6.Visible = True
Image6.Top = Image6.Top - 100
ElseIf Image6.Visible = True Then
Image6.Visible = False
Image7.Visible = True
Image7.Top = Image7.Top - 100

ElseIf Image7.Visible = True Then

Image7.Visible = False
Image8.Visible = True
Image8.Top = Image8.Top - 100
ElseIf Image8.Visible = True Then
Image8.Visible = False
Image1.Visible = True
Image1.Top = Image1.Top - 100
End If

End Sub

Lesson 34: Animation - Part III

32.1 Animation using Timer

All preceding examples of animation that you have learn in lesson 23 and lesson 24 only involve manual
animation, which means you need to keep on clicking a certain command button or pressing a key to make
an object animate. In order to make it move automatically, you need to use a timer. The first step in
creating automatic animation is to drag the timer from the toolbox into the form and set its interval to a
certain value other than 0. A value of 1 is 1 milliseconds which means a value of 1000 represents 1 second.
The value of the timer interval will determine the speed on an animation.

In the following example, I use a very simple technique to show animation by using the properties
Visible=False and Visible=true to show and hide two images alternately. When you click on the program,
you should see the following animation.

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 The Code

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()

If Image1.Visible = True Then

Image1.Visible = False
Image2.Visible = True
ElseIf Image2.Visible = True Then
Image2.Visible = False
Image1.Visible = True
End If

End Sub

Next example shows a complete cycle of a motion such as the butterfly flapping its wing. Previous
examples show only manual animation while this example will display an automatic animation once you
start the program or by clicking a command button. Similar to the example under lesson 24.2, you need to
insert a group of eight images of a butterfly flapping its wings at different stages. Next, insert a timer into
the form and set the interval to 10 or any value you like. Remember to make image1 visible while other
images invisible at start-up. Finally, insert a command button, rename its caption  as Animate and key in
the following statements by double clicking on this button. Bear in mind that you should enter the
statements for hiding and showing the images under the timer1_timer subroutine otherwise the
animation would work. Clicking on the animate button make timer start ticking and the event will run after
every interval of 10 milliseconds or whatever interval you have set at design time. In future lesson, I will
show you how to adjust the interval at runtime by using a slider bar or a scroll bar. When you run the
program, you should see the following animation:

Private Sub Form_Load() ElseIf Image3.Visible =

Image1.Visible = True True Then
x=0 Image3.Visible = False
End Sub Image4.Visible = True
ElseIf Image4.Visible =
Private Sub True Then
Command1_Click() Image4.Visible = False
Timer1.Enabled = True Image5.Visible = True
End Sub ElseIf Image5.Visible =
True Then
Private Sub Timer1_Timer() Image5.Visible = False
If Image1.Visible = True Image6.Visible = True
Then ElseIf Image6.Visible =
Image1.Visible = False True Then
Image2.Visible = True Image6.Visible = False
Image7.Visible = True
ElseIf Image2.Visible = True ElseIf Image7.Visible =
Then True Then
Image2.Visible = False Image7.Visible = False
Image3.Visible = True Image8.Visible = True
ElseIf Image8.Visible =

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 True Then
Image8.Visible = False
Image1.Visible = True
End If
End Sub

Lesson 35: Internet and Web Applications Part1-The web Browser

In order to create the web browser, you have to press Ctrl+T to open up the components window and
select Microsoft Internet Control. After you have selected the control, you will see the control appear in
the toolbox as a small globe. To insert the Microsoft Internet Control into the form, just drag the globe into
the form and a white rectangle will appears in the form. You can resize this control as you wish. This
control is given the default name WebBrowser1. 

To design the interface, you need to insert one combo box which will be used to display the URLs. In
addition, you need to insert a few images which will function as command buttons for the user to navigate
the Internet; they are the Go command, the Back command, the Forward command, the Refresh
command and the Home command. You can actually put in the command buttons instead of the images,
but using images will definitely improve the look of the browser.

The procedures for all the commands are relatively easy to write. There are many methods,
events, and properties associated with the web browser but you need to know just a few of them to come
up with a functional Internet browser

The method navigate is to go the website specified by its Uniform Resource Locator(URL). The syntax is
WebBrowser1.Navigate (“URL”). In this program, I want to load the www.vbtutor.net web page at start-up,
so I type in its URL.  

Private Sub Form_Load()

 
WebBrowser1.Navigate ("http://www.vbtutor.net")
 
End Sub

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 In order to show the URL in the combo box and also to display the page title at the form caption after the
page is completely downloaded, I use the following statements:

Private Sub
 
  WebBrowser1_DocumentComplete (ByVal pDisp As Object, URL As Variant)
Combo1.Text = URL
Form1.Caption = WebBrowser1.LocationName
Combo1.AddItem URL
 
End Sub

The following procedure will tell the user to wait while the page is loading.

