Visual Basic 6.0: Introduction for Beginners

Course Overview

This highly acclaimed Hands-On VB6 training course provides delegates who prefer a fast track learning route with intensive practical tuition in Visual Basic 6. Apart from helping on route to certification, the course should prove invaluable for anyone planning to gain the essential practical skills to develop commercial VB systems for the enterprise and web (internet & Intranet).

This course has been developed for real-world, commercial scenarios by our expert instructors. See below for detailed syllabus. If you have a technical question, please contact us.

Audience

IT professionals who are completely new to Visual Basic programming or those with elementary skills in VB who need to gain the skills and hands-on experience of developing commercial VB6

Skills Gained

• Understand the Visual Basic development environment and language.
• How to write an application that uses a database.
• How to write an COM Client application.
• How to write an COM Server application.
• How to write an COM Add-in.
• Understand Visual Basic's Internet and Networking capabilities.

Hands-On Exercises

The exercises during the course combine to create a currency converter application, a banking application, plus stand-alone modules, covering:

• GUI front-end eg containing menus.
• Validation of input and dialog windows.
• Database handling.
• Client-server / n-tier implementation.
• Allow only one copy of the application to be started.
• Pass data to Excel, build a graph and animate it.
• Build an Activex add-in.
• Build a chat line using peer-to-peer comms.
• Convert a VB app to run in Internet Explorer.
• Make an ActiveX add-in internet compatible.

Prerequisites

Programming skills gained in any language.

Course Outline

Part 1 Introduction to the VB Environment

• Visual Basic Overview & Terminology
• Event driven programming
• VB Programming Environment

Part 2 Creating the User Interface

• Building the User Interface
• Creating an Application
• Building Menus

Part 3 VB Programming Language

Event Handling

• Using Properties
• Methods
• Naming Conventions
• Variables
• Variable Scope
• Constants
• Arrays
• User Defined Types
• Comments
• Continuation Statements
• Assignment Statements
• Operators
• Loops & Decision structures

If.......Then.......Else

Do...Loop, For, While,Exiting a loop

• Message Boxes (Msgbox)
• Input Boxes (Inputbox)
• Sub-Routines and Procedures

Part 4 Error handling and debugging

Error Handling

• Introduction
• Trappable Errors
• On Error...
• Resume
• Error Handlers

Err, Error and Error$() - Techniques

• Avoid Variable Name Errors
• Setting Your Own Error Codes
• Simulating A Visual Basic Error
• Catering for Unexpected Errors
• Delayed Error Handling
• Turning Off Error Handling
• Function Specific Error
• Procedures

Debugging your code

• Using the Debug Window Passively
• Using the Debug Window Actively

Interactive Debugging Tools

• Stepping Through Code
• Breakpoints
• Watches
• Instant Watch
• The Calls Window
• Set Next

Part 5 Working with more advanced controls

File management

Timer

ActiveX custom controls

Tree view and List view

• Common dialog
• Masked edit
• Status Bars
• Toolbars
• Part 6 More About Controls
• Using Control Arrays
• Collections
• Using the Controls Collection
• Working with Object Variables

Part 7 Database use in Visual Basic

Database Use in VB

• Database Types
• Database connectivity styles

The ActiveX Data Control - ADO

Intro to ActiveX Data objects

• Database connection using ADO
• ADO Recordsets
• Disconnected Recordsets
• Data Bound Controls

DataGrid

• DataList
• DataCombo

The Data Form wizard Visual Data Access Tools

Data Environment

Designer Data View Window

• SQL
• Multiple-User Issues
• External Databases
• ODBC Databases
• MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server) and ADO

Part 8 Using Dynamic-Link Libraries

• Introduction to DLLs
• Declaring DLLs
• Calling DLLs
• Providing Callback Procedures

Part 9: ActiveX

The Component Object Model (COM) ActiveX Clients

Implementing Automation

• Characteristics of Servers
• Creating a Client
• Receiving Notifications from Servers
• Creating ActiveX Servers

Introduction to ActiveX Components

• Creating Objects
• ActiveX Code Components
• Registering a Sever
• Server Events
• Building Interfaces
• Additional Features of Code Components
• Creating ActiveX Controls

Introduction to Controls

• Creating the Control's User Interface
• Testing
• Exposing Properties, Methods, and Events
• Creating Property Pages
• Data Binding
• Distributing
• Using ActiveX Components on a Web Page

Overview

• Downloading Controls
• HTML Scripting
• Setting Initial Control Properties
• Creating and Using ActiveX Documents

Introduction to ActiveX Documents

• ActiveX Document Projects
• Testing and Debugging
• Multiple Documents
• The User Interface and User Documents
• Creating Internet-Aware Applications

Using Sockets (Winsock)

• Internet Transfer Control
• Web Browser Control
• Automation with Internet Explorer
• Personal Web Server
• IIS
• DHTML

Visual Basic 6.0: Introduction for Beginners / VB60010