Chapter 1. Introducing Visual Basic 2005

When Microsoft released its new version of Visual Basic in 2002, many developers willingly upgraded to take advantage of the new web functionality, security, and performance provided by the .NET platform on which it was built. But in doing so, many also felt they were leaving behind the features that had made Visual Basic 6.0 such a popular tool for the rapid development of Windows applications in the first place.

The release of Visual Basic 2005 (VB 2005) is in many ways a return to Visual Basic’s roots as the Rapid Application Development (RAD) tool of choice. Many of the most popular features of earlier versions are back, such as Edit and Continue, along with dozens of new controls, better IntelliSense, an improved debugger, and a host of other tools that speed up programming, debugging, testing, and deployment.

Besides the many tools added to its interactive development environment (IDE), Visual Basic 2005 provides more support than ever for developing the next generation of network-enabled Windows clients and web applications, while a new set of functionality unique to VB 2005—the My namespace—gives you the means by which to perform many common tasks without having to work your way through the complex types of the .NET class libraries.

The best way to learn about Visual Studio 2005 is by using the tool to build an application. In the following sections, you’ll assemble a straightforward Windows client that enables users to connect to a database and browse or update the information they find there. You’ll work with the authors table of the pub’s database that ships with SQL Server 2005. You’ll also see how you can extend the application using some of the features new to VB 2005, such as project templates and application configuration tools. Figure 1-1 shows how the main window of the the completed application will look when you’ve finished your work.

Tip

Although this book uses Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as the tool to build the sample applications, you can also use Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition.

The completed pubs database Windows client
Figure 1-1. The completed pubs database Windows client

Create the Application and Its Main Window

Let’s start by using Visual Studio 2005 to create a Windows application, one that you can program with VB 2005.

  1. First, you need to fire up Visual Studio 2005 and open a new project by selecting File New Project… on the Visual Studio 2005 menu. Visual Studio displays the New Project dialog shown in Figure 1-2.

  2. In the Project types window of the New Project dialog, select Visual Basic and then select the Windows Application template in the Visual Studio installed templates dialog window. Keep the default project Name, WindowsApplication1, provided by Visual Studio. Click OK.

    Visual Studio 2005 will present you with its familiar Windows development environment, shown in Figure 1-3, including a designer surface for Form1, which will become the startup window of your application.

Add a Menu and Toolbar

Let’s now add a menu and toolbar to the form. In VB 2005, you can create professional looking Windows applications, complete with menus and toolbars that look like those used with Microsoft Office applications.

Creating a new Windows application
Figure 1-2. Creating a new Windows application
The development environment of Visual Studio 2005
Figure 1-3. The development environment of Visual Studio 2005
  1. In the Menus & Toolbars tab in Toolbox, shown in Figure 1-4, locate and then drag and drop the ToolStripContainer control onto the form. The ToolStripContainer control allows other controls (such as the ToolStrip control) to anchor in the four positions available (left, right, top, and bottom).

    The various controls under the Menus & Toolbars tab in Toolbox
    Figure 1-4. The various controls under the Menus & Toolbars tab in Toolbox

    In the ToolStripContainer Tasks menu, click on the “Dock Fill in Form” link (see Figure 1-5) to dock the ToolStripContainer control onto the form. This will cause the ToolStripContainer control to fill up the entire form and automatically resize itself when the form is resized.

    Filling the entire form with the ToolStripContainer control
    Figure 1-5. Filling the entire form with the ToolStripContainer control
  2. Now you’ll add the application menu. Double-click on the MenuStrip control in the Toolbox to add it to the form. The MenuStrip control displays a standard list of drop-down menus at the top of a window. In the MenuStrip Tasks menu, click on the Insert Standard Items link to add a list of commonly used menu items to the control (see Figure 1-6).

    Your form should now look like the one shown in Figure 1-7.

    Now you’ll add a toolbar to Form1. Select the MenuStrip control that you have just added by single-clicking on it. In the Toolbox, double click on the ToolStrip control (or drag and drop it) to add it to the form. This will add the ToolStrip control to the top of the ToolStripContainer control, thereby making it moveable. You use the ToolStrip control to display buttons for tasks users will commonly want to perform. Initially, the toolbar is blank. To add common toolbar items, click on the Insert Standard Items link in the ToolStrip Tasks menus. Your form should now look like Figure 1-8.