Private Sub
WebBrowser1_DownloadBegin ()
Combo1.Text = "Page loading, please wait"
 
End Sub

Lesson 36: Internet and Web Applications Part 2-The FTP Program

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol .The File Transfer Protocol is a system for transferring files between
two computers connected by the Internet .One of the computers is known as the server and the other one
is the client. The FTP program is very useful for website management. The webmaster can update the web
pages by uploading the local files to the web server easily , at a much faster speed than the web browser.
For normal PC users, the FTP program can also be used to download files from many FTP sites that offer a
lot of useful stuffs such as free software, free games, product information, applications, tools, utilities,
drivers, fixes and many more things.

The FTP program usually comprises an interface that shows the directories of the local computer and the
remote server. Files can be transferred just by clicking the relevant arrows. To log into the FTP site, we
have to key in the user name and the password; however, for public domains, we just need to type the
word anonymous as the user name and you can leave out the password. The FTP host name takes the
form  ftp.servername.com, for example, the Microsoft FTP site’s host name is ftp.microsoft.com  .If you
need to use a FTP program, you can purchase one or you can download a couple of the programs that are
available free of charge from the Internet. However, you can also create your very own FTP program with
Visual Basic. Visual Basic allows you to build a fully functionally FTP program which may be just as good as
the commercial FTP programs. The engine behind it is the Microsoft Internet Transfer Control 6.0 in which
you need to insert it into your form before you can create the FTP program. The name of the Microsoft
Internet Transfer Control 6.0.is Inet and if you only put in one control, its name will be Inet1.

Inet1 comprises three important properties namely Inet1.URL that is used to identify the FTP hostname,
inet1.UserName that is used to accept the username and the Inet1.Password that is used to accept the
user’s passwords.  The statements for the program to read the hostname of the server, the username and
the password entered into Textbox1, Textbox2 and Textbox3 by the user are shown below:

Inet1.URL=Text1.Text
Inet1.UserName=Text2.Text
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 Inet1.Passoword=Text3.Text

After the user entered the above information, the program will attempt to connect to the server using the
following commands, where Execute is the method and DIR is the FTP command that will read the list of
files from the specified directory of the remote computer and you need to use the getChunk method to
actually retrieve the directory’s information.

 Inet1.Execute, "DIR
After connecting to the server, you can choose the file from the remote computer to download by
using the statement below: 
Inet1.Execute, , "get" & remotefile & localfile 

where remotefile is the file of the remote site and localfile is the file of the local system. However, very
often you need to provide the full path of the local file, which you can do that by modifying the above
syntax to the following syntax: 

Inet1.Execute , , "get" & remotefile & localpath & remotefile

The above statements will ensure that the remote file will be downloaded to the location specified by the
localpath and the file downloaded will assume the same name as the remote file. For example, if the
remote file is readme.txt and the localpath is C:\temp , so the downloaded file will be saved in 
C:\temp\readme.txt.

In order to monitor the status of the connection, you can use the StateChanged event that is associated
with Inet1 together with a set of the state constants that are listed in the following table.

Constant Value Description

icHostResolvingHost 1 The control is looking up the IP address of the specified host
computer.
icHostResolved 2 The control successfully found the IP address of the specified
host computer.
icConnecting 3 The control is connecting to the host computer.
icConnected 4 The control successfully connected to the host computer.
icRequesting 5 The control is sending a request to the host computer.
icRequestSent 6 The control successfully sent the request.
icReceivingResponse 7 The control is receiving a response from the host computer.
icResponseReceived 8 The control successfully received a response from the host
computer.
icDisconnecting 9 The control is disconnecting from the host computer.
icDisconnected 10 The control successfully disconnected from the host
computer.

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icError 11 An error occurred in communicating with the host computer.
icResponseCompleted 12 The request has been completed and all data has been
received.

Under the StateChanged event, you use the Select Case…End Select statements to notify the users
regarding the various states of the connection. The procedure is shown below:

Private Sub Inet1_StateChanged(ByVal State As Integer)

Select Case State
Case icError
MsgBox Inet1.ResponseInfo, , "File failed to transfer"
Case icResolvingHost
Label6.Caption = "Resolving Host"
Case icHostResolved
Label6.Caption = "Host Resolved"
Case icConnecting
Label6.Caption = "Connecting Host"
Case icConnected
Label6.Caption = "Host connected"
Case icReceivingResponse
Label6.Caption = "Receiving Response"
Case icResponseReceived
Label6.Caption = "Got Response"
Case icResponseCompleted
Dim data1 As String
Dim data2 As String
MsgBox "Download Completed"           
End Select
End Sub   

The FTP program that I have created contains a form and a dialog box. The dialog box can be added by
clicking on the Project item on the menu bar and then selecting the Add Form item on the drop-down list.
You can either choose a normal dialog box or a login dialog box. The function of the dialog box is to accept
the FTP address, the username and the password and then to connect to the server. After successful login,
the dialog box will be hidden and the main form will be presented for the user to browse the remote
directory and to choose certain files to download.

