Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell

By: Evan Dictor
Publisher:: O'Reilly Media
Released:: April 1998
Pages:: 760

Description

To create professional applications, you need extensive knowledge of Visual Basic controls and their numerous properties, methods, and events. This quick reference documents the steps involved in using each major VB control, the order in which their events are fired, and the unexpected ways in which their properties, methods, and events interact.

Full Description

Visual Basic has been described as a visual interface design package to which the programmer attaches snippets of code. Although this definition has been contested by some, no one would contest that Visual Basic's interface design component--and therefore its forms and controls--are central to Visual Basic. To create a professional application, you need extensive knowledge of Visual Basic controls and their numerous properties, events, and methods. Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell is the book that documents Visual Basic controls thoroughly.

Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell is divided into two sections. The first contains a detailed summary of Visual Basic Professional Edition's intrinsic and custom controls. Each chapter provides the following information about a control:

A general description of the control, including its usage and purpose
Control tasks--that is, the tasks that are typically executed when creating or managing a control
The most important properties that define the behavior and appearance of the control
The major events fired by a control and to which code can be assigned
In cases where their timing may be important, the order in which related multiple events are fired
The most important methods that are available for managing a control or accessing its functionality
The ways in which the control unexpectedly interacts with changes in its state or in that of the Visual Basic environment. Typically, these undocumented or little documented side effects give developers enormous difficulty.

The second section consists of separate alphabetical references to Visual Basic's properties, methods, and events. Along with providing basic documentation for each property, method, and event, the entries in this section contain a wealth of information not always available from the documentation, including:

Whether a property is available at design-time and/or run-time
The data type returned by a property or method

Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell is an ideal book for Windows programmers who are looking for detailed and organized information on Visual Basic controls. This book is written by an experienced Visual Basic programmer and is filled with precisely the kind of information that his work--and that of any experienced VB programmer--constantly requires. Its depth and quality make it an indispensable addition to your Visual Basic library. With its companion volume, VB & VBA in a Nutshell: The Language, it serves to thoroughly document Microsoft Visual Basic.

Product Details

Title:

Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell

By:

Evan Dictor

Publisher:

O'Reilly Media

Formats:

Print Release:

April 1998

Pages:

760

Print ISBN:

978-1-56592-294-5

| ISBN 10:

1-56592-294-8

Customer Reviews

About the Author

Evan Dictor

Evan S. Dictor has developed software in a wide variety of languages on numerous platforms. He has used Visual Basic extensively for years, first as a prototyping tool and later as a full-time development tool. A Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer, today he develops and supports Visual Basic applications nationally as a contract programmer based out of southern Florida. In his spare time, Evan composes MIDI music and does woodworking.

View Evan Dictor's full profile page.

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal featured on the cover of Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell: The Controls of the Professional and Enterprise Editions, is an eared seal. There are 18 living species of seals, grouped into 13 genera. Of these, 14 species, in 6 genera, are eared seals, family Otariidae. Eared seals are widely distributed throughout the world, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. This marine mammal's diet consists mainly of fish. Some seals dive as deep as 600 feet in search of food.

Aside from the existence of external ears, eared seals differ from earless seals in that they can bring their rear flippers forward under their bodies. This makes them more mobile on land than earless seals. In the water, both eared and earless seals move with a rowing motion of the front flippers, not using their rear flippers at all.

Eared seals fall into one of two categories—fur seals or sea lions. Fur seals grow a thick undercoat of fur, used as insulation. In one species of fur seal, more than 50,000 hairs were counted in one square centimeter of skin. This thick undercoat of fur has made the fur seal very appealing to hunters.

Of the five species of sea lion, the California sea lion is best known. Because they are relatively small, and the most graceful on land of all the seals, California sea lions are the seals most likely to be used in circus acts or kept in zoos. Sarah Jane Shangraw was the production editor for Visual Basic Controls in a Nutshell: The Controls of the Professional and Enterprise Editions. Debby English copyedited and Norma Emory proofread the book; Jane Ellin, Claire Cloutier, and Abigail Myers provided quality control; Sebastian Banker, Susan Reinbold, Anna Snow, and Melanie Wang provided production support; Mike Sierra provided FrameMaker technical support; Ellen Troutman Zaig, Seth Maislin, and Brenda Miller wrote the index.

Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced by Kathleen Wilson, using QuarkXPress 3.32 and the ITC Garamond font.

The inside layout was designed by Alicia Cech and implemented in FrameMaker 5.5.6 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Rhon Porter using Macromedia FreeHand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.

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