programmers - Visual Basic dumb question

beenben · #1 01-09-2007, 05:50 AM

Got a book out of the company library - programming 4 absolute beginners. Downloaded the free version of visual basic. Do you know the program at all? It's installed on my home computer so I can't see exactly what I want to ask you but it basically told me to put stuff on the tab where the commands go but there's already some stuff there because before it told me to do that it had me put some labels and buttons in the form and move them around and change the text, etc. Where do I plop the commands in?

nuclear500 · #2 01-09-2007, 10:24 AM

eh? heh

GUI IDE's to develop GUI forms are WYSIWYG. Draw the form you want, double click the command button or icon you want to do something and it brings up the code sections to code in what you want to occur when buttons are depressed or when events are triggered.

There will be code in the .BAS and .VB files by default as there still has to be code to tell Windows how to draw the form you've...drawn....but you can usually exclude that from being shown.

wallywojo · #3 01-09-2007, 04:48 PM

Do you have an idea what you want to do or is learning VB what you want to accomplish?

Sniper · #4 01-09-2007, 05:21 PM

Hey been,

If you installed VBExpress, it should give you access to the Build a Program NOW (VB Edition) book online. Which should walk you thru using the interface as well as starting to code.

beenben · #5 01-10-2007, 02:12 AM

Thanks for the replies. I want to learn how to program. I suspect that I have whatever setting that shows the code of how to draw the stuff instead of hiding it so it didn't match the how-to book. I saw the thing about how to use the program and it was cool - step by step - but I couldn't figure out how to get back to it.

wallywojo · #6 01-10-2007, 11:31 AM

Yes in VB there are two views that you can work from the code and design. At the top of the window below the main toolbars you will see the open items and the view they are in (code/design). Things that you get used to in VB is first when you want to add code to a control from design view you can double-click it, but you should become aware of the context that the code runs in, the event. These are listed in the drop down boxes of the code view. This is one of the first things when I learned VB that helped me understand how it works.

kerowo · #7 01-10-2007, 12:27 PM

Do you want to learn to program for a particular reason? I think there are better languages to learn than VB depending on what your goal is.

BiPolar_Nut · #8 01-10-2007, 11:46 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think there are better languages to learn than VB depending on what your goal is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed....C/C++, Python, PERL, Java, TK/TCL, AHK, hell, even ASM or .NET depending on your final goal/reasons for learning a language. As far as that goes, dos batch "programming" or shell scripting in Korn or BASH could even be helpful. What is your end goal?