The interface of the login dialog is shown on the right.

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The program for the login dialog is,
Option Explicit
Private Sub OKButton_Click()
Inet1.URL = Text1.Text
Inet1.UserName = Text2.Text
Inet1.Password = Text3.Text
Inet1.Execute , "DIR"
Form1.Show
Dialog.Hide
End Sub
Private Sub Inet1_StateChanged(ByVal State As Integer)
Select Case State
Case icError
MsgBox Inet1.ResponseInfo, , "File failed to transfer"
Case icResolvingHost
Label6.Caption = "Resolving Host"
Case icHostResolved
Label6.Caption = "Host Resolved"
Case icConnecting
Label6.Caption = "Connecting Host"
Case icConnected
Label6.Caption = "Host connected"
Case icReceivingResponse
Label6.Caption = "Receiving Response"
Case icResponseReceived
Label6.Caption = "Got Response"
Case icResponseCompleted
Dim data As String
Dim data1 As String
MsgBox "Transfer Completed"
  Do             
                      data1 = Inet1.GetChunk(1024, icString)
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                       data = data & data1     
                      Loop While Len(data1) <> 0
                      Form1.Text6.Text = data
End Select
End Sub
Private Sub CancelButton_Click()
Text1.Text = ""
Text2.Text = ""
Text3.Text = ""
End Sub
retrieve
The statement data1 = Inet1.GetChunk (1024, icString) is to use the getChunk method to grab information
of the remote directory and then display the files of the directory in Textbox6.
After logging in, the main form will be presented as shown in Figure 30.3

 Lesson 37: Errors Handling in Visual Basic

35.1 Introduction

Error handling is an essential procedure  in Visual Basic programming because it can help make the
program error-free. An error-free program can run smoothly and efficiently, and the user does not have to
face all sorts of problems such as program crash or system hang.

Errors often occur due to incorrect input from the user. For example, the user might make the mistake of
attempting to ask the computer to divide a number by zero which will definitely cause system error.
Another example is the user might enter a text (string) to a box that is designed to handle only numeric

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values such as the weight of a person, the computer will not be able to perform arithmetic calculation for
text therefore will create an error. These errors are known as synchronous errors.

Therefore a good programmer should be more alert to the parts of program that could trigger errors and
should write errors handling code to help the user in managing the errors. Writing errors handling code
should be considered a good practice for Visual Basic programmers, so do try to finish a program fast by
omitting the errors handling code. However, there should not be too many errors handling code in the
program as it create problems for the programmer to maintain and troubleshoot the program later.

35.2 Writing the Errors Handling Code

We shall now learn how to write errors handling code in Visual Basic. The syntax for errors handling is

On Error GoTo    program_label

where program_label is the section of code that is designed by the programmer to handle the error
committed by the user. Once an error is detected, the program will jump to the program_label section for
error handling.

Example 35.1: Division by Zero The Output Window

Private Sub CmdCalculate_Click()

Dim firstNum, secondNum As

Double
firstNum = Txt_FirstNumber.Text
secondNum =
Txt_SecondNumber.Text
On Error GoTo error_handler
Lbl_Answer.Caption = firstNum /
secondNum
Exit Sub            'To prevent error
handling even the inputs are valid

error_handler:  
Lbl_Answer.Caption = "Error"
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = True Explanation:
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Caption = " You
attempt to divide a number by In this example, you design the interface as above. Name the first textbox
zero!Try again!" as Txt_FirstNumber and the second textbox as Txt_SecondNumber. Insert
one command button as label it as Calculate. Insert one label and name it
End Sub as Lbl_Answer to display the answers. If the user enter 0 in the second
Private Sub textbox as shown above, the program will jump to the label error_handler,
Txt_FirstNumber_GotFocus() and the procedure that is executed. It will show an error in the Txt_Answer
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = False label and an error message in the Lbl_ErrorMsg label.

End Sub Notice that Exit sub after the division. It is important because it can
prevent the program to execute the error_handler code even though the
Private Sub
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 Txt_SecondNumber_GotFocus() user does not enter zero in the second textbox.
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = False
Lastly, after the error message appeared, the user will click on the
End Sub textboxes again. When this occur, the error message will disappear both
from the answer label and error message label. This is achieved by using
the event procedure GotFocus, as shown in the code.