    Inserting standard menu items into the MenuStrip control
    Figure 1-6. Inserting standard menu items into the MenuStrip control
    The MenuStrip control
    Figure 1-7. The MenuStrip control
    The MenuStrip and ToolStrip controls
    Figure 1-8. The MenuStrip and ToolStrip controls
  3. To test the application, press F5. You will now be able to drag the ToolStrip control and anchor it in one of the four positions (see Figure 1-9).

Anchoring the ToolStrip control in various positions
Figure 1-9. Anchoring the ToolStrip control in various positions

Connect to a Database and Browse Records

One great time-saving feature in VB 2005 is its new support for automatic data binding. The automatic–data binding feature allows you to connect to a data source and then drag and drop the connection onto a Windows Forms application. A set of controls bound to the data source will then be automatically added to the form, and you can perform a variety of operations on the data source, such as navigating through records, searching for a specific record, and more, without having to write any code.

To see how automatic data binding works, you will now connect to a database and then drag and drop one of its tables onto your form so that you can view and work with its records. You will use SQL Server 2005 Express and the pubs database and then view and edit the records in the authors table.

  1. Select Data Show Data Sources to display the Data Sources window, as shown in Figure 1-10. The Data Sources window allows you to connect to your data sources (such as databases, web services, and business objects) and view their content. Click on the Add New Data Source… link to add a new data source to your project (see Figure 1-10).

    When the Data Source Configuration Wizard appears, click Next.

  2. The Choose a Data Source dialog, which appears next, lets you choose between a database, a web service, or some other object as the source of your data. You’ll be using a database, so click the Database icon and then click Next.

  3. Now you need to select a data connection to use to connect to your database. In the “Choose your data connection” dialog, click New Connection….

    The Data Sources window
    Figure 1-10. The Data Sources window
  4. The Add Connection dialog will be shown (see Figure 1-11).

    Tip

    For this step, I am assuming you have SQL Server 2005 Express installed on your computer. You can download SQL Server 2005 Express from: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/express/default.mspx.

    As SQL Server 2005 Express does not come with any sample databases, you need to install the sample database yourself. See the sidebar “SQL Server 2005 Express and the pubs and Northwind Databases” for more information.

    Enter the details of your database (see Figure 1-11). Type .\SQLEXPRESS for Server name if your database is installed locally on your machine. Select the database to use (in this example, select the sample pubs database in SQL Server 2005 Express). Click OK and Next in the next window.

  5. Visual Studio 2005 now has the information it needs to create the connection string that will let your application access the pubs database. The “Save the connection string to the application configuration file” step gives you the useful option of naming and saving the connection string in the application configuration file, as shown in Figure 1-12. Having the information in a configuration file lets you change database details without recompiling the application, even after it has been deployed. Leave the checkbox checked, give the connection string the name pubsConnectionString, and click Next to display the next part of the Data Source Configuration Wizard dialog.

  6. With a connection string in place, you’re now in a position to select the table(s) you want to work with. The “Choose your database objects” step shown in Figure 1-13 displays the tables (and fields) of the pubs database. Your application will give users access to author information stored in the pubs database, so check the authors table to select all fields and then click Finish to move to the next step, which displays a completed Data Sources window for your application. You can return to the Data Sources window whenever you need to make changes by clicking on the Data Sources tab next to the Solution Explorer or by going to the Visual Studio menu and selecting Data Show Data Sources.

    Adding a new database connection
    Figure 1-11. Adding a new database connection
    Saving the connection string in the application configuration file
    Figure 1-12. Saving the connection string in the application configuration file
    Selecting the table to work with
    Figure 1-13. Selecting the table to work with
  7. One last step is required to make the authors table accessible to your users: you need to bind each field to a control that can be displayed in the application window. In the Data Sources window, you’ll see that the authors table is displayed as a tree, as shown in Figure 1-14, and that each field has been bound to a specific type of control. For example, the au_lname field is bound to a text box (represented by the icon containing the letters “abl”). You can change the binding by clicking on the field name and then choosing another binding. For now, we’ll make only one change. Click on the drop-down menu for the au_id field and then choose the Label control (as represented by the icon containing the letter A, as shown in Figure 1-14).

