Visual Basic 2005 express edition for dummies

by Richard Mansfield

Visual Basic® 2005

Express Edition

FOR

DUMmIES‰

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Visual Basic® 2005

Express Edition

FOR

DUMmIES‰

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by Richard Mansfield

Visual Basic® 2005

Express Edition

FOR

DUMmIES‰

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Visual Basic® 2005 Express Edition For Dummies®

Published by

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

111 River Street

Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-9705-3

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About the Author

Richard Mansfield’s recent titles include Office 2003 Application Development

All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, CSS Web Design For Dummies, Visual

Basic .NET Weekend Crash Course, Visual Basic .NET Database Programming

For Dummies, Visual Basic .NET All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, and

Visual Basic 6 Database Programming For Dummies (all from Wiley).

From 1981 through 1987, he was editor of COMPUTE! Magazine, during which

time he wrote hundreds of magazine articles and two columns. From 1987 to

1991, he was editorial director and partner in Signal Research and began writ￾ing books full-time in 1991. He has written 37 computer books since 1982. Of

those, four became bestsellers: Machine Language for Beginners (COMPUTE!

Books), The Second Book of Machine Language (COMPUTE! Books), The

Visual Guide to Visual Basic (Ventana), and The Visual Basic Power Toolkit

(Ventana, with Evangelos Petroutsos). Overall, his books have sold more than

500,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into 11 languages.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mother, Florence Mansfield.

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Author’s Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank the following people for their contributions to this book.

Acquisitions Editor Katie Feltman is always a pleasure to work with —

knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and good with authors (at least this one, anyway).

Project Editor Becky Huehls also deserves praise for her thoroughgoing edit,

and the many improvements to the book that resulted.

Technical Editor John Mueller is a highly regarded author in the computer

book field (and a friend, and coauthor of previous titles with me). I feel lucky

that he agreed to review my manuscript for errors in both the code and the

concepts. His considerable depth of knowledge contributed to the quality of

the book. If you disagree with some of my technical or theoretical observa￾tions, assume that John did too, but I wasn’t wise enough to take his advice

and change my remarks.

I also want to thank Copy Editor Andy Hollandbeck for making many improve￾ments. Andy not only knows how to write good English, he’s also more famil￾iar than most copy editors with computer programming. Plus, he seems like a

good guy in the bargain. Happily, Andy seems to have pretty balanced views

about the great serial comma debate, and the current conflict over gerunds.

To these, and all the good people at Wiley who contributed in so many addi￾tional ways to this book, my thanks for the time and care they took to ensure

its quality every step along the way from original idea to final publication.

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Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form

located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and

Media Development

Project Editor: Rebecca Huehls

Acquisitions Editor: Katie Feltman

Copy Editor: Andy Hollandbeck

Technical Editor: John Mueller

Editorial Manager: Leah Cameron

Permissions Editor: Laura Moss

Media Development Specialist: Travis Silvers

Media Development Manager:

Laura VanWinkle

Media Development Supervisor:

Richard Graves

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinators: Adrienne Martinez,

Kathryn Shanks

Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers,

Andrea Dahl, Lauren Goddard,

Stephanie D. Jumper, Barry Offringa,

Mary Gillot Virgin

Proofreaders: Leeann Harney,

Carl William Pierce, TECHBOOKS

Production Services

Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

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Contents at a Glance

Introduction ................................................................1

Part I: The Basics of Visual Basic Express ....................11

Chapter 1: What It’s All About: Visual Basic Express Takes a Bow ...........................13

Chapter 2: Up and Running ............................................................................................23

Chapter 3: At Your Service: Loads of Built-In Helpers ................................................35

Chapter 4: Tackling Essential Tools ..............................................................................51

Part II: Programming the Practical Way ......................75

Chapter 5: Common Tasks .............................................................................................77

Chapter 6: It’s All about My ............................................................................................97

Chapter 7: Whose Type Are You: Managing Variable Types ....................................105

Chapter 8: Superstrings: Managing Arrays ................................................................129

Chapter 9: Pretty Printing ............................................................................................143

Chapter 10: Testing and Deployment ..........................................................................161

Part III: Dealing with Databases ...............................179

Chapter 11: The Basics of Databases ..........................................................................181

Chapter 12: Quick Database User-Interface Techniques ..........................................191

Chapter 13: Managing DataSets ...................................................................................209

Part IV: Programming for the Web ............................225

Chapter 14: Painless Internet Programming ..............................................................227

Chapter 15: Everything’s Eventual: Web Page Management ....................................245

Part V: The Part of Tens ...........................................263

Chapter 16: Ten Great Visual Basic Express Tips and Tricks ..................................265

Chapter 17: Ten Important VB Resources ..................................................................277

Appendix A: About the CDs .......................................283

Bonus Appendix B: A Dictionary of VB.NET ....On the Web

Index .......................................................................287

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Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................1

Understanding Visual Basic ............................................................................2

Tapping into the Power ...................................................................................2

About This Book ...............................................................................................3

How to Use This Book ......................................................................................4

Foolish Assumptions ........................................................................................5

How This Book Is Organized ...........................................................................6

Part I: The Basics of Visual Basic Express ...........................................6

Part II: Programming the Practical Way ...............................................6

Part III: Dealing with Databases ............................................................6

Part IV: Programming for the Web ........................................................7

Part V: The Part of Tens .........................................................................7

Appendixes ..............................................................................................7

Conventions Used in This Book .....................................................................8

What You Need to Get Started ........................................................................8

Icons Used in This Book ..................................................................................9

Where to Go from Here ....................................................................................9

Part I: The Basics of Visual Basic Express .....................11

Chapter 1: What It’s All About: Visual Basic Express Takes a Bow . . .13

Something Strange Happened in Orlando ...................................................14

Visual Basic through the years ...........................................................14

Visual Basic today ................................................................................15

What Does Visual Basic Express Have to Offer? ........................................15

Defaults that serve a purpose .............................................................16

The Express initiatives .........................................................................16

Finding help ...........................................................................................18

Taking a First Look .........................................................................................19

Creating a user interface helps organize your project ....................20

Programming for the Web ....................................................................21

Chapter 2: Up and Running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Finding Resources from Microsoft ...............................................................23

Building a Basic VB Program ........................................................................24

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