The first tim e you use Visual Studio it is im portant to get the initial settings right. Load Visual Studio 2010 from the Start menu:

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1 Visual Studio is an I nt egrated Developm ent Environm ent (I DE) for program m ing in Visual Basic (it can also do C# and C+ + but we will not be covering those). I t is perfectly possible to write Visual Basic program s in Notepad, but an I DE provides tools to m ake the process easier! The first tim e you use Visual Studio it is im portant to get the initial settings right. Load Visual Studio 2010 from the Start menu: The first tim e, it m ay take quite a while and show a message loading user settings - be patient! A window will appear offering a choice of settings. You need to select Visu al Basic d ev elop m en t set t in gs.

2 When you start a new project you will be offered som e choices about the type of project. For now, we will only be working with Windows Form s proj ects. You MUST name your project at the start. This is because Visual Studio creates a folder with several files and subfolders for each project. Name this one My Fir st Pr oj ect, and click OK. Now you will see a Form in the Design window. There are some other parts of Visual Studio that we need to know about before we go any further. The Toolbox is The Debug button. Used to Run your program, to try it out. you click on it. I t is a good idea to pin the toolbox open. The Properties panel. You will use this a lot to set up the features of your form!

3 Before we can create any code, we need to design & create a Form. This is the User I nterface (UI ), so it needs to be carefully thought out. Your UI will contain the action buttons, and often the m ethods of input and output. This first sim ple project will dem onstrate the m ain ways of doing this. On the right is a simple form design. We will go through the ways of doing this, then look at the code that we need to add to make it work. Enter your nam e: Start By Mr X Am ple, Start by looking in the Properties panel on the right. Near the top you should find the Name Form1. Scroll down to find the Text property and change this from Form1 to My Fir st Pr oj ect change to My First Project. 2.From the Toolbox, click on Button, and drag its shape out on the form. 3.Now go to the Properties panel. Near the top of the list you will find the Name, which will be Button1. Change this to b t n St ar t. 4.Further down the list you will find the Text property. Change this to St ar t. I t s really im portant that you nam e the objects correctly - the code we shall add later refers to the object nam es, so if you don t name them correctly the code won t work

4 5.From the Toolbox, add a Label at the top of the Form. 6.Change the Name to lb len t er Nam e, and the Text property to En t er y our n am e: 7.Add another label at the bottom of the form. Change the Name t o lb lau t h or, and the Text property to your own nam e and the date. Enter your nam e: Start By Mr X Am ple, From the Toolbox, add a Textbox below lblentername. Change the Name to t x t I n pu t. 9.Add a second Textbox below the Start button and change the Name to t x t Ou t pu t. You now have the Form com pleted, and you can begin the code. Bef or e y ou g o an y f u r t h er, click t h e SA VE ALL b u t t on! At this point, you can try running the code with the Debug button. I t won t do anything, but it will display your finished form. Now do quest ion 7 on your sheet

5 1.On the Form, Double-click on the Start button. You will see the view switch to a window with some code in it. Double-clicking on any obj ect on a Form creates this in it ial code f or t h e obj ect. This code is called a m ethod stub. You should not delete any of it. 2.I n the gap in the m iddle of the m ethod stub is where you can add further code. 3. Enter this code into the gap: Dim MyName As String MyName = txtinput.text txtoutput.text = " WelcometoVB,"& MyName This line defines the variable My Nam e This line makes My Nam e equal to whatever is typed in the Input text box 4.Run the code and see if it works. This line makes a m essage appear in the Output text box, including the value of MyNam e

6 You have seen one method of input and output. You will now change the code to use som e other ways. 1.This tim e, delete both the Textboxes (txtoutput and txtinput) from the Form. 2.Change the code as follows:. Delete the line MyName = txtinput.text and replace it with MyName = Input Box("Enter Your Name" ) Then delete the line and replace it with txtoutput.text = ("Welcome to VB, " & MyName) MsgBox("Welcome to VB, " & MyName) 3.Save All, then Run the modified code. This time the differences will be very obvious! There are several ways of getting inputs and outputs. When you are designing a program you need to choose the best method for the purpose.

7 Here s another line to add to your code. 1.Add this line after MsgBox( " Wel come t o VB, " & MyName) and before End Sub: MsgBox(That s All Folks!) 2.Save All, then Run the modified code. What happens? I s it what you expected? Why? Next

8 You just added this line of code: MsgBox(That s All Folks!) I t didn t work. Why not? Can you work out what you need to do to fix it? 1.Change the code so that it works. 2.Save All, then Run the modified code. The process of finding and correcting errors in code is known as DEBUGGI NG.