FIT 100

Lab 8:  Writing and Running Your First

Visual Basic Program

Spring 2001

Reading to be done prior to Lab 8:

·         Chapter 2 of Computer Programming Fundamentals with Applications in Visual Basic 6.0 (p. 27-50)

 

Recommended Reading:

·         Chapter 3 of Computer Programming Fundamentals with Applications in Visual Basic 6.0 (p. 59-67)

 

Introduction:

The purpose of this lab is to introduce you to the VB Integrated Design Environment (IDE) and to create a simple VB project. The IDE is the programming environment where you create applications. A VB project is the collection of files created when you are working on an application. Your TA will go through this environment with you in lab.

 

You will have time to start working on this exercise in lab on Wednesday/Thursday, April 18/19. Your objective is to demonstrate your program to your TA at the end of lab.

 

Objectives:

  1. To become familiar with the development environment for Visual Basic
  2. To work with programming objects and be able to identify them by their name properties.
  3. To create a simple working program.

 

TO DO: 

  1. Open up Visual Basic 6.
    Start>Program Files>Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0>Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 
    When you start VB you will be presented with a “New Project” dialog box. You want the default project type, “Standard EXE”.

 

  1. You will be presented with the IDE, which typically contains the menu bar, the tool bar, the toolbox, and three types of windows: Form, Project, and Properties.

Menu Bar

 

Tool Bar

 

ToolBox

 

Project Window

 

Properties Window

 

Form Window

 

 

 
 

 

  1. Rename your project:

·         Each time you begin a project, the default name, Project1, appears at the top of the form. To change the name, choose Project> Project1 Properties, and then type in your name as the new project name.

 

  1. Rename the form:

·         When you are working with objects in VB, it is important to realize that there are lots of properties associated with them. Even the form on which you design your application is an object (and has over 50 properties that can be set). To change the form name, click on the Properties window (or select F4) to bring it into focus. Name is the very first property. Select this property field and type in “First”.

 

  1. Notice that the title bar of the form still says “Form1”. To change this text, select the Caption property and type in “My First VB Program”.

 

  1. Make the form a little bigger on you screen by clicking on one of the corners and dragging outwards.

 

  1. Now, use the toolbox to add the following objects to your form:

·         A Text Box

·         A Label

·         A Picture Box

·         (4) Command Buttons

To add each object, click once on the tool in the tool box.  Then go to the form and hold down the right mouse button as you “draw” you object onto the form.

 

  1. Following the same directions for changing the form name, change the names of each of the objects and their captions. 

·         Name the Text Box txtATextBox and change the caption/text to: This is a text box

·         Name the Label lblALabel and change the caption to: Dude, Where’s my label?

·         Name the Picture Box picMyPictureBox.  Notice that the picture box does not have a caption property.

·         Name the first Command Button cmdClick and change the caption to:  This is what you click on!

·         Name the second Command Button cmdRed and change the caption to:  Red!

·         Name the third Command Button cmdBlue and change the caption to:  Blue!

·         Name the fourth Command Button cmdVisible and change the caption to:  Visible!

 

 

  1. Now, go through the properties of each object, including the Form, and change the background colors.  You will use the backcolor property and work with the Palette tab to select a color.

·         Make the First form purple

·         Make the cmdClick button pink (NOTE: You must first change the Style to Graphical)

·         Make the cmdRed button red (NOTE: You must first change the Style to Graphical)

·         Make the cmdBlue button blue (NOTE: You must first change the Style to Graphical)

·         Make the cmdVisible button gray (NOTE: You must first change the Style to Graphical)

·         Make the lblALabel label yellow

·         Make the picMyPictureBox picture box violet

 

  1. Using the Font property, change the font style of each object that has a caption to something different (use your favorite font on all of them).

 

  1. Now that you have added all of these objects to your form, let’s “run” the program to see what it looks like.

·         Click on the Run icon on the Tool Bar, or go to Run>Start… on the menu bar.

 

 

 

·         Try clicking the cmdClick button.  Notice that you can click the button, but nothing happens.  That is because we have not added any code into our program so that something will happen when a user clicks the button.  You will learn more about the event procedures that are used to control a program in the next lecture and lab.

 

  1. Click on the Stop button to end the program.

 

  1. Now that you have had time to get familiar with forms and other objects in the Visual Basic IDE, we’ll create a little program that uses a bit of code to do display the date and time in our form.

 

  1. Before we proceed, save your project to a floppy disk (or to the c drive so you can ftp it later). Notice that you are prompted to save not just the form, but the project as well.

·         Since you already named our form First, you can just click OK to save it.

·         You have named your project with your name, that should come up in the window.  Click OK to save it.

·         Your entire project, consisting of the form and the project space, is now saved.

 

**********************************************************

You will have 2 files associated with your project.  One for the form and one for the project. 

Always make sure that you send both of these when FTP’ing or using electronic turn-in.

