Application Development Using Visual Basic 6

Overview

With over two million users, Microsoft Visual Basic is by far the most popular Windows development environment in use in major organisations today. This course will provide you with a comprehensive coverage of the Visual Basic programming environment. It is an intensive course which has been structured to cover the maximum material in four days, with around half the time spent on practical hands-on exercises. Detailed language constructions are learnt by delegates during practical sessions and the comprehensive approach saves time for the development of the more important conceptual areas.

This course recognises the importance of coding for reuse and uses an object approach throughout. Emphasis is also given to the database connectivity features of Visual Basic; in particular, the use of ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to manipulate databases through dedicated controls or purely through code.

The course is made up of a mixture of lectures and hands-on exercises. It includes many practical sessions designed to reinforce the topics covered. You will build a full Visual Basic application during the course.

Prerequisites

Delegates must have attended the Visual Basic Primer course or have the equivalent experience (see details of that course and its prerequisites). If there is a strong procedural programming background (e.g. COBOL), but no Windows programming experience at all, you should consider attending the Microsoft Visual Basic Primer course prior to attending this course. Delegates should also have user familiarity with Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.

This course is not suitable for those who already have a good working knowledge of Visual Basic, who should consider the Advanced Programming with Visual Basic Enterprise Edition course.

Those wishing to develop custom Windows-based applications, who are either experienced programmers in (for example, Access Basic, C, C or FoxPro) or new developers who have attended the Visual Basic Primer course.

Delegates will learn how to

• use the Visual Basic programming environment for maximum productivity when developing applications
• build simple components
• write reliable, maintainable code in the Basic programming language used in Visual Basic

Course Outline

Quick Start
Design environment; Forms and controls; Properties and methods; Object browser

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
Data types; Arrays and collections; Subroutines and functions; Scope and lifetime

Data Entry
Text controls; Validation techniques; List and combo boxes; Timers

Error Handling and Debugging
Setting error traps; Using the debugger

GUI Interactions
Menus; Control arrays; Mouse events; Drag and drop; OLE drag – and drop

MDI
Principles; Implementation; Dynamic form loading

Classes and Objects
Object concepts; Object variables; User-defined objects

COM Components
OLE (Object Linking and Embedding), COM Automation; ActiveX DLL and EXE introduction

Data Access using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)
Connection, Command and Recordset Objects; Connecting to databases; ADO Data Control; Data-aware controls; Manipulating data; Data Environment

Using DLLs
Declaring and using DLL routines; Win32 API