Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of Visual Basic

Integrated Development Environment (IDE) of Visual Basic

Visual Basic has an IDE in which you can develop, test and debug applications. Visual Basic IDE comprises on a number of components.

• MenuBars:

Visual Basic menu bar has number of menus e.g. File, Edit, View, and Project etc. Each menu contain commands, which are needed to work with Visual Basic e.g. File menu contain commands for opening, saving and creating executable files etc.

• ToolBars:

The toolbars components of Visual Basic contains same commands, which are held by menus of menu bar. Commonly use toolbars of Visual Basic are standard, Edit, Debug and form editor toolbar. You can customise these toolbars by taking the following steps

      Step 1:

                Choose View==>Toolbar==>Customise from menu bar. This causes to display the following window on the screen.

      

      Step 2:

                Select Toolbars tab and press button "new" to add new empty toolbar. The name of this toolbar will be "custom1" as shown in the diagram ( shown on previous page ).

      Step 3:

                 Select commands tab of the diagram ( shown on previous page ) and drag commands of different categories and drop over the new toolbar as shown in the diagram.

• Project Explorer:

 This component of the Visual Basic's IDE displays all the components of the project, such as Forms, Modules etc. Diagram of the project Explorer is as shown here.

Project Explorer window can be displayed on the screen by using the shortcut command ctrl + n or choose view ==> project explorer or use standard toolbar.

• Toolbox:

Toolbox is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which displays a list of intrinsic controls. Diagram for Toolbox window is as shown here.

To add other advanced control in the Toolbox right click in Toolbox window and select component option . 

Select the required control from the above list and press OK button. it is required control is not available in the list then press Browse button and select required OCX file from C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM path.

Toolbox window can be displayed on the screen by selecting toolbox icon from Standard Toolbar or select View==>Toolbox from menu bar.

All intrinsic controls resides in the General tab of the Toolbox to create a new tab in the window and select Add Tab option.

This causes to display this window after  creating new tab any control can be added to this new tab.

•  Properties Windows:

Properties windows is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which displays related properties of all selected controls. Properties window can be displayed on the screen by using shortcut key F4, or view==>properties  windows, or use Standard toolbar.

• Form Browser Window:

From Browser window is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which is used as a container to hold Form control on the screen.

• Form Layout Window:

Form Layout window is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which is used to set the position of the form control on the screen during the execution or we can say that during the execution the Form displays on the screen according to the setting in the Form layout window. 

• Coding Window:

Coding window is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which provide interface to write code. one ComboBox of the coding window holds a list of the names of controls and the second ComboBox is used to hold the list of related events. The diagram of the coding window is shown on the previous page.

• Immediate Window:

Immediate window is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which is used for debugging purpose it is also used to execute immediate statements e.g. write the coding 2*5/2 in the immediate window and press enter key. The result is provided immediately immediate window can be displayed on the screen by using shortcut key Ctrl + g or select View==>Immediate window.

• Local Window:

Local window is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which displays current value and data types of all local variables. When value of local variable changes the local window is automatically updated by the Visual Basic.

• Watch Window:

Watch window is that component of Visual Basic IDE, which displays the current value of the local and module level variables. 

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Posted in: Visual Basic