Learning Visual Basic .NET - A Guide To VB.NET Programming

Create your first Visual Basic .NET project in Visual Studio by choosing a Windows Forms application, naming it Hello world, and running to display a resizable form.

Copy a Visual Basic .NET project by duplicating the project directory and reopening the new .sln, avoid save as, and compress by deleting bin and obj before zipping for email.

Take a tour of the Visual Studio IDE, discovering main windows like Solution Explorer, Properties, Toolbox, and Output, plus docking, floating, and debugging features.

Create and arrange user interface controls in the form designer using the toolbox, and learn to add, move, copy, align, and resize controls on Windows Forms to build tidy forms.

Set properties at design time using the properties window to edit fonts, colors, and other control attributes; explore editors, property grouping, and inheritance from the form.

Explore common properties shared by many controls in VB.NET, including location, size, font settings, auto size and auto ellipsis, back color, border style, docking, and visibility.

Learn naming conventions for dot net controls by using default names when unused or choosing meaningful names for runtime reference, with Visual Basic or C-sharp style prefixes for consistency.

Use the anchor property to resize and reposition controls as the form changes size, keeping text boxes stretched and buttons aligned while enforcing minimum and maximum form sizes.

Showcase label and text box controls, illustrating non-editable label text and editable text boxes with password masking, multi-line options, scrollbars, and read-only output for copying.

Name the button, set its text property and image property with proper alignments to avoid overlap, and enable enter and escape through the form's accept and cancel button properties.

Discover how to use combo box, list box, and checked list box controls in VB.NET. Explore dropdown styles, selection modes, integral height, and check on click for compact user interfaces.

Get hands-on with creating and using VB.NET menus, including a docked main menu with a file menu and open and exit commands, plus context menus for controls.

Discover three container controls—group box, panel, and flow layout panel—and learn to group, dock, and arrange controls, scroll content, and flow items into rows or columns.

Learn how to use tab control and split container to organize many controls on a form, add tabs, place controls, adjust orientation, and enable auto scroll.

Explore how the table layout panel arranges controls in rows and columns, supports fixed, proportional, and autosized sizing, and allows spanning and alignment to build dynamic forms.

Discover how button and menu events trigger code in VB.NET, edit with Intellisense, and set control properties at runtime to build interactive, playful applications.

Explore paint event handlers in VB.NET, drawing with the graphics object to render ellipses on forms. Use client rectangle and resize events to ensure complete redraws.

Use scrollbars in VB.NET to adjust red, green, and blue components (0–255) and display a live color sample in a picture box, using a shared event handler.

Demonstrate displaying a simple message box with the show method, then customize caption, buttons, and icon, and read the return value to see which button the user clicked.

Demonstrate open file dialog and save file dialog usage in Visual Basic .NET. Include setting the file name, showing the dialogs, and updating the text box with the chosen filename.

Learn to implement color and font dialogs in VB.NET, using show dialog and applying selections to the form's background color and font.

Learn to use the folder browser dialog in VB.NET to let users select directories, set the root folder to my documents, my computer, or desktop, and handle the selected path.

Learn to create and display multiple forms in a Visual Basic .NET program by using the new keyword to instantiate new form objects and show them.

Learn to reuse a single schedule form by storing a shared form reference in a global module, initializing it on startup, showing and focusing it, and hiding instead of closing.

Build custom dialogs by creating a new form with controls, initializing values from the main form, validating input, and handling dialog results like standard dialogs.

Replace magic numbers with constants in vb.net by declaring constants with Konst, such as a 20 percent tip at the top of the event handler, to improve readability.

Explore four levels of scope in VB.NET: method, block, module, and public, and learn how variable visibility, Intellisense behavior, and best practices for restrictive scope shape your code.

Explore Visual Basic .NET arithmetic operators, including plus, minus, asterisk, slash for floating point division, backslash for integer division, modulus, and exponentiation, with examples, parentheses, and a practice sales calculator.

Explore enumerated types in Visual Basic .NET, creating named values to replace magic numbers. Declare enums outside methods, set underlying types, and alias names, such as drink sizes.

Step through a VB.NET program to find and fix bugs with breakpoints and step commands in Visual Studio. Watch variables and text box inputs to correct pricing errors.

Learn how to monitor and debug VB.NET code with watch windows, breakpoints, and the immediate window, see variable values as you step, and use plus equals and other assignment operators.

Learn how to use advanced breakpoints in VB.NET to locate hard-to-find bugs, including hit-count and conditional breakpoints, and understand how module scope, dim versus static variables affect total retention.

Develop robust error handling with try, catch, and finally blocks, catching specific exceptions like overflow exception and invalid cast exception, and display meaningful error messages to users.

Detect errors before they crash the program by using try parse, input validation, and focused messages to check a and b and avoid division errors.