From Book News, Inc.
Describes the basic features and components of the Visual Basic programming environment. Written for experienced programmers, the guide covers loops, branches, declaring procedures, the functions of the VBA library, standard controls and some ActiveX controls, the output of text and graphics on forms, and data access with ADO.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Book Info
A book from the trainer, consultant, and software developer for a number of companies in Germany and Switzerland, Jurgen Bayer. He specializes in development and training in Visual Basic, ASP, and SQL. This guide covers Visual Basic 6. Softcover.

From the Back Cover
Are you looking for a practical manual on Visual Basic 6 written by an experienced programmer and trainer? Well, here it is. This book covers all the key topics that will enable you to be up and running with Visual Basic 6 quickly. Tips and tricks concerning the individual aspects of visual basic and a reference section for each chapter means that you can delve even deeper into the world of Visual Basic.

Let's get down to the Nitty Gritty of: VB functions and VB objects Working with controls and forms Using Windows API OLE Drag & Drop Working with files and folders Database access with ADO Error handling and debugging

Nitty Gritty provides the most important facts that you will need to know to get up and running in new programming topics quickly and when you have become proficient you can use it as an on-going reference book for all the fundamentals.

Divided into 3 sections this book provides everything you need to know to get going and stay running: Introduction -- all the most important topics that you'll need to get working now. Practical tips and tricks -- find out how to put those important concepts into practise and get expert tips on how to improve your programming. Reference section -- all the important instructions and topics in one easy reference section so that you can refer back to the book again and again.

Nitty-gritty: the basic and most important facts, the essential substance or details.

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About the Author

Jurgen Bayer works as a trainer, consultant and software developer for a number of companies in Germany and Switzerland. He specializes in development and training in Visual Basic, ASP and SQL.

