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Event Driven Programming
The above diagram shows the development environment with all the important points labelled.
Many of Visual Basic functions work similar to Microsoft word e.g. the Tool Bar and the Tool Box
is similar to other products on the market which work off a single click then drag the width of the
object required. The Tool Box contains the control you placed on the form window. All of the controls
that appear on the Tool Box controls on the above picture never runs out of controls as soon as you
place one on the form another awaits you on the Tool Box ready to be placed as needed.
3.1.1 The Project Explorer Window
The Project explorer window gives you a tree-structured view of all the files inserted into the
application. You can expand these and collapse branches of the views to get more or less detail
(Project explorer). The project explorer window displays forms, modules or other separators
which are supported by the visual basic like classes and Advanced Modules. If you want to select
a form on its own simply double click on the project explorer window for a more detailed look.
And it will display it where the Default form is located.
3.1.1.1 Properties Window
Figure 3.2: Properties Window.
Some programmers prefer the Categorized view of the properties window. By defaulting, the
properties window displays its properties alphabetically (with the exception of the name value)
when you click on the categorized button the window changes to left picture.
3.1.2 The Default Layout
When we start Visual Basic, we are provided with a VB project. A VB project is a collection of
the following modules and files:
• The global module: that contains declaration and procedures.
• The form module: that contains the graphic elements of the VB application along with the
instruction.
• The general module: that generally contains general-purpose instructions not pertaining to
anything graphic on-screen.
• The class module: that contains the defining characteristics of a class, including its prop-
erties and methods.
• The resource files: that allows you to collect all of the texts and bitmaps for an application
in one place.
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