    Changing the bindings of the fields
    Figure 1-14. Changing the bindings of the fields

    Also, you should change the authors table binding to Details (using the drop-down menu for the authors field shown in Figure 1-15) so that you can view the authors table one record at a time. The reason for doing this will become evident to you in the next step when we add the ability for users to navigate through the table.

    Now you’re ready the drag and drop the authors item in the Data Sources window onto the default Windows Form and watch Visual Studio 2005 perform some real magic. For starters, Visual Studio automatically populates Form1 with the controls shown in Figure 1-16. Visual Studio 2005 also adds a new BindingNavigator control to the top of the form. The new BindingNavigator control lets users navigate through all the records in the table as displayed in the form.

  8. By default, the BindingNavigator control is docked (fixed) to the top of the form and is not moveable. Set the Dock property to None and rearrange the controls as shown in Figure 1-17.

    Changing the binding of the table
    Figure 1-15. Changing the binding of the table
    The populated Windows Form
    Figure 1-16. The populated Windows Form

    Tip

    You can rearrange the BindingNavigator control by increasing the size of the ToolStripContainer control. Simply click the arrow shown at the top of the ToolStripContainer control.

    Arranging the controls at the top of the Form
    Figure 1-17. Arranging the controls at the top of the Form
  9. You can now test the application by pressing F5. Form1, the main window of your application, will display, complete with menu, toolbar, and navigation control, as shown in Figure 1-18. You should be able to navigate the records in the authors table as well as move the various toolbars around. Try scrolling through the table by clicking the arrows on the BindingNavigator control.

    Navigating the records in the table
    Figure 1-18. Navigating the records in the table

    You should also be able to edit individual records by modifying the values in the text box bound to each field. Try it. To save a modified record to the database, you need to click on the Save icon, which is represented by the diskette icon in the BindingNavigator control.

    Visual Studio 2005 automatically adds the relevant code to the code behind of the form to handle the retrieving and saving of data. To see the code added by Visual Studio 2005, double-click on the diskette icon to reveal the code behind. You will see the code shown in Example 1-1.

    Example 1-1. Save menu item code behind added by Visual Studio 2005
    Private Sub bindingNavigatorSaveItem_Click( _ 
    	ByVal sender As System.Object, _ 
    	ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _ 
    	Handles bindingNavigatorSaveItem.Click
    	 If Me.Validate Then
    		 Me.AuthorsBindingSource.EndEdit()
    		 Me.AuthorsTableAdapter.Update(Me.PubsDataSet.authors)
         Else
    		 System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show( _
    			Me, "Validation errors occurred.", "Save", _
    			System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons.OK, _
    
    			System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon.Warning)
    	 End If
    
    End Sub

Create an Exit Dialog Box

For most Windows applications, it is customary to ask users if they really want to quit an application when they either click the Close window button or select Exit on the File menu. In this section, you’ll use Visual Studio 2005 and VB 2005 to add a dialog box that asks users to confirm that they really want to quit the application when they select either action.

  1. First, let’s create the dialog box by adding a new Dialog to the project. You add a new Dialog to your project by right-clicking on the project name in Solution Explorer, which is WindowsApplication1, and then selecting Add New Item…. In the Add New Item dialog, select Dialog and use the default name of Dialog1.vb as shown in Figure 1-19.

    Adding a new Windows Form to the project
    Figure 1-19. Adding a new Windows Form to the project
  2. Notice that the Dialog window already comes with two buttons: OK (OK_Button) and Cancel (Cancel_Button).

  3. Populate the dialog with the Label control shown in Figure 1-20 by dragging and dropping it from the Toolbox. Also, resize the dialog window.

    Populating the dialog window with the Label control
    Figure 1-20. Populating the dialog window with the Label control
  4. Set the properties of the various controls to the values shown in Table 1-1. To set the properties of a control, right-click the control and select Properties to display its Property window. Look for each Property you wish to set by scrolling through the Properties window and entering the appropriate value.