Example 35.2: Nested Error Handling Procedure

By referring to Example 28.1, we need to consider other errors probably will be made by the user, such as
entering non-numeric inputs like letters. Therefore, we need to write error handling code for this error
too. It should be put in the first place as soon as the user input something in the textboxes. And the error
handler label error_handler1 for this error should be put after the error_handler2 label. This means the
second error handling procedure is nested within the first error handling procedure. Notice that you have
to put an Exit Sub for the second error handling procedure to prevent to execute the first error handling
procedure again. The code is as follow:

Private Sub CmdCalculate_Click()

Dim firstNum, secondNum As Double

On Error GoTo error_handler1
firstNum = Txt_FirstNumber.Text
secondNum = Txt_SecondNumber.Text
On Error GoTo error_handler2
Lbl_Answer.Caption = firstNum / secondNum
Exit Sub 'To prevent errror handling even the inputs are valid
error_handler2:
Lbl_Answer.Caption = "Error"
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = True
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Caption = " You attempt to divide a number by zero!Try again!"
Exit Sub
error_handler1:
Lbl_Answer.Caption = "Error"
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = True
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Caption = " You are not entering a number! Try again!"

End Sub
Private Sub Txt_FirstNumber_GotFocus()
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = False
End Sub
Private Sub Txt_SecondNumber_GotFocus()
Lbl_ErrorMsg.Visible = False
End Sub

The Output window

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Lesson 38: Compiling and Distributing Your Programs

36.1 Compiling your Visual Basic Program

Once your have completed a VB program, you can compile the program to run as a standalone windows
application, without having to launch the Visual Basic IDE. However, before you compile your program,
you have to debug your program to make sure it is errors free. Once the program is compiled into an EXE
file (executable file), you can not debug it anymore. If you wish to do so, you have to correct the errors and
recompile it.

To start compiling your program, click on the menu File and select Make Project1.exe, as show in Figure
36.1. When you click on Make Project1.exe , the Make Project dialog box will appear, as shown in Figure
36.2. In this dialog box, you can select the project you wish to compile. In this example, the project I chose
to compile is reversi. The option button in this dialog box let you customize the program you are going to
compile. For example, you can enter the title of the program , the program's version and your company
name. Clicking on the compile tab will let you  decide the kind of code you wish to compile. The default
option is native code and it is the best option because it normally runs faster. It requires fewer files to run,
particular the VB DLL files. Once you have done that, you can click the OK button to compile the program.
Now you program can run as a standalone application. You can start your program without launching the
Visual Basic IDE.

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 Figure 36.1 Figure 36.2  

Figure 36.3 Figure 36.4

 36.2 Distributing Your Programs

After successfully created a VB program, you might want to market your product, either online or offline.
This means that you need to create a package that can be distributed to your potential customers. The
package created can be distributed using CD ROM, diskette or the Internet. The package will allow the user
to install the program to install in the computer with the standard setup routine.

To create the distributable package, you can use the Package and Development Wizard that came with
Visual Basic 6. The main purpose of this wizard is to create a setup program that can be used to install the
application. Off course, it also does many other jobs like compiling your application and compresses the
files for easy distribution.

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When you start the Package and Development Wizard, you will be presented with the following dialog
box:

First of all, you need to select the project you want to package. Here I have selected the starwar.vbp
project. Next, you need to select one of the three options. Here, I suggest you select the first option to let
the wizard create the installation package  for you to distribute it using CD ROM or the Internet.

Once you click the package option, you will see the following dialog box where you are asked to choose a
packaging script:

After you click next, you will see the following dialog box where you will be asked to choose a packaging
type. Normally we choose the Standard Setup Package.

The next dialog box that shows up will ask you where to store the package, as shown below:

The next dialog box will show you the files that will be included in the package.

When you click the Finish button, the package will be created and ready for distribution. Here is the
packaged files for the starwar program for download at

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Setup.exe
SETUP.LST
starwar5.CAB

You must download all the three files into a folder and then run the setup program.

Lesson 39: Creating Menus for Your Applications

Menu bar is the standard feature of most windows applications. The main purpose of the menus is for
easy navigation and control of an application. Some of the most common menu items are   File, Edit, View,
Tools, Help and more. Each item on the main menu bar also provide a list of options or   in the form of a
pull-down menu. When you create a Visual Basic 6 program, you need not include as many menu items as
a full fledge Windows application such as Microsoft Words. What you need is to include those menu items
that can improve the ease of using your program by the user, and not to confuse the user with
unnecessary items. Adding menu bar is relatively easy  to accomplish in Visual Basic. There are two ways to
add menus to your application, one way is to use the Visual Basic's Application Wizard and the other way is
to use the menu editor.

