Projects

You can learn a lot about Visual Basic programming by attempting the following projects (all © Nigel Ward, April 2001). A good way to work would be to run VB and your browser at the same time, using the task bar at the bottom of your screen to switch between them. Alternatively, if you have a very big monitor, you could have the VB window and the browser window open at the same time, tiled one above the other (not side by side).

• Greeting
• Calculator
• Lander
• Keypress
• Menus
• Random numbers
• Jackpot
• Reaction timer
• More controls
• Multiple Choice
• More Ideas

The first projects in the above list (up to the 'More Controls' project, which is optional) are basic projects that are meant to be tackled in order. All the necessary code is given, though most projects are intended to be open-ended - time will be allocated for students to extend each project according to their own initiative (suggestions will be given), writing their own code with minimal help. Some long projects, such as the Lander project, are broken down into parts.

The next group of projects can be done in any order - if one projects builds on another then this will be indicated. In these projects some of the needed code may NOT be given and will have to be created be the student.

In the last page above, called 'More', suggestions are given for many possible projects of varying difficulty. No code is given so the entire project must be developed by the student.

Important:

To avoid having to scroll horizontally to read long lines of code, make sure that this browser window is maximized to fill your screen and use View>Text Size in Internet Explorer to choose a smaller text size if necessary.

Each time you begin a new project in VB5 CCE you should choose Standard EXE since this will create a program that can be run (executed). Immediately after creating a new project you should save it using File>Save Project (don't use Ctrl-S as this will save only the form file, not the project file). It's important to make a new folder inside your personal folder to hold each new project since each project consists of at least two files, and sometimes more. Each project has, as a minimum:

• a form file which contains details about the form, the controls within the form, and all the code
• a project file, which is a short list of all the forms in your project (there could be more than one) and their locations.

Always give the folder, the form file and the project file the same name. Don't move or rename a form file once it has been saved, otherwise the project file may longer be able to find it.

When you want to open an existing project, choose the Existing tab when VB5 starts. When you want to close one project and create a new one, choose Remove Project in the File Menu before you choose File/New Project.

Now choose a lesson from the links at the top of this page.