Computer Programming Concepts and Visual Basic David I. Schneider

ground color and caption. Setting the background style of a label to transparent
causes whatever is behind the label to remain visible; the background
color of the label essentially becomes “see through.”
(e) Font: Can be set to any of Windows’ fonts, such as Courier and Times New
Roman. Two unusual fonts are Symbol and Wingdings. For instance, with
the Wingdings font, pressing the keys for %, &, ‘, and J yield a bell, a book,
a candle, and a smiling face, respectively. To view the character sets for the
different Windows’ fonts, click on the Start button, and successively select
Programs, Accessories, and Character Map. Then click on Character Map
or press the Enter key. After selecting a font, hold down the left mouse button
on any character to enlarge it and obtain the keystroke that produces
that character.
9. When you click on a property in the Properties window, a description of the
property appears just below the window. Additional information about many of
the properties can be found in Appendix C. With the Learning, Professional,
and Enterprise Editions of VB6.0 you can obtain very detailed (and somewhat
advanced) information about a property by clicking on the property and pressing
F1 for Help.
10. Most properties can be set or altered with code as the program is running
instead of being preset from the Properties window. For instance, a command
button can be made to disappear with a line such as Command1.Visible = False.
See Section 2.2 for details.
11. The BorderStyle and MultiLine properties of a text box can be set only from the
Properties window. You cannot alter them during run time.
12. Of the objects discussed in this section, only command buttons have true access
keys.
13. If you inadvertently double-click an object in a form, a window containing two
lines of text will appear. (The first line begins Private Sub.) This is a code window
and is discussed in the next section. To remove this window, click on its
Close button.
14. To enlarge (or decrease) the Project Container window, position the mouse cursor
anywhere on the right or bottom edge and drag the mouse. To enlarge (or
decrease) the form, select the form and drag one of its sizing handles. Alternatively,
you can enlarge either the Project Container window or the form by
clicking on its Maximize button.
15. We will always be selecting the Standard EXE icon from the New Project window.
2.2 VISUAL BASIC EVENTS
When a Visual Basic program is run, a form and its controls appear on the screen. Normally,
nothing happens until the user takes an action, such as clicking a control or pressing the Tab
key. Such an action is called an event.
The three steps to creating a Visual Basic program are as follows:
1. Create the interface; that is, generate, position, and size the objects.
2. Set properties; that is, set relevant properties for the objects.
3. Write the code that executes when the events occur.
This section is devoted to Step 3.
Visual Basic Events 27