37.1 Adding Menu Bar Using Visual Basic's Application Wizard

The easiest way to add menu bar to your application is by using Visual Basic's Application Wizard. This
wizard allows the user to insert fully customized  standard windows menus into his or her application. To
start using Visual Basic's Application Wizard, you click on the Application Wizard icon at the Visual Basic
new project dialog box, as shown below:

Figure 37.1: New Project Window  

When you click on the VB Application wizard, the

introduction dialog box will appear, as shown in Figure
37.1. As you are not loading any default setting, just click on
the Next button. After clicking the Next button, the interface
type dialog box will be displayed, as shown in Figure
37.3. There are three choices of interface for your project, as
we currently not creating a Multiple Document Interface
(MDI), we choose Single Document Interface (SDI). You can also type the project name in the textbox
below, here I am using MyFirstMenu. After clicking the Next button, you will be presented with a list of
menus and submenus that you would like to add them to your application. Check to select a menu item
and uncheck to unselect a menu item. Let say we choose all the menus and click next, then you will get an
interface will File, Edit, View and Help menus. such as that shown in Figure 37.5

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Figure 37.2 Figure 37.3

When you click on any menu item, a list of drop-down  

submenu items will be displayed. For example, if you
click on the File menu, the list of submenu items such  
as New, Open, Save, Save As and more will be
displayed, as shown in Figure 37.6

Figure 37.6

Clicking on any of the dropped down menu item will

show the code associated with it, and this is where you
can modify the code to suit your programming needs.
For example, clicking on the item Open will reveal the
following code:

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 Figure 37.7

Now, I will show you how to modify the code in order

to open a graphic file and display it in an image box. For
this program, you have to insert a Image box into the
form. Next add the following lines so that the user can
open graphic files of different formats.

.Filter = "Bitmaps(*.BMP)|*.BMP|Metafiles(*.WMF)|
*.WMF|Jpeg Files(*.jpg)|*.jpg|GIF Files(*.gif)|*.gif|
Icon Files(*.ico)|*.ico|All Files(*.*)|*.*".

Then, you need to load the image into the Image box
with the following code:

Image1.Picture = LoadPicture(.FileName)

Also set the Stretch property of the Image box to true

so that the image loaded can resize by itself. Please
note that each menu item is a special control, so it has
a name too. The name for the menu File in this
example is mnuFileOpen.

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 Figure 37.4  Figure 37.5 

37.2: Adding Menu Bar Using Menu Editor

To start adding menu items to your application, open an existing project or start a new project, then click
on Tools in the menu bar of the Visual Basic IDE and select Menu Editor. When you click on the Menu
Editor, the Menu Editor dialog will appear. In the Menu Editor dialog , key in the first item File in the
caption text box. You can use the ampersand ( & ) sign in front of F so that F will be underlined when it
appears in the menu, and F will become the hot key to initiate the action under this item by pressing the
Alt key and the letter F. After typing &File in the Caption text box, move to the name textbox to enter the
name for this menu item, you can type in mnuFile here. Now, click the Next button and the menu item
&File will move into the empty space below, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 37.11

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You can then add in other menu items on the menu bar by following the same procedure, as shown in the
diagram below:

Figure 37.12

The full code is as follows:

Private Sub mnuFileOpen_Click()
Dim sFile As String

With dlgCommonDialog
.DialogTitle = "Open"
.CancelError = False
'ToDo: set the flags and attributes of the common dialog
control
.Filter = "Bitmaps(*.BMP)|*.BMP|Metafiles(*.WMF)|
*.WMF|Jpeg Files(*.jpg)|*.jpg|GIF Files(*.gif)|*.gif|Icon
Files(*.ico)|*.ico|All Files(*.*)|*.*"
.ShowOpen
Image1.Picture = LoadPicture(.FileName)

If Len(.FileName) = 0 Then
Exit Sub
End If
sFile = .FileName
End With
'ToDo: add code to process the opened file
End Sub

When you run the program and click on the File menu
and then the submenu Open, the following Open dialog
box will be displayed, where you can look for graphic
files of various formats to load it into the image box.

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 Figure 37.8

For example, selecting the jpeg file will allow you to

choose the images of jpeg format.

Figure 37.9

Clicking on the particular picture will load it into the

image box, as shown below.

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 Figure 37.10
37.2: Adding Menu Bar Using Menu Editor when you click Ok, the menu items will be shown
on the menu bar of the form.
To start adding menu items to your application, open an
existing project or start a new project, then click on
Tools in the menu bar of the Visual Basic IDE and select
Menu Editor. When you click on the Menu Editor, the
Menu Editor dialog will appear. In the Menu Editor
dialog , key in the first item File in the caption text box.
You can use the ampersand ( & ) sign in front of F so that
F will be underlined when it appears in the menu, and F
will become the hot key to initiate the action under this
item by pressing the Alt key and the letter F. After typing
&File in the Caption text box, move to the name textbox
to enter the name for this menu item, you can type in
mnuFile here. Now, click the Next button and the menu
item &File will move into the empty space below, as
shown in the following diagram:
Figure 37.13

Now, you may proceed to add the sub menus. In

the Menu Editor, click on the Insert button
between File and Exit and then click the right
arrow key, and the dotted line will appear. This
shows the second level of the menu, or the
submenu. Now key in the caption and the name.
Repeat the same procedure to add other
submenu items. Here, we are adding New, Open,
Save, Save As and Exit.

