This is what you'll see when you run the software for the first time (because you haven't created a project yet). When you create a project, the Name you gave it will be displayed on this page, as a hyperlink. Clicking the link will open the project.
At the bottom of the screen, there are two buttons: "New Project" and "Open Project". To get started, click the "New Project" button. When you do, you'll see this dialogue box appear:
As a beginner, you'll normally want the option selected: "Windows Application", in the "Visual Basic Projects" folder. This means that you're going to be designing a programme to run on a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system.
If you look in the Name textbox at the bottom, you'll see it says "WindowsApplication1". This is the default name for your projects. It's not a good idea to keep this name. After all, you don't want all of your projects to be called "WindowsApplication1", "WindowsApplication2", etc. So click inside this textbox and change this Name to the following:
Keep the Location the same as the default. This is a folder inside of your "My Documents" folder called "Visual Studio Projects". A new folder will then be created for you, and its name will be the one you typed in the "Name" textbox. All of your files for your first project are then saved in this folder.
Click the OK button, and the Visual Basic NET design time environment will open. It will look like the following (the 2008 edition is just the same):
Using Form
n the Visual Basic NET design time environment, the first thing to concentrate on is that strange, big square in the top left. That's called a form. It's actually the pretty bit of your programme, the part that others will see when they launch your masterpiece. Granted, it doesn't look too attractive at the moment, but you'll soon discover ways to lick it into shape.
To run the form, try this:
- From the menu bar, click Debug
- Alternatively, press the F5 key on your keyboard
- From the drop down menu, click Start
- Your programme is launched
Click the Red X on the form to stop it from running. You will then be returned to the software environment.
Using ToolBox
Things like buttons, textboxes, and labels are all things that you can add to your Forms. They are know as Controls, and are kept in the Toolbox for ease of use.
The Toolbox can be found on the left of the screen. In the picture below, you can see the toolbox icon next to Form1:
To display all the tools, move your mouse over the toolbox icon. You'll see the following automatically appear:
To display all the tools, move your mouse over the toolbox icon. You'll see the following automatically appear:
There are seven categories of tools available. The toolbox you'll be working with first is the Common Controls toolbox. To see the tools, click on the plus symbol next to Common Controls. You'll see a long list of tools:
As you can see, there are an awful lot of tools to choose from! For this first section, we'll only be using the Button, the TextBox and the Label.
If you want to keep the toolbox displayed, click the Pin icon next to the X. To close the toolbox, simply move your mouse away.
Adding a Tool (Control) to your Form
With the tools displayed, do the following:
Notice the small squares around the textbox. These are sizing handles. Move your mouse over one of them. The mouse pointer turns into an extended line with arrowheads. Hold your left mouse button down and drag outwards. The textbox is resized. Play around with the sizing handles until you're happy with the size of your textbox.
One thing you will notice is that you can't make the size any higher, but you can make it wider. The reason why you can't make it any higher is because the default action of a textbox is to have it contain only a single line of text. If it's only going to contain one line of text, Microsoft reasoned, there's no reason why you should be able to change its height. A textbox can only be made higher if it's set to contain multiple lines of text. You'll see how to do this soon.
- Create two more textboxes by double clicking on the textbox icon in the toolbar (Or Right-click on the selected textbox and choose Copy. Then Right-click on the Form and choose Paste.)
- Resize them to the same size as your first one
- Line them up one below the other with space in between
- Try to create something that looks like the one below
Adding a Label to your Form
Let's add some labels near the textboxes so that your users will know what they are for.
- Locate the label control in the toolbox
- A new label is added to your form
- It should look like the one below
Click on the label to select it. Now hold your left mouse button down on the label. Keep it held down and drag it to the left of the textbox.
Create two more labels, and position them to the left of the textboxes. You should now have a form like this one:
To see what your Form looks like as a programme, click Debug > Start from the menu bar. Or press F5 on your keyboard:
To stop the programme from running, you can do one of the following:
1. Click the Red X at the top right of your Form
2. Click Debug > Stop Debugging from the menu bar
3. Press Shift + F5 on your keyboard
You can also click the Stop button on the VB toolbars at the top, as in the image below:
Properties
Those controls you added to the form (textboxes and labels), and the form itself, are called control objects. You can think of controls as things, something solid that you can pick up and move about. Controls (things) have properties. If your television were a control, it too would have properties: an On/Off button property, a colour property, a volume property, and a ... well, what other properties would your television have? Think about it.
The properties of your television will have values. The On/Off button would have just two values - On or Off. The volume property could have a range of values, from zero to ten, for example. If the value of the volume property was set to ten, the loudest value, then you'd probably have some very angry neighbours!
In VB.NET, you can change a property of a control from the Properties Box. (You can also change a property using code, which you'll do quite a lot.) If we go back to our Form object, and the properties and values it has, we can see how to change them using the Properties Box. We'll change only one of these values for now - the value of the Text property .
So, do this:
So, do this:
On the right of the design environment there should be the following Properties box:
If your Properties box says "Textbox1 Textbox" or "Label1 Label" then you haven't yet selected the Form. Click away from the textbox or label until the Properties box reads "Form1 Form"
What you are looking at is a list of the properties that a form has: Name , BackColor, Font, Image, Text, etc. Just to the right of these properties are the values for them. These values are the default values, and can be changed. We're going to change the value of the Text property.
First, you might want to display the list of Properties in a more accessible form. You can display the list properties alphabetically. To do that, click the Alphabetic icon at the top of the Properties box, as in the image below:
We'll change only one of these values for now - the value of the Text property . So, do this:
"Text" is a Property of Form1. Don't be confused by the word "Form1" next to the word "Text". All this means is that the current value of the Text property is set to the word "Form1". This is the default.
To change this to something of your own, do this:
- Click inside the area next to "Text", and delete the word "Form1" by hitting the backspace key on your keyboard
- When "Form1" has been deleted, type the words "My First Form"
