Let’s start by adding a textbox to our form. With the tools displayed, do the following:

• Locate the TextBox tool
• Double click the icon
• A textbox is added to your form

• Create two more textboxes by double clicking on the textbox icon in the toolbar (Or Right-click on the selected textbox and choose Copy. Then Right-click on the Form and choose Paste.)
• Resize them to the same size as your first one
• Line them up one below the other with space in between
• Try to create something that looks like the one below

• Locate the label control in the toolbox
• Double click the label icon
• A new label is added to your form
• It should look like the one below

To see what your Form looks like as a programme, click Debug > Start from the menu bar. Or press F5 on your keyboard:

To stop the programme from running, you can do one of the following:

1. Click the Red X at the top right of your Form
2. Click Debug > Stop Debugging from the menu bar
3. Press Shift + F5 on your keyboard

You can also click the Stop button on the VB toolbars at the top, as in the image below:

All right, we’re getting somewhere. We now have a form with textboxes and labels, something that looks like a form people can fill in. But those labels are not exactly descriptive, and our textboxes have the default text in them. So how can we enter our own text for the labels, and get rid of that default text for the textboxes?

To do those things, we need to discuss something called a Property.

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Things like buttons, textboxes, and labels are all things that you can add to your Forms. They are know as Controls, and are kept in the Toolbox for ease of use. The Toolbox can be found on the left of the screen. In the picture below, you can see the toolbox icon next to Form1 (VB Net 2008): The Visual Basic .NET Toolbox VB Net 2010: The toolbox in VB NET 2010 Express To display all the tools, move your mouse over the toolbox icon. You’ll see the following automatically appear: ToolBox Categories The toolbox in VB NET 2010 There are seven categories of tools available. The toolbox you’ll be working with first is the Common Controls toolbox. To see the tools, click on the plus symbol next to Common Controls. You’ll see a long list of tools: Common Controls in the VB ToolBox As you can see, there are an awful lot of tools to choose from! For this first section, we’ll only be using the Button, the TextBox and the Label. If you want to keep the toolbox displayed, click the Pin icon next to the X. To close the toolbox, simply move your mouse away. In the next part, we’ll see how to add a textbox to the form.

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In the Visual Basic NET design time environment, the first thing to concentrate on is that strange, big square in the top left. That’s called a form. It’s actually the pretty bit of your programme, the part that others will see when they launch your masterpiece. Granted, it doesn’t look too attractive at the moment, but you’ll soon discover ways to lick it into shape.

To run the form, try this:

• From the menu bar, click Debug
• From the drop down menu, click Start
• Alternatively, press the F5 key on your keyboard
• Your programme is launched

Congratulations! You have now created your very first programme. It should look like this:

Click the Red X on the form to stop it from running. You will then be returned to the software environment.

If you compare the first form with the one above, you’ll see that they look very similar. But the one above is actually a real programme, something you could package and sell to unsuspecting village idiots

So what’s going on? Why the two different views? Well, Visual Basic has two distinct environments, a Design environment and a Debug environment. Design Time is where you get to play about with the form, spruce it up, add textboxes, and buttons, and labels (and code, of course ); Debug is where you can test your programme and see how well it performs. Or doesn’t perform, as is usually the case.

But don’t worry about the terminology, for the time being. Just be aware that there’s a two step process to VB programming: designing and debugging.

So, let’s get on and do some designing! Before we can start designing a form, though, we need some tools. And where are tools kept? In a toolbox!

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