Getting Started with Visual Basic 2008

• Exploring the Integrated Development Environment
• The Start Page
• Starting a New Project
• Using the Windows Form Designer
• Creating Your First VB Application
• Making the Application More User-Friendly
• Understanding the IDE Components
• The IDE Menu
• ToolboxWindow
• Solution Explorer Window
• Properties Window
• Output Window
• Command and Immediate Windows
• Error List Window
• Setting Environment Options
• Building a Console Application
• Using Code Snippets
• Using the My Object
• The Bottom Line

Variables and Data Types

• Variables
• Declaring Variables
• Types of Variables
• The Strict, Explicit, and Infer Options
• Object Variables
• Variables as Objects
• Converting Variable Types
• Formatting Numbers
• User-Defined Data Types
• Examining Variable Types
• Why Declare Variables?
• A Variable’s Scope
• A Variable’s Lifetime
• Constants
• Arrays
• Declaring Arrays
• Initializing Arrays
• Array Limits
• Multidimensional Arrays
• Dynamic Arrays
• The Bottom Line

Programming Fundamentals

• Flow-Control Statements
• Decision Statements
• Loop Statements
• Nested Control Structures
• The Exit Statement2
• Writing and Using Procedures
• Subroutines
• Functions
• Arguments
• Argument-Passing Mechanisms
• Built-in Functions
• Custom Functions
• Passing Arguments and Returning Values
• More Types of Function Return Values
• Overloading Functions
• The Bottom Line

 GUI Design and Event-Driven Programming

• On Designing Windows Applications
• Building a Loan Calculator
• Understanding How the Loan Calculator Application Works
• Designing the User Interface
• Programming the Loan Application
• Validating the Data
• Building a Calculator
• Designing the User Interface
• Programming the MathCalculator
• Using Simple Debugging Tools
• Exception Handling
• The Bottom Line

BasicWindows Controls

• The TextBox Control
• Basic Properties
• Text-Manipulation Properties
• Text-Selection Properties
• Text-Selection Methods
• Undoing Edits
• VB 2008 at Work: The TextPad Project
• Capturing Keystrokes
• Auto-complete Properties
• The ListBox, CheckedListBox, and ComboBox Controls
• Basic Properties
• Manipulating the Items Collection
• Selecting Items
• VB 2008 at Work: The ListBox Demo Project
• Searching the ListBox
• The ComboBox Control
• The ScrollBar and TrackBar Controls
• The ScrollBar Control
• The TrackBar Control
• The Bottom Line

Working with Forms

• The Appearance of Forms
• Properties of the Form Object
• Placing Controls on Forms
• Setting the TabOrder Property
• VB 2008 at Work: The Contacts Project
• Anchoring and Docking
• Splitting Forms into Multiple Pane6s
• The Form’s Events
• Loading and Showing Forms
• The Startup Form
• Controlling One Form from within Another
• Forms versus Dialog Boxes
• Building Dynamic Forms at Runtime
• The Form’s Controls Collection
• Creating Event Handlers at Runtime
• Designing Menus
• The Menu Editor
• The ToolStripMenuItem Properties
• Manipulating Menus at Runtime
• Iterating a Menu’s Items
• The Bottom Line

More Windows Controls

• The Common Dialog Controls
• Using the Common Dialog Controls
• The ColorDialog Control
• The FontDialog Control
• The OpenDialog and SaveDialog Controls
• The FolderBrowserDialog Control
• The RichTextBox Control
• The RTF Language
• Text Manipulation and Formatting Properties
• Methods
• Advanced Editing Features
• Cutting and Pasting
• Searching in a RichTextBox Control
• Handling URLs in the Document
• Displaying a Formatted Directory Listing
• VB 2008 at Work: The RTFPad Project
• The Bottom Line

The TreeView and ListView Controls

• Understanding the ListView, TreeView, and ImageList Controls
• Tree and List Structures
• The ImageList Control
• The TreeView Control
• Adding Nodes at Design Time
• Adding Nodes at Runtime
• VB 2008 at Work: The TreeViewDemo Project
• VB 2008 at Work: The Globe Project
• Scanning the TreeView Control
• The ListView Control
• The Columns Collection
• ListView Items and Subitems
• The Items Collection
• The SubItems Collection
• VB 2008 at Work: The ListViewDemo Project
• Sorting the ListView Control
• Processing Selected Items
• VB 2008 at Work: The CustomExplorer Project
• Additional Topics
• The Bottom Line

