Visual Basic Final Project Special Features!

Include the following Visual Basic techniques in your final project for added functionality and ease of use (for the potential end-user). These techniques will be demonstrated in-class.

• Splash Screen
• Add a Form to your Visual Basic Project. When the Add Form window appears, Select ‘About Dialog’.

§ Set the splash screen to be the default Startup Form (Project, Properties, Startup Form, from the menu bar).

§ Events that you should code to get to the Main form could be: Form_KeyPress, Form_MouseDown, Frame1_click.

• Menu Bar
• Locate the ‘Menu Editor’ Toolbar Icon or from the menu bar: Tools, Menu Editor

• Use the ‘Arrow’ buttons correctly!
• Create menu choices…here are a few examples: File, Project, Window, Help (and whatever you deem necessary for your project).
• Under the ‘Window’ menu, write a procedure that loads the ‘About Dialog’ form you created in the previous step.
• Code the ‘Print’ menu command by using the ‘ShowPrinter’ Method (make sure the Windows Dialog Control 6.0 has been added) as shown below:

CommonDialog1.ShowPrinter

• Panel
• Component: Windows Common Controls 6.0
• Locate the Status Bar Control on the toolbar after you selected the Windows Common Controls 6.0 Component; Add the Status Bar Control to your Form.
• Right-click on the Status Bar to bring up the Properties for the control…Select the Panels Tab.

§ Use the Index tab and the Insert Panel Button to add additional panels. Use the Style Drop-down list box to select a different type of information to appear in a panel.

• ImageList & Toolbar
• Make sure Windows Dialog Controls 6.0 is selected from Components.
• Before you create a toolbar, you must create an ImageList of graphics. First, insert the ImageList Control on the Form. Right Click on the ImageList control and select properties. Choose the Images tab.

§ Select different pictures to appear in your image list by clicking on the ‘Insert Picture’ command button. It is important to remember the order of your pictures. If you cannot locate graphics that you desire, go online and download your graphics (www.iconbazaar.com this is a good site for icons and graphics for your toolbar).

§ After the ImageList has been created, add a Toolbar control to the form.

§ Right-click on the ImageList control and select Properties.

§ From the General Tab, make sure the ImageList you created above is set in the ImageList text box.

§ From the Buttons Tab, locate the Index Button. The Buttons you add should correspond to the icons you created in the ImageList (from the previous step). Name the command buttons, and make sure you give the appropriate ‘Key’ name in the Properties below.

• To write code for the toolbar, use a select case statement that uses the values from the Key property. For example:

Select Case Button.Key

Case "Open"

‘Add code here for Open

Case "Go to Web"

mnuProjectWeb_Click

Case "Print"

mnuFilePrint_Click

Case "Exit"

mnuFileExit_Click

End Select

• Notice, the Select Case ‘values’ in the code above correspond to the Key value properties entered in the toolbar properties. The action these Case events are performing have already been written in the Menu bar commands, so rewriting additional code is not necessary.

• About Box
• Add a new form to your Visual Basic Project and Select ‘About Dialog’ as the new form type.

§ Code the ‘About Dialog’ form to appear from the menu bar (for example, the Windows menu bar)

• Web Browser
• Add a new form to your Visual Basic Project and select Web Browser.

• Code the Web Browser form to launch from either a Menu Bar Command or a Toolbar Icon (or better yet, both).

• Package and Deploy your Final Project by compiling and using a setup.exe file
• Package and Distribute your final project, Use Add-ins and add the ‘Package and Deployment Wizard’, or you can choose this from Visual Basic Tools folder from the Start Menu.
• The files that are needed to deploy your project generally exceed 5.0 megabytes. Make sure you don’t try to create the Setup file from your Floppy Disk, rather Create a Setup folder on the hard disk and either FTP the folder to your UNIX directory, or burn your files to a CD (you can use OHE 540) or put the files on a ZIP disk.