    Table 1-1. Properties of the various controls

    Control

    Property

    Value

    Comments

    Dialog1

    Text

    Exit

    Changes the title of the Windows Form

    Dialog1

    AcceptButton

    OK_Button

    Sets the OK button to the default button of the form so that it is clicked when the user presses the Enter key.

    Note that this has already been set for you by Visual Studio 2005.

    Dialog1

    CancelButton

    Cancel_Button

    Sets the Cancel button to be activated when the user presses the Esc key.

    Note that this has already been set for you by Visual Studio 2005.

    OK_Button

    DialogResult

    OK

    Sets the OK button to the value of OK for the dialog result.

    Cancel_Button

    DialogResult

    Cancel

    Sets the Cancel button to the value of Cancel for the dialog result.

Handle Exit and Close Events

Now it’s time to write some code to link the Exit dialog with the events triggered by users when they attempt to exit or close the application.

  1. First, you’ll add code to deal with the Exit menu item when a user selects it. To get started, expand the File menu in Form1 and doubleclick on the Exit menu item (see Figure 1-21) to open the code-behind page shown in Figure 1-22.

    Coding the File → Exit menu item
    Figure 1-21. Coding the File Exit menu item
    The code behind of Form1
    Figure 1-22. The code behind of Form1

    The code-behind page contains all of the code that you write for the application. So far in this chapter, all of the work has been done by Visual Studio, but the code it has generated to support your work with the designer and wizards is hidden and out of sight for now. You’ll see how to view this code in Chapter 2.

    When you double-click on the Exit item of the application menu on Form1, Visual Studio deduces that you wish to write code to specify how the exit event will be handled, just as it does in VB 6. Note that the code behind page in this example is named Form1.vb. As you can see in Figure 1-22, Visual Studio has already generated the code to create the event handler. All you need to do is specify what specific actions are to be taken when the event handler is called by placing your cursor on the line below the handler declaration and entering your own code.

  2. Now, code the exit event of the ToolStrip control by entering the code shown in bold in Example 1-2 on the code-behind page.

    Example 1-2. Exit menu item event handler
    Private Sub exitToolStripMenuItem_Click( _
       ByVal sender As System.Object, _
       ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
       Handles exitToolStripMenuItem.Click
        Dim result As DialogResult = Dialog1.ShowDialog()
    	If result = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
    		 End
    	End If
    End Sub

    When users select the Exit item on the File menu, an exit event fires and the code in Example 1-2 displays Dialog1, which forces users to confirm whether or not they really want to exit the application. If a user selects OK, then the application exits; otherwise, no action is taken and the dialog window closes.

    Much of the code in Example 1-2 will seem familiar to VB 6 users. Dim statements are still used to declare variables, the If…Then statement is unchanged, and the Sub…End Sub block is still used to define subroutines. What’s new is the way in which the code makes use of classes, methods, and properties found in the .NET Framework, most visibly in the use of dot (.) syntax to reference them. You’ll learn more about VB 2005 data types and language syntax in Chapter 2. Later in Chapter 3, you’ll see how to use the new support for object-oriented programming and the .NET Framework in VB 2005 to greatly increase your productivity.

  3. Now you need to add code to handle the case when the user closes the application window (Form1) by clicking on the Close button at top the right of the application windowt. This is handled by coding the FormClosing event of Form1, as shown in Example 1-3. Again, when the user clicks the Close button, you’ll display Dialog1. If the user selects the OK button, end the application. If the user selects the Cancel button, cancel the close operation by setting the Cancel property of the System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs argument to True. You can get Visual Studio 2005 to generate the code stub for the FormClosing event by selecting the Form1 Events item in the left drop-down list (see Figure 1-23) and then selecting FormClosing in the second drop-down list. Enter the code shown in bold in Example 1-3.

    Generating the code stub for the FormClosing event
    Figure 1-23. Generating the code stub for the FormClosing event
    Example 1-3. FormClosing event handler
    Private Sub Form1_FormClosing( _
    	ByVal sender As Object, _
    	ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) _
    	Handles Me.FormClosing
     	 Dim result As DialogResult = Dialog1.ShowDialog()
    	 If result = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
    		 End
    	 Else
    		 e.Cancel = True
         End If
    End Sub

Run and Debug the Application

With the code you have added in the last section, it is now time to test the application. This is a good chance for you to see some of the new enhancements in the new Visual Studio 2005 debugger. For this example, you will set a breakpoint so that you can examine the values of variables at a particular point in the code.