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 Figure 37.11

You can then add in other menu items on the menu bar
by following the same procedure, as shown in the
diagram below:

Figure 37.14

Now click the OK button and go back to your

form. You can see the dropped down submenus
when you click on the item File, as shown.

Figure 37.12

Figure 37.15

Finally, you can enter the code by clicking on any

of the submenu items. You can enter code such
as that shown in section 37.1

Lesson 40: Keyboard Handling

In previous lessons, we have only learned how to trigger events or control program flow   by clicking the
mouse. In this chapter, you will learn how to use the keyboard to trigger an event using the keyboard
beside using the mouse. When the user press a key on the keyboard, it will trigger an event or a series of
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events. These events are called the keyboard events. In Visual Basic, the three basic event procedure to
handle the key events are KeyPress, Keydown and KeyUp

38.1 ASCII

The key event occurs when the user presses any key that corresponds to a certain alphanumeric value or
an action such as Enter, spacing, backspace or so on. Each of those values or actions are represented by a
set of codes known as the ASCII . ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.  
ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Computers can only understand
numbers, so an ASCII code is the numerical representation of a character such as 'a' or '@' or an action of
some sort. ASCII was developed a long time ago and now the non-printing characters are rarely used for
their original purpose.In order to write code for the Key events , we need to know the ASCII and the
corresponding values. Some of the commond ASCII values are  shown in Table 38.1.

ASCII Chr ASCII Chr ASCII Chr

8 Backspace 61 = 98 b
13 Carriage Return or Enter key 62 > 99 c
32 Space 63 ? 100 d
33 ! 64 @ 101 e
34 " 65 A 102 f
35 # 66 B 103 g
36 $ 67 C 104 h
37 % 68 D 105 i
38 & 69 E 106 j
39 ' 70 F 107 k
40 ( 71 G 108 l
41 ) 72 H 109 m
42 * 73 I 110 n
43 + 74 J 111 o
44 , 75 K 112 p
45 - 76 L 113 q
46 . 77 M 114 r
47 / 78 N 115 s
48 0 79 O 116 t
49 1 80 P 117 u
50 2 81 Q 118 v
51 3 82 R 119 w
52 4 83 S 120 x
53 5 84 T 121 y
54 6 85 U 122 z
55 7 86 V 123 {
56 8 87 W 124 |
57 9 88 X 125 }
58 : 89 Y 126 ~
59 ; 90 Z 127 DEL

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 60 < 97 a    
Table 38.1: ASCII Values

For more detail table, please refer to  http://www.asciitable.com/

38.2 Common Key Events Constants.

In Visual Basic 6, it employs a set of constants that correspond to the ASCII values. We can use the
constants instead of the ASCII. The following tablle shows the constants and the corresponding ASCII
values.

Event Constant ASCII Chr Event Constant ASCII Chr

vbKey0 48 0 vbKeyR 82 R
vbKey1 49 1 vbKeyS 83 S
vbKey2 50 2 vbKeyT 84 T
vbKey3 51 3 vbKeyU 85 U
vbKey4 52 4 vbKeyV 86 V
vbKey5 53 5 vbKeyW 87 W
vbKey6 54 6 vbKeyX 88 X
vbKey7 55 7 vbKeyY 89 Y
vbKey8 56 8 vbKeyZ 90 Z
vbKey9 57 9 vbKeyDecimal 110 Decima point
vbKeyA 65 A vbkeyBack 8 Backspace key
vbKeyB 66 B vbKeyTab 9 Tab key
vbKeyC 67 C vbkeyReturn 13 Return key(Enter key)
vbKeyD 68 D vbKeyShift 16 Shift key
vbKeyE 69 E vbKeyControl 17 Ctrl key
vbKeyF 70 F vbKeyCapital 20 Caps Lock key
vbKeyG 71 G vbKeyEscape 27 Esc key
vbKeyH 72 H vbKeySpace 32 Space bar
vbKeyI 73 I vbKeyInsert 45 Insert key
vbKeyJ 74 J vbKeyDelete 46 Delete key
vbKeyK 75 K      
vbKeyL 76 L      
vbKeyM 77 M      
vbKeyN 78 N      
vbKeyO 79 O      
vbKeyP 80 P      
vbKeyQ 81 Q      

38.3 Writing code for the key events

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 We can write code for the three key events i.e. keyPress, KeyDown and KeyUp.

Example 38.1

Private Sub Form_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)

If KeyAscii = 13 Then  ' 13 is the ASCII value for the Enter key
Print "You have pressed the Enter key"
Else
Print "You have pressed other key"
End If
End Sub

In this example, the program can detect the pressing of Enter key and the keys other than the Enter key.

