BCA-365: Advanced Programming with Visual Basic - The Really Deep Dive

UNIT-I: Collections and Working with Forms

1. Collections: Your VB's Boxes of Stuff

 What are they?

o Imagine you have a box. You can put anything you want in it: toys, books, tools. A
"collection" in VB is like that box, but for computer "objects." Objects are like the
building blocks of your program (a button, a piece of data, etc.).

 Why use them?

o Instead of having lots of separate variables, collections let you group related things
together, making your code tidier and easier to manage.

 Things you do with collections:

o Adding: Putting a new object into the box.

o Removing: Taking an object out of the box.

o Counting: Knowing how many objects are in the box.

o Returning Items: Picking out a specific object from the box.

o Processing: Going through each object in the box and doing something with it.

 Analogy:

o A collection is like a playlist on your phone. You add songs, remove songs, know how
many songs you have, pick a specific song, or play all songs.

2. Working with Forms: Your VB's Windows

 What are they?

o A "form" is the window you see when you run a VB program. It's where you put
buttons, text boxes, and other things that the user interacts with.

 Form Properties: Customizing Your Windows

o Forms have settings that control how they look and act:

 Name: The form's secret name (used in your code).

 Caption: The text that appears in the title bar (the very top).

 Width & Height: How big the form is.

 BackColor & ForeColor: The form's background and text colors.

 Visible: Whether the form is shown or hidden.

 WindowState: Whether the form is normal, minimized (a little icon), or

o Analogy:

 Form properties are like the settings on your phone. You can change the
wallpaper, the screen brightness, the volume, etc.

 Form Actions

o Creating, Adding, Removing: You can make new forms, add them to your project
(like adding pages to a book), and remove them if you don't need them.

o Multiple Forms: VB programs can have many forms (like having many windows open
on your computer).

o Managing at Run Time: "Run time" is when your program is actually running. You
can control forms while the program is running.

o Hiding & Showing: You can make forms disappear and reappear.

 Analogy: Like minimizing and maximizing windows on your computer.

o Load & Unload:

 Load: Prepares the form to be shown (like getting a book ready to read).

 Unload: Removes the form from the computer's memory (like putting the
book back on the shelf).

o Drag and Drop: Lets users move things around on the form with the mouse.

 Analogy: Like moving files between folders on your computer.

o Activate & Deactivate:

 Activate: When the form becomes the main window you're using.

 Deactivate: When you switch to a different window.

o Form-Load Event: Code that runs automatically when the form is first loaded.

 Analogy: Like setting up your desk before you start working.

 Forms in Action:

o Every VB program with a window uses forms. They're how the program
communicates with the user.

UNIT - II: Working with Menu and Advanced Controls in VB

1. Working with Menus: Giving Users Choices

o Menus are the lists of commands at the top of a window (like "File," "Edit," "View").
They help users find what they want to do.

 Menu Designing:

o VB has a special tool to help you create menus easily. You can add items, submenus
(menus within menus), and separators (lines to divide the menu).

 Adding to a Form:

o You "attach" your menu to a form, so it appears at the top of the window.

 Changing Menus:

o You can change the text of menu items, add little pictures (icons), and delete items
you don't need.

 Access Characters (Mnemonics):

o These let users select menu items with the keyboard. One letter in the menu item's
text is underlined. Press Alt + that letter to choose the item.

 Analogy: Like the underlined letters in some website buttons.

 Shortcut Keys:

o These are key combinations (like Ctrl+S for "Save") that do a menu command
without even opening the menu.

 Common Dialog Box:

o VB provides standard dialog boxes (like the "Open File" window). You can use these
with menus to let users choose files, colors, etc.

 Code and Menus:

o You write VB code that runs when a user clicks on a menu item. This is how you
make the menu do something.

 Submenus:

o Menus can have menus inside them, to organize commands into groups.

 Analogy: Like folders within folders on your computer.