0201758768AB10012001

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
This is my first foreword, which tells you that this is also my first book. I myself have never read a foreword before. Now that I have written one I can see the reason for it: I want to give you an overview of this book and show you what possibilities are open to you when it comes to the Internet. This book deals only with Visual Basic, my favorite programming language which is increasingly gaining ground in the face of its competitors. This begs the question perhaps as to why Visual Basic has become such a popular programming language in the meantime. With Visual Basic you can do everything conceivable for Microsoft operating systems. Visual Basic supports the latest Microsoft technologies so that your programs are always up to date. You can usually download state-of-the-art technologies directly from the Microsoft website, install and (with a little know-how) insert them into Visual Basic. With Visual Basic you can produce not only normal Windows applications but also (with some limitations) do object-oriented programming, access almost any databases and other data sources, develop reusable components and controls, create real multilayer applications, write multithreading components and create multimedia and Internet applications. So just about everything is possible! OK, so some features are missing in the current Version 6, for example real inheritance, but firstly you will probably get by best with those features available for standard applications and secondly the new Version 7 adds clear finishing touches. Visual Basic is not all about advantages and I do not wish to keep silent about the disadvantages. One of the most serious of these is that Microsoft with Visual Basic still carries around a lot of padding (you could say garbage), which was inherited from the original version of (Microsoft-DOS)Basic. Another disadvantage is that programming of the new features for the current VB versions was very 'sloppy' and favors the user with a lot of inconsistencies and bugs. Unfortunately Microsoft to date has set a lot of store by the development of new features and has hardly, if at all removed the bugs in the old ones. VB.NET adds the finishing touches here. Microsoft has committed each developer in the VB team to develop no more new features but firstly to remove errors in the current ones if they receive reports of more than 25 (it begs the question of how development was done previously). But I do not wish to join in the chorus of other people in making out that Visual Basic is bad. If you know the pitfalls, VB is a wonderful, fast and simple programming language. I have got used to simply ignoring the defective or bad programmed features I know and, where necessary, using other components (bought or as Freeware mostly from the Internet). You will certainly read some criticisms in this book, but you will find rather more that most features are described positively (I have simply not bothered to describe features which are not going to be used). So that you avoid the pitfalls, I do of course describe the problems as well and usually provide a solution. And to those programmers who believe C program to be considerably faster, suffice it to say that the VB compiler utilizes the Microsoft C compiler at the lowest level.As you may have already noticed, this book is a paperback. Therefore space available is terribly limited compared with a "proper" book. The Nitty Gritty series as its name suggests gets down to the nitty-gritty so everything has to be scaled down. I am working on the basis therefore that you understand the basics of programming and have a sound knowledge of Windows. On this assumption you can learn with the help of this book the most important features and components of Visual Basic. Since Visual Basic in the meantime has become a very powerful programming language, I cannot describe everything in approximately 400 pages. The book does not deal with some of the features and components which are in my view less important (unfortunately including OOP). Information and tips and tricksThe individual sections of the book are usually laid out so that a description telling you how to use a particular feature in practice follows a general introduction. Then there is an overview in table format showing you the most important elements. The conclusion is frequently a section in which I describe tips and tricks for that particular topic.The contents of the bookSo that you get an overall view of the topics included in the book, I am listing them here, chapter by chapter:Chapter 1 gives you an overview of Visual Basic and VBA, the programming language used in Visual Basic. Chapter 2 introduces you to programming with Visual Basic (without however explaining the fundamentals of programming) and gives an overview of the possibilities open to you.Chapter 3 describes in great detail how you program with VBA (variables, loops, branches, functions, etc.).Chapter 4 explains the functions of the VBA library and describes the few objects predefined in VB. In Chapter 5 there is a description of the correct procedure for dealing with standard controls, the most important ActiveX controls and windowless controls using forms and menus. Because of the large number and complexity of some ActiveX controls, not all ActiveX elements are described in this chapter.Chapter 6 explains, in my view, the most important program development technologies, with some topics, such as graphics and printing, and database programming only being described in later chapters.Chapter 7 concentrates on the treatment of run-time errors, debugging and testing an application. Chapter 8 deals with the output of text and graphics on forms or the printer using VB graphics methods and, by way of example, the Windows GDI functions. Chapter 9 explains how to deal with FileSystemObjects to access the file system and to read and write text files.Chapter 10 introduces you to working with databases. This chapter emphasizes the fundamentals of data access with ActiveX Data Objects and leaves untouched many "Quick and Dirty" Visual Basic database features.Finally, Chapter 11 shows you how to create an installation version out of your VB project that can be installed on other computers.What the book does not includeOf course you should also know what topics are not described in the book. For this reason I am listing them here.What is missing in the fundamental functionality areaThe financial-mathematical VBA functions The financial-mathematical VBA functions are very complicated. In addition I have absolutely no idea about financial mathematics (which is probably why my bank account is always empty).What is missing in database programmingThe database tools of the development environment The development environment contains tools which display the structure and content of a database and even allow you to edit these (amongst other things data view, menu query and diagrams).Database connections to the Data EnvironmentThe data environment has interesting potential because you can create connections very quickly to databases and generate queries. However I have always avoided the Data Environment up to now because initializing the run-time is difficult and you lose control of your database connection. I have not described the Data Environment in this book.The utilization of binding controls to a database (the book conveys only the fundamental principles)I only describe the basics for binding controls to data sources in this book.Designing reports using the Integrated Report Generator or the Crystal Reports componentsThe Integrated Report Generator, which can do hardly anything really well, is brought to its limits very quickly when it comes to printing reports. Crystal Reports is the considerably better alternative here. Unfortunately Seagate no longer supplies the Crystal Reports Designer component free of charge, which up to Crystal Reports 6 had been free. Nevertheless on the website I describe how you can produce reports using the Integrated Report Generator and the Crystal Reports component. The query language SQLSQL is described over and over again in many programming books. I think however this extensive language is better described elsewhere to leave room for the actual programming language features. Therefore you will not find SQL described in this book.What is missing when it comes to special technologiesMultimedia programmingYou can achieve simple multimedia effects with some VB controls. If you want to write good multimedia programs, you cannot escape DirectX-API.Remote control of Word, Excel and coRemote control of Word, Excel and co using COM automation is a very interesting process, in which you can borrow the functionality of these applications for your application without the user knowing anything about it. So I can print my invoices in my accountancy program using a Word document template, which I open in Word from my VB program and which I describe in Word.Object-oriented programming (OOP)Object-oriented programming, i.e. the production of intrinsic classes and based on this the production of a listing of classes, class hierarchies, COM (component object model) components and ActiveX controls, is omitted from this book. At first I had planned to include some fundamental information, but this had to be removed again because of lack of space. In addition this information would probably have been too incomplete. Internet programmingInternet programming is omitted from this book. Visual Basic alone is also insufficient to write good Internet applications. I am in the process of writing a book especially about Internet programming with ASP and Visual Basic in the Nitty Gritty series. Along with buying this book I recommend "Microsoft Active Server Pages" by Jörg Krause.I hope I have made the overview of this book easier for you.

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FROM THE PUBLISHER

Are you looking for a practical manual on Visual Basic 6 written by an experienced programmer and trainer? Well, here it is. This book covers all the key topics that will enable you to be up and running with Visual Basic 6 quickly. Tips and tricks concerning the individual aspects of visual basic and a reference section for each chapter means that you can delve even deeper into the world of Visual Basic.

Let's get down to the Nitty Gritty of:VB functions and VB objectsWorking with controls and formsUsing Windows APIOLE Drag & DropWorking with files and foldersDatabase access with ADOError handling and debugging

Nitty Gritty provides the most important facts that you will need to know to get up and running in new programming topics quickly and when you have become proficient you can use it as an on-going reference book for all the fundamentals.

Divided into 3 sections this book provides everything you need to know to get going and stay running:Introduction -- all the most important topics that you'll need to get working now.Practical tips and tricks -- find out how to put those important concepts into practise and get expert tips on how to improve your programming.Reference section -- all the important instructions and topics in one easy reference section so that you can refer back to the book again and again.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

Describes the basic features and components of the Visual Basic programming environment. Written for experienced programmers, the guide covers loops, branches, declaring procedures, the functions of the VBA library, standard controls and some ActiveX controls, the output of text and graphics on forms, and data access with ADO. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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