Beginning Visual Basic 2010

Thearon Willis is an author or coauthor of nearly a dozen books and a senior consultant who develops intranet applications using ASP.NET, DHTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, VB COM components, and SQL Server. Bryan Newsome is an author or coauthor of many books and works for a Microsoft Partner in Charlotte specializing in Custom Software Solutions. He provides clients with solutions and mentoring on leading-edge Microsoft technologies.

INTRODUCTION xxix CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO VISUAL BASIC 2010 1 Event-Driven Programming 2 Installing Visual Basic 2010 3 The Visual Studio 2010 IDE 6 Creating a Simple Application 10 Using the Help System 20 Summary 20 CHAPTER 2: THE MICROSOFT .NET FRAMEWORK 23 Microsoft s Reliance on Windows 23 Writing Software for Windows 27 Common Language Runtime 30 The Common Type System and Common Language Specification 33 Summary 33 CHAPTER 3: WRITING SOFTWARE 37 Information and Data 37 Working with Variables 39 Comments and Whitespace 42 Data Types 44 Storing Variables 65 Methods 70 Summary 80 CHAPTER 4: CONTROLLING THE FLOW 83 Making Decisions 83 The If Statement 84 Select Case 98 Loops 106 Summary 120 CHAPTER 5: WORKING WITH DATA STRUCTURES 123 Understanding Arrays 123 Understanding Enumerations 133 Understanding Constants 139 Structures 142 Working with ArrayLists 146 Working with Collections 153 Building Lookup Tables with Hashtable 157 Advanced Array Manipulation 164 Summary 166 CHAPTER 6: EXTENSIBLE APPLICATION MARKUP LANGUAGE (XAML) 169 What Is XAML? 170 XAML Syntax 171 Windows Presentation Foundation 174 Summary 189 CHAPTER 7: BUILDING WINDOWS APPLICATIONS 193 Responding to Events 193 Building a Simple Application 201 Counting Characters 205 Counting Words 207 Creating More Complex Applications 213 Creating the Toolbar 214 Creating the Status Bar 218 Creating an Edit Box 220 Clearing the Edit Box 222 Responding to Toolbar Buttons 224 Using Multiple Forms 230 Summary 233 CHAPTER 8: DISPLAYING DIALOG BOXES 237 The MessageBox 237 The OpenFileDialog Control 244 The SaveDialog Control 252 The FontDialog Control 257 The ColorDialog Control 260 The PrintDialog Control 263 The FolderBrowserDialog Control 271 Summary 275 CHAPTER 9: CREATING MENUS 277 Understanding Menu Features 277 Creating Menus 280 Context Menus 290 Summary 297 CHAPTER 10: DEBUGGING AND ERROR HANDLING 299 Major Error Types 300 Debugging 305 Error Handling 331 Summary 335 CHAPTER 11: BUILDING OBJECTS 339 Understanding Objects 339 Building Classes 343 Reusability 344 Designing an Object 345 Constructors 357 Inheritance 359 Objects and Structures 369 The Framework Classes 370 Summary 377 CHAPTER 12: ADVANCED OBJECT-ORIENTED TECHNIQUES 381 Building a Favorites Viewer 381 An Alternative Favorite Viewer 399 Using Shared Properties and Methods 404 Understanding Object-Oriented Programming and Memory Management 410 Summary 414 CHAPTER 13: BUILDING CLASS LIBRARIES 417 Understanding Class Libraries 418 Using Strong Names 424 Registering Assemblies 428 Designing Class Libraries 429 Using Third-Party Class Libraries 430 Viewing Classes with the Object Browser 431 Summary 432 CHAPTER 14: CREATING WINDOWS FORMS USER CONTROLS 435 Windows Forms Controls 436 Creating and Testing a User Control 436 Exposing Properties from User Controls 440 Design Time or Runtime 447 Creating a Command Link Control 449 Summary 460 CHAPTER 15: ACCESSING DATABASES 463 What Is a Database? 464 The SQL SELECT Statement 465 Queries in Access 467 Data Access Components and Controls 471 Data Binding 473 Summary 479 CHAPTER 16: DATABASE PROGRAMMING WITH SQL SERVER AND ADO.NET 483 ADO.NET 485 The ADO.NET Classes in Action 497 Data Binding 506 Summary 533 CHAPTER 17: DYNAMIC DATA WEB SITE 537 Creating a Dynamic Data Linq to SQL Web Site 537 Summary 547 CHAPTER 18: ASP.NET 549 Thin-Client Architecture 550 Web Forms versus Windows Forms 551 Web Applications: The Basic Pieces 552 Active Server Pages 553 Building Web Sites 555 Summary 579 CHAPTER 19: VISUAL BASIC 2010 AND XML 583 Understanding XML 583 The Address Book Project 587 Integrating with the Address Book Application 611 Summary 618 CHAPTER 20: DEPLOYING YOUR APPLICATION 621 What Is Deployment? 621 Creating a Visual Studio 2010 Setup Application 627 User Interface Editor 630 Deploying Different Solutions 633 Summary 637 Appendix A: Exercise Solutions 639 Appendix B: Where to Now? 655 INDEX 661