Beginning Microsoft Visual Basic 2008

Beginning Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 is designed to teach you how to write useful programs in Visual Basic 2008 as quickly and easily as possible. There are two kinds of beginners for whom this book is ideal: You’re a beginner to programming and you’ve chosen Visual Basic 2008 as the place to start. That’s a great choice! Visual Basic 2008 is not only easy to learn, it’s also fun to use and very powerful. You can program in another language but you’re a beginner to .NET programming. Again, you’ve made a great choice! Whether you’ve come from Fortran or Visual Basic 6, you’ll find that this book quickly gets you up to speed on what you need to know to get the most from Visual Basic 2008. Visual Basic 2008 offers a great deal of functionality in both tools and language. No one book could ever cover Visual Basic 2008 in its entirety—you would need a library of books. What this book aims to do is to get you started as quickly and easily as possible. It shows you the roadmap, so to speak, of what there is and where to go. Once we’ve taught you the basics of creating working applications (creating the windows and controls, how your code should handle unexpected events, what object-oriented programming is, how to use it in your applications, and so on), we’ll show you some of the areas you might want to try your hand at next. To this end, the book is organized as follows: Chapters 1 through 9 provide an introduction to Visual Studio 2008 and Windows programming. Chapter 6 provides an introduction to XAML and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) programming. Chapter 10 provides an introduction to application debugging and error handling. Chapters 11 through 13 provide an introduction to object-oriented programming and building objects. Chapter 14 provides an introduction to creating Windows Forms user controls. Chapter 15 provides an introduction to graphics in Windows applications. Chapters 16 and 17 provide an introduction to programming with databases and covers Access, SQL Server, ADO.NET and LINQ. Chapters 18 and 19 provide an introduction to ASP.NET and show you how to write applications for the Web. Chapter 20 provides a brief introduction to XML, a powerful tool for integrating your applications—regardless of the language they were written in. Chapter 21 introduces you to web services and the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Chapter 22 introduces you to sequential workflows using the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). Chapter 23 introduces you to building applications for mobile devices using the Compact Framework classes. Chapter 24 introduces you to deploying applications using ClickOnce technology. Chapter 25 provides some insight on where to go next in your journey to learn about VisualBasic 2008. Appendix A provides the answers to chapter exercises. Appendix B introduces the Microsoft Solution Framework. Appendix C provides some background on security. Appendix D provides insight into Windows CardSpace. Appendix E compares the differences between the latest versions of the .NET Framework. Beginning Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 1 About the Authors 9 Credits 11 Acknowledgments 13 Contents 15 Introduction 29 Who Is This Book For? 29 What Does This Book Cover? 29 What Do I Need to Run Visual Basic 2008? 31 Conventions 31 Source Code 32 Errata 32 p2p.wrox.com 33 Chapter 1: Welcome to Visual Basic 2008 35 Event-Driven Programming 36 Installing Visual Basic 2008 37 The Visual Basic 2008 IDE 41 Creating a Simple Application 44 Using the Help System 57 Summary 58 Exercise 58 Chapter 2: The Microsoft .NET Framework 59 Microsoft's Reliance on Windows 59 Writing Software for Windows 63 Common Language Runtime 66 The Common Type System and Common Language Specification 69 Summary 69 Chapter 3: Writing Software 71 Information and Data 71 Working with Variables 73 Comments and Whitespace 76 Data Types 78 Storing Variables 103 Methods 107 Summary 118 Exercises 119 Chapter 4: Controlling the Flow 121 Making Decisions 121 The If Statement 122 Select Case 139 Loops 148 Summary 166 Exercises 166 Chapter 5: Working with Data Structures 167 Understanding Arrays 167 Understanding Enumerations 179 Understanding Constants 187 Structures 189 Working with ArrayLists 194 Working with Collections 202 Building Lookup Tables with Hashtable 206 Advanced Array Manipulation 214 Summary 217 Exercises 218 Chapter 6: Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) 219 What Is XAML? 219 XAML Syntax 221 Windows Presentation Foundation 224 Summary 243 Exercise 243 Chapter 7: Building Windows Applications 245 Responding to Events 245 Building a Simple Application 253 Creating More Complex Applications 266 Using Multiple Forms 285 Summary 289 Exercises 289 Chapter 8: Displaying Dialog Boxes 291 The MessageBox Dialog Box 291 The OpenDialog Control 299 The SaveDialog Control 307 The FontDialog Control 312 The ColorDialog Control 316 The