introduction

Lesson1 :Introduction
1.1 A brief description of Visual Basic

VISUAL BASIC is a high level programming language evolved from the earlier DOS version called BASIC.
BASIC means Beginners' Allpurpose Symbolic Instruction Code. It is a fairly easy programming language to
learn. The codes look a bit like English Language. Different software companies produced different version of
BASIC, such as Microsoft QBASIC, QUICKBASIC, GWBASIC ,IBM BASICA and so on.

VISUAL BASIC is a VISUAL and events driven Programming Language.These are the main divergence from
the old BASIC. In BASIC, programming is done in a text-only environment and the prgram is executed
sequentially. In VISUAL BASIC, programming is done in a graphical environment. Because users may click on
a certain object randomly, so each object has to be programmed indepently to be able to response to those
actions(events).Therefore, a VISUAL BASIC Program is made up of many subprograms, each has its own
program codes, and each can be excecuted indepently and at the same time each can be linked together in one
way or another.

1.2 The Visual Basic Environment

On start up, Visual Basic 6.0 will display the following dialog box as shown in figure 1.1.
You can choose to start a new project, open an existing project or select a list of recently opened programs. A
project is a collection of files that make up your application. There are various types of applications we could
create, however, we shall concentrate on creating Standard EXE programs(EXE means executable program).
Now, click on the Standard EXE icon to go into the actual VB programming environment.

Figure 1.1 The Visual Basic Start-up Dialog Box

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 introduction

In figure 1.2, the Visual Basic Enviroment consists of the

● The Blank Form window which you can design your application's interface.
● The Project window displays the files that are created in your application.
● The Properties window which displays the properties of various controls and objects that are created in
your applications.

It also includes a Toolbox that consists of all the controls essential for developing a VB Application. Controls are
tools such as boxes, buttons, labels and other objects draw on a form to get input or display output. They also
add visual appeal.

Figure 1.2: The Visual Basic Enviroment

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introduction

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 VB lesson2

Lesson 2: Building a Visual Basic Application

2.1 Creating Your First Application

In this section, we are not going into the technical aspect of VB programming, just have a feel of it. Now,
you can try out the examples below:

Example 2.1.1 is a simple program . First of all, you have to launch Microsoft Visual Basic. Normally, a
default form Form1 will be available for you to start your new project. Now, double click on form1, the
source code window for form1 will appear. Don't worry about the begining 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 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
21.2 and Example 2.1.3. Try them out.

Example 2.1.1 Example 2.1.2 Example 2.1.3

Private Sub Form_Load Private Sub Form_Load Private Sub Form_Load

For i=1 to 5 Form1.show Form1.show

print "Hello" For i=1 to 5 For i=1 to10
next i print "Hello" print i
next i next i
End Sub
End Sub End Sub

2.2 Steps in Building a Visual Basic Application

Step 1 Draw the interface

Step 2 Set Properties
Step 3 Write the events code

Example 2.1

This program is a simple program that calculate the volume of a cylinder. Let design the interface:

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First of all, go to the properties window and change the form caption to Volume Of Cylinder. Then draw
three label boxes and change their captions to Base Radius, height andvolume respectively. After that,
draw three Text Boxes and clear its text contents so that you get three empty boxes. Named the text
boxes asradius ,hght(we cannot use height as it is the built-in control name of VB)and volume
respectively. Lastly, insert a command button and change its caption toO.K. and its name to OK. Now
save the project as cylinder.vbp and the form as cylinder.vbp as well. We shall leave out the codes at the
moment which you shall learn it in lesson3.

Example 2.2

Designing an attractive and user friendly interface should be the first step in constructing a VB program.
To illustrate, let's look at the calculator program.

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VB lesson2

>

Now, please follow the following steps to design the calculator interface.

● Resize the form until you get the size you are satisfed with.
● Go to the properties window and change the default caption to the caption you want , such as 32
Calculator-----Designed by Vkliew.
● Change other properties of the form, such as background color, foreground color , border style.I
recommend you set the following properties for Form1 for this calculator program:

BorderStyle Fixed Single

MaxButton False
minButton True

These properties will ensure that the users cannot resize or maximize your calculator
window, but able to minimize the window.

● Draw the Display Panel by clicking on the Label button and and place your mouse on the form.
Start drawing by pressing down your mouse button and drag it along.
● Click on the panel and the corresponding properties window will appear. Clear the default label so

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 VB lesson2

that the caption is blank(because the display panel is supposed to show the number as we click on
the number button). It is good to set the background color to a bright color while the foreground
color should be something like black..(for easy viewing). Change the name to display as I am
going to use it later to write codes for the calculator.
● Now draw the command buttons that are necessary to operate a calculator. I suggest you follow
exactly what is shown in the image above.
● Test run the project by pressing F5. If you are satisfied with the appearance, go ahead to save the
project. At the same time, you should also save the file that contain your form.

Now, I know you are very keen to know how to write the code so that the calculator is working.
Please refer to my sample VB programs for the source codes.

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 VB lesson3

Lesson 3 : Writing the Codes

Now we shall attempt to write the codes for the cylinder program.

Now, doubleclick on the O.K button and enter the codes between Private Sub OK_Click( ) and End Sub

Private Sub OK_Click( )

r = Val(radius.Text)
h = Val(hght.Text)
pi = 22 / 7
v = pi * (r ^ 2) * h
volume.Text= Str$(v)
End Sub

when you run the program , you should be able to see the interface as shown above. if you enter a value
each in the radius box and the height box, then click OK, the value of of the Volume will be displayed in
the volume box.

I shall attempt to explain the above source program to newcomers in Visual Basic( If you are a veteran,
you can skip this part) . Let me describe the steps using pseudocodes as follows:

Procedure for clicking the OK button to calculate the volume of cylinder

get the value of r from the radius text box
get the value of h from the height text box
assign a constant value 22/7 to pi

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calculate the volume using formula

output the results to the Volume text box
End of Procedure

The syntax radius.Text consists of two parts, radius is the name of text box while Text is the textual
contents of the text box. Generally, the syntax is: Object.Property
In our example, the objects are radius, hght and volume, each having text as their property.Object and
property is separated by a period(or dot).The contents of a text box can only be displayed in textual form,
or in programming term,as string. To convert the contents of a text box to a numeric value so that
mathematical operations can be performed , you have to use the function Val. Finally, In order to display
the results in a text box, we have to perform the reverse procedure, that is, to convert the numeric value
back to the textual form, using the function Str$.

I shall also explain the syntax that defines the sub procedure Private Sub OK_click. Private Sub here
means that the parameters , values and formulas that are used here belong only to the OK
subprocedure(an object by itself).They cannot be used by other sub procedures or modules. OK_Click
defines what kind of action the subprocedure OK will response .Here, the action is mouse click. There
are other kind of actions like keypress, keyup, keydown and etc that I am going to due with in other
lessons.

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 Visual Basic Tutorial Lesson 4

Lesson 4-Working With Controls

Before writing an event procedure for a control to response to a user's action, 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 windows. I am 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 know what to do with
that command. For example, in the calculator program, all the captions of the command buttons
such as +, - , MC ,MR are commonly found in an ordinary calculator, a user should have no
problem in manipulating the buttons.
● You should set a meaningful name for the Name Property because it is easier for you to write
and read the event procedure and easier to debug your program later.
● Another property that is important is whether you want your control to be visible or not at start
up.This property can only set to be true or false.
● One more important property is whether the control is enabled or not.

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