How to Train in Microsoft VB.Net

Learn Microsoft VB.NET by using its development environment to design user interfaces, write event-based programs, and browse the .NET framework, which is a hierarchy of blueprints from which VB creates virtual objects. Learning VB.NET involves understanding the concepts that underlie this language and development system. These concepts are founded on object oriented programming, which lets programmers treat digital structures as physical ones. An effective way of learning this language is to run sample programs pasted in the development environment from the MSDN library, then repeatedly retype each program until you can do so without referring to the original source code.

Instructions

Design User-Interfaces

1. Open VB.NET and click the "New project" link, then click the "Windows Form" link to build a barebones program that has a customizable form for communicating with your program's user.

2. Click the toolbar icon shaped like a hammer and wrench to display a palette of form controls.

3. Drag a Label control from the palette onto the form.

4. Right click the Label control and click "Properties." Type "Name" in the "Text" row of the "Properties" palette to replace the Label's default text with "Name."

5. Drag a Text Box control from the tools palette to the right of the "Label" control. Notice that VB displays blue guidelines suggesting where to place the new control. Release the mouse while these guidelines are displayed to align the Text Box control's upper edge with the upper edge of the Label control.

Write Event-Based Programs

1. Click the "New project" link on VB.NET's opening screen, then click "Windows form" to create a blank project.

2. Drag a Button control from the tool box to the form.

3. Double click the Button to enter the Click event function for the button. When your program runs and a user clicks the Button, the statement in this function will execute.

4. Paste the following statement into the programming window:

   MsgBox "Hello, VB.NET trainee!"

5. Run the program by pressing "F5" and clicking the button.

Browse the NET Framework

1. Open VB.NET, then press "Escape" to dismiss the opening screen and enter the programming environment.

2. Press "F2" to display the Object Browser, which is a search engine that fetches information on all classes with the .NET framework.

3. Click in the text box at the top of the Browser, then type "Strings" and press "Enter." VB.NET will display a list of classes that use the Strings class, and the Strings class itself.

4. Click the item labeled "Visual Basic Strings" to display a list of all functions, which object oriented programmers call "methods," in the Strings class.

5. Click one of the methods to display its syntax, including a description of all its arguments.

References

• "Murach's Visual Basic 2010"; Anne Boehm; 2010

Resources

• Microsoft: Visual Basic Developer Center