Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours

James Foxall is vice president of Tigerpaw Software, Inc. (www.tigerpawsoftware.com), a Bellevue, Nebraska, Microsoft Certified Partner specializing in commercial database applications. He manages the development, support, training, and education of Tigerpaw CRM+, an award-winning CRM product designed to automate contact management, marketing, service and repair, proposal generation, inventory control, and purchasing. At the start of 2008, the current release of Tigerpaw CRM+ had more than 16,000 licensed users. Foxall’s experience in creating certified Office-compatible software has made him an authority on application interface and behavior standards of applications for the Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office environments.   Foxall has been writing commercial production Visual Basic code for more than 14 years, in both single-programmer and multiple-programmer environments. He’s the author of numerous books, including Practical Standards for Microsoft Visual Basic and MCSD in a Nutshell: The Visual Basic Exams. He also has written articles for Access-Office-VBA Advisor and Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal. Foxall has a bachelor’s degree in management of information systems (MIS). He is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer and an international speaker on Microsoft Visual Basic. When not programming or writing about programming, he enjoys spending time with his family, playing guitar, listening to amazing bands like Pink Floyd and OSI, and playing computer games. You can reach him at www.jamesfoxall.com/forums.

Introduction 1

PART I: The Visual Basic 2008 Environment

HOUR 1 Jumping in with Both Feet: A Visual Basic 2008 Programming Tour 7

HOUR 2 Navigating Visual Basic 2008 33

HOUR 3 Understanding Objects and Collections 63

HOUR 4 Understanding Events 85

PART II: Building a User Interface

HOUR 5 Building Forms: The Basics 105

HOUR 6 Building Forms: Advanced Techniques 127

HOUR 7 Working with Traditional Controls 155

HOUR 8 Using Advanced Controls 183

HOUR 9 Adding Menus and Toolbars to Forms 203

PART III: Making Things Happen: Programming

HOUR 10 Creating and Calling Code Procedures 229

HOUR 11 Using Constants, Data Types, Variables, and Arrays 249

HOUR 12 Performing Arithmetic, String Manipulation, and Date/Time Adjustments 281

HOUR 13 Making Decisions in Visual Basic Code 305

HOUR 14 Looping for Efficiency 323

HOUR 15 Debugging Your Code 337

HOUR 16 Designing Objects Using Classes 361

HOUR 17 Interacting with Users 381

PART IV: Working with Data

HOUR 18 Working with Graphics 405

HOUR 19 Performing File Operations 425

HOUR 20 Working with Text Files and the Registry 443

HOUR 21 Working with a Database 467

HOUR 22 Controlling Other Applications Using Automation 485

PART V: Deploying Solutions and Beyond

HOUR 23 Deploying Applications 499

HOUR 24 The 10,000-Foot View 509

INDEX 517