c






Visual Basic is a "visual programming" environment for developing Windows (also Web now)
applications. Visual Basic makes it possible to develop complicated applications very quickly.
The programmer designs windows graphically, drags program elements from the Visual Basic
Toolbox and writes basic code for each element. Visual Basic is "event-driven" which means that
procedures are called automatically when the end user chooses menu items, clicks the mouse,
moves objects on the screen, etc.

  



Microsoft first released Visual Basic in 1987. It was the first visual development tool from
Microsoft, and it was to compete with C, C++, Pascal and other well-known programming
languages. From the start, Visual Basic wasn't a hit. It wasn't until release 2.0 that people really
discovered the potential of the language, and with release 3.0 it had become the fastest-growing
programming language on the market.

VB 1.0 was introduced in 1991. The drag and drop design for creating the user interface is
derived from a prototype form generator developed by Alan Cooper and his company called
ë
. Microsoft contracted with Cooper and his associates to develop Tripod into a
programmable form system for Windows 3.0, under the code name  (no relation to the Ruby
programming language).

Tripod did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to combine Ruby with
the Basic language to create Visual Basic.

The Ruby interface generator provided the "visual" part of Visual Basic and this was combined
with the "EB" Embedded BASIC engine designed for Microsoft's abandoned "Omega" database
system. Ruby also provided the ability to load dynamic link libraries containing additional
controls (then called "gizmos"), which later became the VBX interface.






j Project 'Thunder' was initiated

j Visual Basic 1.0 (May 1991) was released for Windows at the Comdex/Windows World
trade show in Atlanta, Georgia.

j Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS was released in September 1992. The language itself was not
quite compatible with Visual Basic for Windows, as it was actually the next version of
Microsoft's DOS-based BASIC compilers, QuickBASIC and BASIC Professional
Development System. The interface used a Text user interface, using extended ASCII
characters to simulate the appearance of a GUI.

Visual Basic for MS-DOS

j Visual Basic 2.0 was released in November 1992. The programming environment was
easier to use, and its speed was improved. Notably, forms became instantiable objects,
thus laying the foundational concepts of class modules as were later offered in VB4.
j Visual Basic 3.0 was released in the summer of 1993 and came in Standard and
Professional versions. VB3 included version 1.1 of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine
that could read and write Jet (or Access) 1.x databases.
j Visual Basic 4.0 (August 1995) was the first version that could create 32-bit as well as
16-bit Windows programs. It also introduced the ability to write non-GUI classes in
Visual Basic. Incompatibilities between different releases of VB4 caused installation and
operation problems. While previous versions of Visual Basic had used VBX controls,
Visual Basic now used OLE controls (with files names ending in .OCX) instead. These
were later to be named ActiveX controls.
j With version 5.0 (February 1997), Microsoft released Visual Basic exclusively for 32-bit
versions of Windows. Programmers who preferred to write 16-bit programs were able to
import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0
programs can easily be converted with Visual Basic 4.0. Visual Basic 5.0 also introduced
the ability to create custom user controls, as well as the ability to compile to native
 Windows executable code, speeding up calculation-intensive code execution. A free,
downloadable Control Creation Edition was also released for creation of ActiveX
controls. It was also used as an introductory form of Visual Basic: a regular .exe project
could be created and run in the IDE, but not compiled.
[7]
j Visual Basic 6.0 (Mid 1998) improved in a number of areas including the ability to
create web-based applications. VB6 has entered Microsoft's "non-supported phase" as of
March 2008. Although the Visual Basic 6.0 development environment is no longer
supported, the runtime is supported on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and
Windows 7.[8]
j Mainstream Support for Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 ended on March 31, 2005. Extended
support ended in March 2008.[9] In response, the Visual Basic user community expressed
its grave concern and lobbied users to sign a petition to keep the product alive.[10]
Microsoft has so far refused to change their position on the matter. (but see [11]) Ironically,
around this time (2005), it was exposed that Microsoft's new anti-spyware offering,
Microsoft AntiSpyware (part of the GIANT Company Software purchase), was coded in
Visual Basic 6.0.[12] Its replacement, Windows Defender, was rewritten as C++ code.

ë





 
 


One of the most significant changes in Visual Basic 6.0 is the Integrated Development
Environment (IDE). IDE is a term commonly used in the programming world to describe the
interface and environment that we use to create our applications. It is called


 because
we can access virtually all of the development tools that we need from one screen called an


  . The IDE is also commonly referred to as the 
  
 
, or the   .

Tha Visual Basic IDE is made up of a number of components

j Menu Bar
j Tool Bar
j Project Explorer
j Properties window
j Form Layout Window
j Toolbox
j Form Designer
j Object Browser

In previous versions of Visual Basic, the IDE was designed as a Single Document Interface
(SDI). In a Single Document Interface, each window is a free-floating window that is contained
within a main window and can move anywhere on the screen as long as Visual Basic is the
current application. But, in Visual Basic 6.0, the IDE is in a Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
format. In this format, the windows associated with the project will stay within a single container
known as the parent. Code and form-based windows will stay within the main container form.

ï


This Menu Bar displays the commands that are required to build an application. The main menu
items have sub menu items that can be chosen when needed. The toolbars in the menu bar
provide quick access to the commonly used commands and a button in the toolbar is clicked once
to carry out the action represented by it.

ë  

The Toolbox contains a set of controls that are used to place on a Form at design time thereby
creating the user interface area. Additional controls can be included in the toolbox by using the
Components menu item on the Project menu. A Toolbox is represented in figure 2 shown below.

_    

 



 

 
  

Docked on the right side of the screen, just under the toolbar, is the Project Explorer window.
The Project Explorer as shown in figure servers as a quick reference to the various elements of a
project namely  ,   and . All of the object that make up the application are
packed in a project. A simple project will typically contain one form, which is a window that is
designed as part of a program's interface. It is possible to develop any number of forms for use in
a program, although a program may consist of a single form. In addition to forms, the Project
Explorer window also lists code modules and classes.
_! 
  

K 

 

The Properties Window is docked under the Project Explorer window. The Properties Window
exposes the various characteristics of selected objects. Each and every form in an application is
considered an object. Now, each object in Visual Basic has characteristics such as color and size.
Other characteristics affect not just the appearance of the object but the way it behaves too. All
these characteristics of an object are called its properties. Thus, a form has properties and any
controls placed on it will have properties too. All of these properties are displayed in the
Properties Window.

-
  

The Object Browser allows us to browse through the various properties, events and methods that
are made available to us. It is accessed by selecting Object Browser from the View menu or
pressing the key F2. The left column of the Object Browser lists the objects and classes that are
available in the projects that are opened and the controls that have been referenced in them. It is
possible for us to scroll through the list and select the object or class that we wish to inspect.
After an object is picked up from the Classes list, we can see its members (properties, methods
and events) in the right column.

A property is represented by a small icon that has a hand holding a piece of paper. Methods are
denoted by little green blocks, while events are denoted by yellow lightning bolt icon.

-


  
 " #

_






     
  
  
     
    
  
 
_