Example 38.2

If you wish to detect and display the key pressed by the user, simply type the following code:

Private Sub Form_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)

Print Chr(KeyAscii)

End Sub

The function Chr will convert the ASCII values to the corresponding characters as shown in the ASCII table.

Example 38.3

Private Sub Form_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)

For i = 65 To 90
Print Chr(KeyAscii)
Next

End Sub

In this example, we use the For ...Next loop to display the alphabet A to Z by pressing any key on the
keyboard.

Example 38.4

Private Sub Form_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)

If KeyAscii = 13 Then
For i = 97 To 122
Print Chr(i)
Next
End If

End Sub

Lesson 41: Using the Printer-Part 1

 39.1 Printing using the Printer object

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In previous lessons, we have only written programs that send output to the screen and not the printer. In
this lesson, we will learn how to send an output to the printer and get it printed. Sending output to the
printer is a simple task in Visual Basic, it involves the use of the Printer object and the print method. The
standard code of sending an output to the printer and get it printed out is as follows:

                              Private Sub Form_Load()

                                      Printer.Print "Welcome to Visual Basic"
                              End Sub

However, the code above only send the output to the printer without actually printing it. It will only print
the output when you terminate the application. It can a very inconvenience  if you need to close the
program every time you want to print the output. To solve this little problem, we need to add the
newpage or EndDoc method. So, add one extra line to the above code as follows:

Private Sub Form_Load()

                                      Printer.Print "Welcome to Visual Basic"
Printer.EndDoc

                              End Sub

 Beside printing messages in string form, you can actually print out other variables including numeric
values. Below is an example:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim x, y As String, z As Variant
x = InputBox("Enter the first Number")
y = InputBox("Enter the second Number")
z = Val(x) + Val(y)
Printer.Print "The answer is" & z
Printer.EndDoc
End Sub

If x=3 and y=4, the printing output is "The answer is 7'

You can also use loops to send output to the printer. In the follow example, I used the For......Next   loop to
print out the multiplication table.

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim i, j As Integer
For i = 2 To 9
For j = 2 To 9
Printer.Print i & "x" & j & "=" & i * j,
Next j
Printer.Print Chr(13)
Next i
Printer.EndDoc

End Sub

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The command Printer.Print Chr(13) is equivalent to pressing the Enter and print the output on the next
line. The output is as follows:

2x2=4 2x3=6 2x4=8 2x5=10 2x6=12 2x7=14 2x8=16 2x9=18

3x2=6 3x3=9 3x4=12 3x5=15 3x6=18 3x7=21 3x8=24 3x9=27
4x2=8 4x3=12 4x4=16 4x5=20 4x6=24 4x7=28 4x8=32 4x9=36
5x2=10 5x3=15 5x4=20 5x5=25 5x6=30 5x7=35 5x8=40 5x9=45
6x2=12 6x3=18 6x4=24 6x5=30 6x6=36 6x7=42 6x8=48 6x9=54
7x2=14 7x3=21 7x4=28 7x5=35 7x6=42 7x7=49 7x8=56 7x9=63
8x2=16 8x3=24 8x4=32 8x5=40 8x6=48 8x7=56 8x8=64 8x9=72
9x2=18 9x3=27 9x4=36 9x5=45 9x6=54 9x7=63 9x8=72 9x9=81
Now you might want to know whether it is possible to print the content of   text file created in Visual Basic.
The answer is a big "YES". Let me use Example 17.3.2 of Lesson 17.  We shall add a command button to the
form and rename it as cmdPrint and change the label to Print, and then double click the button to insert
the follow code:

Private Sub CmdPrint_Click()

Printer.Print Text1.Text
Printer.EndDoc
End Sub

By clicking the Print button you should be able to print the content of the text box.

The full code of the program as follows:

Dim linetext As String

Private Sub CmdPrint_Click()
Printer.Print Text1.Text
Printer.EndDoc
End Sub
Private Sub open_Click()
CommonDialog1.Filter = "Text files{*.txt)|*.txt"
CommonDialog1.ShowOpen
If CommonDialog1.FileName <> "" Then
Open CommonDialog1.FileName For Input As #1
Do
Input #1, linetext
Text1.Text = Text1.Text & linetext
Loop Until EOF(1)
End If
Close #1
End Sub
Private Sub save_Click()
CommonDialog1.Filter = "Text files{*.txt)|*.txt"
CommonDialog1.ShowSave
If CommonDialog1.FileName <> "" Then
Open CommonDialog1.FileName For Output As #1
Print #1, Text1.Text
Close #1
End If
End Sub
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39.2 Formatting the Output using Printer Object properties
You can format your output before sending it to the printer using a number of font related Printer object
properties. Some of these properties are listed below:

