CVEV 118/698

Visual Basic
Lecture 1
Prof. Mounir Mabsout
Expert 1: Elsa Sulukdjian
Expert 2: Walid El Asmar

Introduction

Visual Studio 6.0: Collection of Microsoft

Visual development applications (Visual
C++, Visual J++, Visual Basic, etc)

VB is a programming language. 6
Versions launched since its creation in
the 90s.

Easy and powerful tool for developing

Windows applications in Basic. Bill
Gates.

VB Development
Environment

Integrated Development Environment (IDE):

visual environment to develop, run, test and
debug.
Controls: generally visual, and readymade
components, assigned a set of properties (I.e. Text
Box, Button, List Box, etc).
IntelliSense: Microsofts sophisticated
completion technology. It simplifies the coding
process.
Event driven programming: flow of the

application dictated by the user actions (click

of a mouse, keystrokes, etc).

VB IDE
Toolbar

menu
bar

Project
Explorer

Toolbox

Immediate
window

Properties
window

Form
layout

VB IDE Components

Menu Bar: contains all commands needed to run

VB (File, Edit, View etc).
Toolbars: quick access to commonly used menu
commands.
Project Explorer: displays the projects
components.
Toolbox: contains icons of the controls that can
be placed on the projects Forms to create the
applications interface.
Properties Window: Shows the property
settings of the selected control (size, caption,
color, etc).

VB IDE Components
(Contd)

Form Designer: Main window in which

one can design and edit the applications
user interface. In this window the user
can enter and edit the applications code.
It displays two windows: Form and Code
window.

Form Layout: Shows the initial positions

of the forms in the application. It is
useful in multiple forms applications.

Immediate Window: Debugging tool.

Programming Steps

Step 1: Customize the windows that

the user sees. I.e. placing controls
and components on the layouts of
the projects Forms.

Step 2: Decide on the events each

control should recognize.

Step 3: Coding the event

procedures for those events.

Variable Declaration

Visual Basic code works in two modes:

Implicit: does not require variable

declaration
Explicit: requires variable declaration

Declare variables using

Dim VariableName As DataType
Example:
Dim length As Integer
Dim greetings As String

Variable Types

Numeric: stores numbers

String: stores text
Variant: stores any type of data
Boolean: true/false
Date
Object

Implicit/Explicit
Implicit Example

Public Sub VBImplicit()

x=5
y = Hello
End Sub

Explicit Example

Start code window by:

Option Explicit
[]
Public Sub VBExplicit()
Dim x As Integer, y As String
x=5
y = Hello
End Sub

Implicit: default VB mode, x and y stored

as variants
Explicit: x can only store integers, y only
strings

Variable Scope
Code
Form 1

Form1 Variables
Sub1
Sub1 Variables

...
Sub2
Sub2 Variables

Code
Form 2

Variable Scope (contd)

The same variable x

is needed in both
subroutines and
therefore is defined
as a global variable
(I.e. declaration
outside subs)
There is a different
local variable y for
each subroutine (I.e.

Dim x As Integer
Public Sub FirstSub()
x=5
Dim y As Integer
End Sub
Public Sub
SecondSub()
x=6
Dim y As String
End Sub

Variable Generalities

Variable names need to be significant for

clear coding practice.
Dont be shy of using long names.
Usually the first character(s) indicate the
variable type (e.g):
Integer: int
Dim intLength As Integer
String: str
Double: dbl
Text Control: txt
Etc.

Constants

Constants do not change their value

during the execution of the program.
Declaration:
Const ConstantName As DataType
Public Const pi As Double =
3.14159265358979

Arrays

Arrays hold a set of related data.

Declaration:
Dim ArrayName(ArraySize) As DataType
Dim strNames(15) As String

or Dim strNames(1 To 16) As String

strNames is an array that holds 16
string values.
Multidimensional arrays:
Dim dblTemperature(99,99) As Double

Dynamic Arrays

Size not defined at the beginning of

the program:
Dim dblMatrix() as Double

You can re-dimension the array once

you know the size of the array:
ReDim dblMatrix(UserCount,UserCount)

Whats Next

Basic VB syntax
Functions and Subroutines
Common VB controls