Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Step by Step--Version 2003 - Softcover

Halvorson, Michael; Halvorsen, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0735619050 ISBN 13: 9780735619050

Publisher: Microsoft Press, 2002

Synopsis

Get on the fast track to professional application development with Visual Basic .NET 2003. This practical, hands-on tutorial expertly guides you through the fundamentals—using step-by-step exercises, code samples, optimization tips, and real-world advice to accelerate your productivity. Work at your own pace, learning core programming skills by selecting just the chapters and lessons you need. Upgrade your Visual Basic 6 applications quickly with the help of “Upgrade Notes” sidebars, a special upgrading index, and insights into the enhanced Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard. It’s everything you need to start creating .NET-connected software now!

Discover how to:

• Create a compelling user interface with Toolbox controls, menus, and dialog boxes
• Use methods in the .NET Framework 1.1 class libraries
• Utilize the new debugging tools and structured error handlers to build robust code
• Manage data in your programs using collections, arrays, and string processing techniques
• Automate Microsoft Office applications and manage processes
• Manage Windows Forms and create graphics and animation effects
• Use inheritance and other new object-oriented programming capabilities
• Write custom code for printers and dialog boxes for printing
• Manage Access databases and create custom database applications with Microsoft ADO.NET
• Display HTML documents using Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Use Web Forms to build Internet interfaces
• Deploy Visual Basic .NET applications
• Port Visual Basic 6 programs to Visual Basic .NET

CD features:

• Code examples in Visual Basic .NET 2003
• All the book’s practice files
• Fully searchable eBook

For customers who purchase an ebook version of this title, instructions for downloading the CD files can be found in the ebook.

About this title

Review

For the several million developers using "traditional" Visual Basic 6, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Step by Step will put the new VB .NET within reach with a very approachable tour of the new version's features used to build traditional client-side software. If you've been put off by the newfangled books on .NET that spin the new VB as Internet-focused and unrelated to your existing expertise, this title shows you how to leverage your knowledge to get going with Microsoft's newest platform.

The salient feature of this text is the author's patient presentation style, which stresses "traditional" VB programming. (While VB 6 did technically support Web programming, the unarguable reality is that most developers have built form-based programs for years.) This volume shows you how to use the same techniques for the new VB .NET. The author begins his presentation here with a clever slot-machine application to get you started. Other early sections cover the basics of VB .NET from a language perspective, including basics like variables, data types, and flow control statements. This handsomely printed volume makes use of two-toned color (in blue) to highlight differences between VB 6 in VB .NET, making it an invaluable resource for programmers making this transition.

Other essential technologies get their due here as well, from basic control programming with Windows Forms, integrating with ActiveX controls, to a very approachable guide to the new ADO.NET APIs for databases. Coverage of how to bind data to a variety of controls, plus using the new VB .NET DataGrid control, will show you how to do all you did in VB 6 in the new .NET. Instead of getting bogged down in details, the author does a good job of presenting what working programmers need to know. Later chapters delve into .NET APIs for working with files, strings, and collections. This title doesn't pretend to cover ASP.NET in any detail, though there is a useful introduction to the subject, as well as how to use the Microsoft Internet Explorer Object to build VB applications that display HTML and other Internet content.

The reality is that most VB 6 programmers will have to learn a lot when it comes to .NET. Before launching into a whole new paradigm of Web development, this book shows that today's VB has a lot to do with the older VB 6 standard. This text will be nearly indispensable for any VB 6 programmers making the leap to .NET. It even suggests that rumors of the death of the traditional client-side VB application may be somewhat exaggerated. This title shows you that the new easier deployment and productivity features of VB .NET may extend the life of such applications in one of the best-available tutorials for learning VB .NET, bar none. --Richard Dragan

About the Author

Michael Halvorson is the author or co-author of twenty computer books, including Microsoft Office XP Inside Out, Visual Basic 6 Professional Step By Step, Learn Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Now, Running Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition, and Microsoft Word 97/Visual Basic Step by Step. Michael earned a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and master’s and doctoral degrees in History from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He was employed at Microsoft Corporation as a technical editor, acquisitions editor, and localization manager from 1985 to 1993. Michael currently spends his time developing innovative software solutions for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, and teaching European history courses at colleges in the Pacific Northwest.

Edition details

• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0735619050
• ISBN 13: 9780735619050
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 688