FontBold, FontItalic, FontSize, FontName and FontUnderline

The code to format your printed output is illustrated in the example below:

Private Sub CmdPrint_Click()

Printer.FontName="Verdana"
Printer.FontSize=16
Printer.FontBold=True
Pinter.FontItalic=True
Printer.FontUndeline=True
                  Printer.Print Text1.Text
              Printer.EndDoc
End Sub

Lesson 42 : Creating Reports in Visual Basic 6

40.1 A brief introduction to reporting tool in Visual basic 6

You have learned how to build a database in Visual Basic 6 in previous chapters, however you have not
learned how to display the saved data in a report. Reports are important and useful in many respects
because they provide useful and meaningful information concerning a set of data. In this chapter, we will
show you how to create a report in Visual Basic 6.

In previous versions of Visual Basic 6, there is no  primary reporting . Previous versions of Visual basic 6
uses Crystal Reports tool, a software from Seagate. Fortunately,  Microsoft has integrated a good report
writer into Visual Basic 6, so you no longer need to use Crystal Report.

40.2 Steps in building your report in Visual Basic 6

Visual Basic 6 provides you with a data report designer  to create your report, it is somewhat similar to
data report designer in Microsoft Access. The data report designer has its own set of controls which allow
you to customize your report seamlessly. The  steps in creating the report in VB6 are listed below:

Step 1: Adding Data Report

Start Visual Basic as a Standard EXE project. From the Project menu in the VBE, select Add Data Report in
the dropdown menu. Now, you will be presented with the data report environment, as shown in Figure
40.1. The data report environment contains 6 controls, they are RptTextBox, RptLine, RptFunction,
RptLabel, RptImage and RptShape.

You can customize your report here by adding a title to the page header using the report label RptLabel.
Simply drag and draw the RptLabel control on the data report designer window and  use the Caption
property to change the text that should be displayed. You can also add graphics to the report using the
RptImage control.

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Figure 40.1: The Data Report Environment

Step 2: Connecting the report to database using  Data Environment Designer

Click the Project menu,

then select Data Environment. from the drop-down menu. The default data environment will appear, as
shown in figure 40.2

Figure 40.2: Data Environment

Now, to connect to the database, right-click connection1 and select  Microsoft Jet 3.51 OLE DB Provider 
(as we are using MS Access database) from the Data Link Properties dialog (as shown in Figure 40.3),  then
click next.

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 Figure 40.3

Now, you need to connect to the database by selecting a database file from your hard disk. For
demonstration purpose, we will use the database  BIBLIO.MDB that comes with Visual Basic, as shown in
Figure 40.4. The path to this database file is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\BIBLIO.MDB.
This path varies from computers to computers, depending on where you install the file. After selecting the
file, you need to test the connection by clicking the Test Connection button at the right bottom of the Data
Link Properties dialog. If the connection is successful, a message that says 'Test Connection Succeeded' will
appear. Click the OK button on the message box to return to the data environment. Now you can rename
connection1 to any name you like by right-clicking it. For example, you can change it to MyConnection. You
may also change the name of DataEnvironment1 to MyDataEnvironment using the Properties window.

Figure 40.4

Step 3: Retrieving Information from the Database

In order to use the database in your report, you need to create query to retrieve the information from the
database. Here , we will use SQL command to create the query. First of all, right click on MyConnection to

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add a command to the data environment. The default command is Command1, you can rename it as
MyCommand, as shown in Figure 40.5.

Figure 40.5: MyCommand

In order to use SQL command, right-click MyCommand and you can see its properties dialog. At the
General tab, select SQL statement and key in the following SQL statement:

SELECT Au_ID, Author

FROM Authors ORDER BY Author

This command is to select all the fields from the Authors table in the Biblio.Mdb database. The command
ORDER BY Author is to arrange the list in ascending order according to the Authors' Names.

Now, you need to customize a few properties of your data report so that it can connect to the database.
The first property to set is the DataSource, set it to MyDataEnvironment. Next, you need to set the
DataMember property to MyCommand,as shown in Figure 40.6

Figure 40.6: Properties of

To add  data to your report, you need to drag the fields from MyCommand in MyDataEnvironment into
MyDataReport, as shown in Figure 40.7.Visual Basic 6 will automatically draw a RptTextBox, along with a
RptLabel control for each field on the report. You can customize the look of the labels as well as the
TextBoxes from the properties window of MyDataReport.

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 Figure 40.7

The Final step is to set MydataReport as the Startup form from the Project menu, then run the program.
You will see your report as shown in Figure 40.8. You can print out your report.

Figure 40.8: The Final Report.

Congratulation! You have finish reading all the 39 lessons, and now you can consider yourself a VB
programmer. You should consider buying the TEXTBOOK for this tutorial for easy referencing in the future.
Buy this book by clicking the picture below:

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