Lesson1

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

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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	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.