Building Custom Classes

• Classes and Objects
• What Is a Class?
• Classes Combine Code with Data
• Building the Minimal Class
• Adding Code to the Minimal Class
• Using Property Procedures
• Customizing Default Members
• Custom Enumerations
• Object Constructors
• Using the SimpleClass in Other Projects
• Firing Events
• Instance and Shared Methods
• A ‘‘Real’’ Class
• Parsing a Filename
• Converting Numbers to Strings
• Operator Overloading
• VB 2008 at Work: The LengthUnits Class
• The Bottom Line

Working with Objects

• Issues in Object-Oriented Programming
• Classes versus Objects
• Objects versus Object Variables
• Properties versus Fields
• Shared versus Instance Members
• Type Casting
• Early versus Late Binding
• Discovering a Variable’s Type
• Inheritance
• How to Apply Inheritance
• Polymorphism
• Building the Shape Class
• Who Can Inherit What?
• Parent Class Keywords
• Derived Class Keywords
• Parent Class Member Keywords
• Derived Class Member Keyword
• VB 2008 At Work: The InheritanceKeywords Project
• MyBase and MyClass
• The Class Diagram Designer
• The Bottom Line

Building CustomWindows Controls

• On Designing Windows Controls
• Enhancing Existing Controls
• Building the FocusedTextBox Control
• Building Compound Controls
• VB 2008 at Work: The ColorEdit Control
• Building User-Drawn Controls
• VB 2008 at Work: The Label3D Control
• Raising Custom Events
• Using the Custom Control in Other Projects
• Designing Irregularly Shaped Controls
• Customizing List Controls
• Designing Owner-Drawn ListBox Controls
• The Bottom Line

Handling Strings, Characters, and Dates

• Handling Strings and Characters
• The Char Class
• The String Class
• The StringBuilder Class
• VB 2008 at Work: The StringReversal Project
• VB 2008 at Work: The CountWords Project
• Handling Dates and Times
• The DateTime Class
• The TimeSpan Class
• The Bottom Line

Storing Data in Collections

• Advanced Array Topics
• Sorting Arrays
• Searching Arrays
• Performing Other Array Operations
• Array Limitations
• The ArrayList Collection
• Creating an ArrayList
• Adding and Removing ArrayList Items
• Sorting ArrayLists
• Searching ArrayLists
• Iterating an ArrayList
• The HashTable Collection
• VB 2008 at Work: The WordFrequencies Project
• The SortedList Collection
• VB 2008 at Work: The SortedList Project
• Other Collections
• The IEnumerator and IComparer Interfaces
• Enumerating Collections
• Custom Sorting
• Generic Collections
• The Bottom Line

Accessing Folders and Files

• The IO Namespace and the FileSystem Component
• Using the My.Computer.FileSystem Component
• Manipulating Folders and Files with the IO Namespace
• The Directory Class
• The File Class
• Drive, Folder, and File Properties
• The Path Class
• VB 2008 at Work: The CustomExplorer Project
• Accessing Files
• Using Streams
• VB 2008 at Work: The RecordSave Project
• The FileSystemWatcher Component
• Properties
• Events
• VB 2008 at Work: The FileSystemWatcher Project
• The Bottom Line

Serialization and XML

• Understanding Serialization Types
• Using Binary and SOAP Serialization
• Serializing Individual Objects
• Deserializing Individual Objects
• Serializing Collections
• Deserializing Collections
• Persisting a HashTable
• Persisting a TreeView’s Nodes
• Using XML Serialization
• Serializing and Deserializing Individual Objects
• Serializing Custom Objects
• Serializing ArrayLists and HashTables
• Working with XML Files
• Understanding XML Structure
• Editing XML Files
• The Bottom Line

Querying Collections and XML with LINQ

• What Is LINQ?
• LINQ Components
• LINQ to Objects
• Querying Collections
• Aggregating with LINQ
• LINQ to XML
• Traversing XML Documents
• Adding Dynamic Content to an XML Document
• LINQ to SQL
• Retrieving Data with the ExecuteQuery Method
• The Bottom Line

Printing with Visual Basic 2008

• The Printing Components
• The PrintDocument Control
• The PrintDialog Control
• The PageSetupDialog Control
• The PrintPreviewDialog Control
• Printer and Page Properties
• Retrieving the Printer Names
• Page Geometry
• VB 2008 at Work: The SimplePrintout Project
• VB 2008 at Work: The PageSettings Project
• Practical Printing Examples
• Printing Tabular Data
• Printing Plain Text
• Printing Bitmaps
• The Bottom Line