Visual Basic

Visual Basic is an event-driven language. So, when you talk about events, we're talking about things that happen in the program which cause little events to occur (similar idea to IRQ stuff you learned hopefully in 455). An example of this could be clicking a button causing a button_click event to be generated. You write code to react to these events and guide a user through your program.

You design your form completely visually, using a set of widget tools and drawing on the form directly just like you would in a paint program or something like this. This stuff is so easy, you'll love it ... or maybe not ... but it's quick and relatively pain free.

Okay, these examples were developed by James Tam, and I've just reproduced them here. His website has all his full details on what exactly these things entail, but I'll get into them a little bit myself. If it seems that there's something missing here, be sure to check out over there for more info.

Okay, the first thing you need to do with visual basic is basically just start it up. No problem. Go:

Start --- Programs --- Microsoft Visual Basic --- You get the picture .... :)

When you load it up for the first time, Microsoft Office might churn away for a couple of minutes. This is an issue with Office 2000 and you don't need to worry about it too too much. It will only happen the once. In any case, when VB is finally loaded up, and you pick Standard Exe from the new project dialog, here's what you'll be confronted with: