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Computer Programming Concepts and Visual Basic David I. Schneider

Computer Programming Concepts and Visual Basic David I. Schneider

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18 <strong>Computer</strong> <strong>Programming</strong> <strong>Concepts</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Visual</strong> <strong>Basic</strong><br />

Double-click the St<strong>and</strong>ard EXE icon to bring up the initial <strong>Visual</strong> <strong>Basic</strong> screen in Figure<br />

2-2. The appearance of this screen varies slightly with the different versions of <strong>Visual</strong><br />

<strong>Basic</strong>.<br />

FIGURE 2-2 The Initial <strong>Visual</strong> <strong>Basic</strong> Screen<br />

The Menu bar of the <strong>Visual</strong> <strong>Basic</strong> screen displays the comm<strong>and</strong>s you use to work with<br />

<strong>Visual</strong> <strong>Basic</strong>. Some of the menus, like File, Edit, View, <strong>and</strong> Window, are common to most<br />

Windows applications. Others, such as Project, Format, <strong>and</strong> Debug, provide comm<strong>and</strong>s specific<br />

to programming in <strong>Visual</strong> <strong>Basic</strong>.<br />

The Toolbar is a collection of icons that carry out st<strong>and</strong>ard operations when clicked. For<br />

example, the fifth icon, which looks like a diskette, can be used to save the current program<br />

to a disk. To reveal the function of a Toolbar icon, position the mouse pointer over the icon<br />

for a few seconds.<br />

The large stippled Form window, or form for short, becomes a Windows window when<br />

a program is executed. Most information displayed by the program appears on the form. The<br />

information usually is displayed in controls that have been placed on the form. The Form<br />

Layout window allows you to position the location of the form at run time relative to the<br />

entire screen using a small graphical representation of the screen.<br />

The Project Explorer window is seldom needed for our purposes until Section 12. The<br />

Properties window is used to change how objects look <strong>and</strong> react.<br />

The icons in the Toolbox represent controls that can be placed on the form. The four<br />

controls discussed in this section are text boxes, labels, comm<strong>and</strong> buttons, <strong>and</strong> picture boxes.<br />

Text boxes: You use a text box primarily to get information, referred to as input, from the<br />

user.<br />

Labels: You place a label to the left of a text box to tell the user what type of information<br />

to enter into the text box. You also use labels to display output.<br />

Comm<strong>and</strong> buttons: The user clicks a comm<strong>and</strong> button to initiate an action.<br />

Picture boxes: You use a picture box to display text or graphics output.

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