 Dynamic Menus:

o You can change the menu while the program is running. You can make items appear
or disappear, or make them "disabled" (so the user can't click them).

 Analogy: Like how some options in a program are grayed out if you can't use
them yet.
  Menus in Action:

o Every program with a "File," "Edit," etc., uses menus. They're a standard way for
users to interact with programs.

2. Advanced Controls: More Ways to Interact

 What are they?

o "Controls" are the things you put on a form to let the user do things. You already
know things like text boxes and buttons. "Advanced controls" are more complex.

 Examples:

o Scroll Bar: Lets users scroll through content that's too big to fit on the screen.

 Analogy: Like the scroll bar on a website.

o Slider Control: Lets users pick a value by moving a slider.

 Analogy: Like a volume control.

o Tree View: Shows data in a tree structure (like folders on your computer).

o List View: Shows a list of items, often with columns of information.

 Analogy: Like the list of files in a folder, with columns for name, size, date,
etc.

o Rich Text Box: Lets users work with text that has different fonts, colors, etc. (like a
simple word processor).

o Toolbar: A strip of buttons that give quick access to commands.

 Analogy: Like the toolbar in Microsoft Word.

o Status Bar: A strip at the bottom of a window that shows information.

 Analogy: Like the bar at the bottom of a web browser that shows the page
loading.

o Progress Bar: Shows how much of a task is completed.

o Coolbar: A more flexible container for toolbars.

o Image List: A place to store images that are used by other controls.

 Controls in Action:
 o Advanced controls make VB programs more powerful and user-friendly.

3. Putting It Together

 VB lets you combine menus and advanced controls to create full-featured applications.

UNIT - III: File Handling & File Controls and Working with Graphics

1. File Handling: Saving and Loading Data

 What is it?

o "File handling" is how your VB program works with files on the computer's hard
drive. This lets you save data when the program closes and load it back when it
opens.

 Types of Files:

o Sequential Files:

 Data is stored one after another, like in a text file.

 You have to read the file from the beginning to get to the end.

 Analogy: Like a cassette tape – you have to rewind or fast-forward to get to a

o Random Files:

 Data is stored in "records," all the same size.

 You can jump directly to any record without reading the others.

 Analogy: Like a CD – you can select any track.

 File Actions:

o Opening: Preparing a file to be used (like opening a book before reading it).

o Closing: Finishing with a file (like closing the book).

 It's important to close files to prevent data loss.

o Viewing: Displaying the data from a file in your program.

o Operations:

 Creating: Making a new file.

 Deleting: Removing a file.

 Renaming: Changing a file's name.

 Copying: Making a duplicate of a file.

 Sequential File Details:

o Creating: You open a file in "Output" mode to create it.

o Reading: You use commands to get data from the file.

o End of File: VB has a way to detect when you've reached the end of the file.

 Finding Files:

o VB can help you check if a file exists and get information about it (name, size, etc.).

 Random File Details:

o These files use special commands to "get" (read) and "put" (write) data at specific
locations in the file.

 Files in Action:

o Any program that saves or loads data uses file handling (word processors, games,
etc.).

2. Working with Graphics: Drawing in VB

 What is it?

o VB lets you draw lines, shapes, and pictures on forms.

 The Paint Event:

o Drawing code goes into the Paint event, which is triggered when the form needs to
be redrawn.

 Drawing Commands:

o Line: Draws a line.

o Circle: Draws circles, ellipses, and arcs.

 Graphics Control:

o You can change the color, style, and other properties of the things you draw.

 Graphics in Action:

o VB isn't a dedicated graphics program, but it lets you add simple drawings to your
applications (e.g., charts, diagrams).

3. Putting It Together

 You can combine file handling and graphics to create programs that, for example, save
drawings to files or generate charts from data.

UNIT - IV: Accessing Databases

 (I provided a very detailed explanation of this in the previous response, so I won't repeat it
all here. Please refer back to that for the deep dive on databases.)