  1. Now set a breakpoint in the application by clicking on the gray bar on the left of the code edit window (see Figure 1-24) and then running the application by pressing F5. You will set the breakpoint so that the program halts when you click on the Close box, allowing you to examine the value of DialogResult returned by the Exit dialog box (Dialog1).

    Setting a breakpoint
    Figure 1-24. Setting a breakpoint
  2. When the form is loaded, close the form to display the dialog box. Click OK, and the application will stop at the breakpoint you have set. To step through the code one line at a time, press F11 (see Figure 1-25).

    Stepping through the code
    Figure 1-25. Stepping through the code

Inspect an Object at Runtime

The debugger in Visual Studio 2005 now supports a new feature known as DataTips. Using DataTips, you can examine the values in a complex data type while you are debugging the application, otherwise known as debug time. This is a marked improvement over Visual Studio .NET 2003, where only simple data types can be examined by placing the cursor over a variable name.

Figure 1-26 shows the DataTips display for the FormClosingEventArgs object. To see this result, simply position your cursor over the name of the variable or object that you are interested in while the program is stopped at a breakpoint. Not only can you view the values of variables and objects, you can also edit and change their values during debug time.

Using the DataTips in Visual Studio 2005
Figure 1-26. Using the DataTips in Visual Studio 2005

Add an About Box

VB 2005 now comes with several new templates that make developing a Windows application easy. Among the new templates are:

Explorer Form

Allows you to build applications similar to Windows Explorer, with a tree-like display on the left pane and a detailed view on the right pane.

About Box

Displays an About window listing detailed information (such as version number, copyright, credits, etc.) about the current application.

Login Form

Creates a standard login window to simplify the task of user authentication.

Splash Screen

Displays a welcome screen when your application is launched.

In this section, you will add an About box to your application using the About Box template. The About box for an application is displayed when a user selects Help About… and contains useful information about the application, including its manufacturer and version number. Much of the information in the About box is available from the application and its configuration files.

  1. First, you need to create an About box form. Right-click on the project name (WindowsApplication1) in Solution Explorer and select Add New Item…. Select the About Box template and accept the default name of AboutBox1.vb provided by Visual Studio 2005. Click Add (see Figure 1-27).

    Adding an About box to the project
    Figure 1-27. Adding an About box to the project

    The AboutBox1.vb form will be added to your project, and Visual Studio 2005 will display a designer for the feature as shown in Figure 1-28.

  2. Let’s personalize the form by adding an image of the cover for this book to replace the default pretzel-like image. Click the LogoPictureBox control and then, in the Property window for the control, click the “…” button of its Image property. This will display the Select Resource dialog window. Click the Import… button of the dialog to select your own image for the About box (C:\vbjumpstartpg.gif). Click OK (see Figure 1-29).

    The controls on the AboutBox1 window
    Figure 1-28. The controls on the AboutBox1 window
    Selecting an image resource
    Figure 1-29. Selecting an image resource

    Tip

    You can download the vbjumpstartpg.gif image from: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/vbjumpstart/.

  3. Set the SizeMode property of the LogoPictureBox control to CenterImage.

  4. To configure the information about your application so that it can be displayed by the About box, right-click on the project name in Solution Explorer and then select Properties. In the Application tab, click on the Assembly Information… button (see Figure 1-30).

  5. Set the information as shown in Figure 1-31.

    Configuring project information
    Figure 1-30. Configuring project information
    Setting project information
    Figure 1-31. Setting project information
  6. The AboutBox1 window should now look like the one shown in Figure 1-32.

  7. To link Form1 with the AboutBox1 window, expand the Help menu and double-click on the About… menu item (see Figure 1-33) to open the code-behind page for Form1 and generate a code stub for the About box selection event handler.

  8. Now add the line of code shown in bold to the code stub generated by Visual Studio, as shown in Example 1-4). You use the ShowDialog method of the dialog window to get the object display itself.