PrintDialog Control 319 The FolderBrowserDialog Control 328 Summary 332 Exercises 333 Chapter 9: Creating Menus 335 Understanding Menu Features 335 Creating Menus 338 Context Menus 350 Summary 358 Exercise 358 Chapter 10: Debugging and Error Handling 359 Major Error Types 360 Debugging 365 Error Handling 392 Summary 395 Exercises 396 Chapter 11: Building Objects 397 Understanding Objects 397 Building Classes 401 Reusability 402 Designing an Object 403 Constructors 416 Inheritance 418 Objects and Structures 429 The Framework Classes 430 Summary 436 Exercises 436 Chapter 12: Advanced Object-Oriented Techniques 437 Building a Favorites Viewer 437 An Alternative Favorite Viewer 456 Using Shared Properties and Methods 462 Understanding Object-Oriented Programming and Memory Management 468 Summary 472 Exercise 472 Chapter 13: Building Class Libraries 473 Understanding Class Libraries 474 Using Strong Names 480 Registering Assemblies 483 Designing Class Libraries 486 Using Third-Party Class Libraries 487 Viewing Classes with the Object Browser 488 Summary 489 Exercise 489 Chapter 14: Creating Windows Forms User Controls 491 Windows Forms Controls 492 Creating and Testing a User Control 492 Exposing Properties from User Controls 496 Design Time or Runtime 504 Creating a Command Link Control 506 Summary 518 Exercise 518 Chapter 15: Programming Custom Graphics 519 Building a Simple Paint Program 519 Dealing with Two Colors 541 Working with Images 559 More Graphics Methods 567 Summary 567 Chapter 16: Accessing Databases 569 What Is a Database? 569 The SQL SELECT Statement 571 Queries in Access 573 Creating a Customer Query 573 Data Access Components 577 Data Binding 580 Summary 586 Exercises 587 Chapter 17: Database Programming with SQL Server and ADO.NET 589 ADO.NET 590 The ADO.NET Classes in Action 604 Data Binding 612 LINQ to SQL 644 Summary 648 Exercises 649 Chapter 18: ASP.NET 651 Thin-Client Architecture 652 Web Forms versus Windows Forms 653 Web Applications: The Basic Pieces 654 Active Server Pages 655 Building Web Applications 657 Summary 685 Exercises 685 Chapter 19: Web Projects 687 Web Site Authentication 687 Summary 709 Exercises 709 Chapter 20: Visual Basic 2008 and XML 711 Understanding XML 711 The Address Book Project 715 Integrating with the Address Book Application 741 Summary 748 Exercises 749 Chapter 21: Distributed Computing with Windows Communication Foundation 751 What Is a Web Service? 751 Building a Web Service 755 Understanding WCF Services 760 Summary 769 Exercises 769 Chapter 22: Building a Sequential Workflow Using the Windows Workflow Foundation 771 Visual Studio Workflow Templates 773 Workflow Foundation Components 774 Sequential Workflow Activities 774 Creating a Sequential Worklow 775 Property Tax Listing Form Workflow 778 Summary 787 Exercises 787 Chapter 23: Building Mobile Applications 789 Understanding the Environment 789 Building a Pocket PC Game 795 Summary 807 Exercise 807 Chapter 24: Deploying Your Application 809 What Is Deployment? 809 Creating a Visual Studio 2008 Setup Application 815 User Interface Editor 819 Deploying Different Solutions 822 Summary 825 Exercises 826 Chapter 25: Where to Now? 827 Online Resources 828 Offline Resources (Books) 829 Appendix A: Exercise Solutions 831 Chapter 1 831 Chapter 3 831 Chapter 4 833 Chapter 5 834 Chapter 6 835 Chapter 7 835 Chapter 8 837 Chapter 9 840 Chapter 10 841 Chapter 11 842 Chapter 12 844 Chapter 13 844 Chapter 14 844 Chapter 16 846 Chapter 17 847 Chapter 18 849 Chapter 19 851 Chapter 20 852 Chapter 21 853 Chapter 22 855 Chapter 23 857 Chapter 24 859 Appendix B: Using the Microsoft Solutions Framework 861 Software Development Life Cycle 862 Microsoft Solutions Framework 862 Managing Tradeoffs 866 Defining Success with the MSF 867 Summary 867 Appendix C: An Introduction to Code Security and SSL 869 Code Access Security 870 Secure Sockets Layer 872 Finding Information and Answers 873 Summary 874 Appendix D: An Introduction to Windows CardSpace 875 Using CardSpace 875 Adding Cardspace to Your Site 879 Info on the Internet 880 Summary 881 Appendix E: .NET Framework Differences 883 What's New in the .NET Framework: Major Additions since Version 2.0 883 What's New in the .NET Framework: Minor Additions since Version 2.0 884 What's New in Visual Studio 2008 884 Info on the Internet 885 Index 887 Complemented by step-by-step instructions, screenshots, and sample applications, a comprehensive tutorial introduces Visual Studio 2008 and Windows programming in Visual Basic, covering such areas as object-oriented programming, Windows Forms user controls, graphics, database programming, ASP.NET for web applications, XML, and implementation options. Original. (Beginner) This volume teaches Visual Basic .NET from first principles to code deployment. Readers will learn how to write Windows, web and mobile applications using Visual Basic 2008 and the .NET 3.5 framework. They will also learn about object-oriented programming, creating custom controls, working with databases, and more