***********************************************************

 

 

Creating ThisTime– a digital clock with the date on the window bar:

 

This Time. This is a simple digital clock program with the date on the window bar. Your goal in writing the digital clock program is to create a simple VB6 program. The essential features are:

·         Change the form name.

·         Change the caption on the window bar.

·         Place and use a label control.

·         Place and use a timer control.

·         Customize the window to be attractive.

·         Save the project and form files.

 

Each of these features will be discussed below. The ThisTime application has the following window interface:

 

         

The VB environment allows you to change the properties for each object in the properties window.  However, if you just use the properties window to make those changes (i.e. changing the background color, etc.), your program won’t be very exciting.  We can attach code to a particular object event so that at run-time (when the program is executed) by a user, it will react in pre-coordinated ways.

 

As stated above, there are many properties and events associated with objects in VB.  One of the events that occur whenever someone opens up a form and runs it is the FORM LOAD event. 

  1. Open a New Project:

·         File>New Project…(your first project, that you have saved, will now be closed)

·         Double click on Standard EXE

 

  1. Once again, change the Project name to ThisTime.  Now, change the form name.  This time (no pun intended), change the name property for the form to frmClock.  Do not change the caption property right now-we’ll deal with that in a moment.

 

  1. Use the Tool Box to place a label on the form.  Name the label lblTime. Select a better font, and enlarge it to approximately 20 points.

 

  1. To change the caption of the form, you will do something a little different than just changing text in the properties window.
    The caption on the form’s window bar is to be assigned the current date at the time the window is loaded. Therefore, the "Form_Load" event should be customized to assign the date to the caption. The following code will do that:

 

Private Sub Form_Load()

frmClock.Caption = Date

End Sub


Date is a built-in global variant object that returns the date as set on the computer in the form mm/dd/yy. When the form is loaded, the current date will appear on the window bar.
         

Attaching code to an object:

 

  1. To open the code window for the form, go to View>Code.  Or, simply double click on the Form object.

 

Your code window will look similar to the above graphic.  The drop down menu on the left allows you to select the object you wish to work with (your form, etc) and the objects will be listed by their Name property EXCEPT for the form object, which will always be identified as Form.

 

The drop down menu on the right is the list of events and procedures that can be associated with the various objects in your program. 

 

  1. Select the Form object from the left drop down menu and the Load event from the right drop down menu.

Notice that once you select each of these options from the list, the following text appears.  This is standard in VB.  By default, when you select an object and select an event, the first and last lines of code that you need to have for that event are added in for you.  You will type in all relevant code between those lines.  Now, add in the code that you need from step 17.

 

  1. Before we go any further, save your project.  You have already named the project and form so you should be able to click OK to save both with the correct names: 
    ThisTime for the project
    frmClock for the form

This will create a file called ThisTime.vbp with a multicolored project icon to go with it, and ThisTime.vbw with the standard window icon. You should also save the form, which will produce the file, frmClock.frm with the form.

  1. Now Run your program to see if the date shows up in the form caption.  When you see that it works, stop the program to add more objects.

 

  1. Use the Tool Box to place a Timer somewhere on the form (it can be hidden).  Change the Name property of this control to tmrTime. Set the interval property to 1000, i.e. the timer should "go off" every 1000 milliseconds = 1 second.

 

  1. Now, go to the code window and select the tmrTime object from the left drop-down menu and the Timer event from the right. 

    Time is like Date, a built-in global variant that returns time in HH:MM:SS format. What happens is this: The timer "goes off" every second. That event causes the procedure "tmrTime" to be called. It changes the caption of the label to the current time. Whenever anything on the form is changed, the window is "repainted," i.e. redisplayed. Since most of the information is unchanged and remains in a fixed position, the clock appears to be ticking.

    The time event should cause the caption on the label to be set to the computer’s time. Add the following code to do that:

 

Private Sub tmrTime_Timer()

lblTime.Caption = Time

End Sub

 

REMEMBER!!!! VB adds in the start and end lines of code for the event, so you should only have to type one line of code!!!

 

  1. Change the properties of the window to be attractive. This include:

·         Change the form’s background color.

·         Shrink the window so that it nicely frames the time symbols.

·         Change the background color of the label to match the background of the window.

·         Change the color of the font of the label (ForeDolor Property) to be attractive and to contrast nicely with the window’s background.

·         Set the starting position property of the form to be the center of the screen. (Use the Form Window)

 

  1. Save your project again.

 

  1. When completed, compile your program by going to Make ThisTime.exe in the File menu. That operation will make another file in the directory where you have stored your ThisTime project. This is the ThisTime.exe file. To run your program, go to the folder where you have saved it on My Computer and double click on the ThisTime.exe.

 

  1. FTP your work to a folder on your Dante account.  You DO NOT need to put these projects inside your public_html folder.  They can go in a folder that you designate for your Lab work or your Projects at the root of your Dante account.

 

  1. Show your executable to your TA before leaving.