    The AboutBox1 window
    Figure 1-32. The AboutBox1 window
    Coding the Help → About… menu item
    Figure 1-33. Coding the Help About… menu item
    Example 1-4. Help About… menu selection event handler
    Private Sub aboutToolStripMenuItem_Click( _
    	ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    	ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
    	Handles aboutToolStripMenuItem.Click
    	 AboutBox1.ShowDialog()
    End Sub
  9. Finally, it’s time to take your work for a trial run. Press F5 to run the application. Click Help About… and you will see the About box shown in Figure 1-34.

Configure the Application

In the application that you have built, you can move and anchor the ToolStrip control as you wish while you are using the application. However, you may have noticed that its position is lost each time you exit the application. This is because you need to manually save its positions each time you exit the application, or else the information will be lost. Fortunately, this can be done easily with the new Application Settings feature in VB 2005. In this section, you’ll see how.

Displaying the About box
Figure 1-34. Displaying the About box
  1. You’ll begin by adding code to save the location of the ToolStrip control. Select the ToolStrip control and, in its Properties window, select the PropertyBinding property (under the “(ApplicationSettings)” property; see Figure 1-35). Click the “…” button.

    Binding application settings
    Figure 1-35. Binding application settings
  2. Locate the Location property (this property determines where the control should be placed) and click the drop-down listbox. Click on the New… link at the bottom and create a new application setting called ToolStripLocation (see Figure 1-36). Be sure to set the scope to User. Click OK. Be sure to set the Location property to the newly created application setting.

    Creating the new application setting
    Figure 1-36. Creating the new application setting

    You have now created an application setting that binds the position of the ToolStrip control to the ToolStripLocation application setting. When the form is loaded, the ToolStrip control will get its Location property from the application settings, which is saved in the app.config file.

    Tip

    The app.config file contains configuration settings pertaining to your project, such as database connection strings, application logfiles, etc. It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss the app.config file in detail.

  3. Now, perform the same steps 1 and 2 for the MenuStrip control, MenuStrip1. Name its application setting MenuLocation.

  4. You will want to save the current locations of all two controls whenever Form1 is closed, so add the bold code to the FormClosing event and Exit menu item event as shown in Example 1-5.

    Example 1-5. Saving control location data when a user exits or closes Form1
    Private Sub Form1_FormClosing(ByVal sender As Object, _
    	ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) _
    	Handles Me.FormClosing
         Dim result As DialogResult = Dialog1.ShowDialog()
    	 If result = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
    		 My.Settings.MenuLocation = MenuStrip1.Location
    		 My.Settings.ToolStripLocation = ToolStrip1.Location
    		 My.Settings.Save()
    	 	 End
    	 Else
    		 e.Cancel = True
    	 End If
    End Sub
    
    Private Sub exitToolStripMenuItem_Click( _
    	ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    	ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
    	Handles exitToolStripMenuItem.Click
    	 Dim result As DialogResult = Dialog1.ShowDialog()
         If result = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
    		 My.Settings.MenuLocation = MenuStrip1.Location
    		 My.Settings.ToolStripLocation = ToolStrip1.Location
    		 My.Settings.Save()
    		 End
    	 End If
    End Sub

Tip

Note that in this example, only the ToolStrip control is moveable. You can make the MenuStrip control moveable by changing its GripStyle property from Hidden to Visible.

In Example 1-5, when a user closes the application either by closing the window or clicking on the Exit menu item, the application saves the position of the MenuStrip and ToolStrip controls using the application settings that you have created. You can access the application settings programmatically by using the My.Settings object (they automatically appear under the My.Settings object after you have created them). Once the locations of these two controls are assigned to the application settings, you use the Save method of the My.Setting object to persist this information to the app.config file.

Summary

In this chapter, you built a Windows application using VB 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. Though the application is simple, its assembly illustrates several key enhancements to the VB 2005 language and the Visual Studio 2005 development tool. To recap, here are the major features you explored:

  • New controls with Smart Tasks menus

  • New Windows application templates

  • Debugging and restored support for edit-and-continue

  • Improved IntelliSense and improved Code Editor

  • Data Source Configuration Wizard

  • Application Settings

In next chapter, you will learn more about the language syntax of the new VB 2005.

Get Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.