INTRODUCTION

Visual Basic 2010 is Microsoft's latest version of the highly popular Visual Basic .NET programming language, one of the many languages supported in Visual Studio 2010. Visual Basic 2010's strength lies in its ease of use and the speed at which you can create Windows Forms applications, WPF Windows applications, Web applications, WPF Browser applications, mobile device applications, and Web Services.

In this book, we introduce you to programming with Visual Basic 2010 and show you how to create these types of applications and services. Along the way you'll also learn about object-oriented techniques and learn how to create your own business objects and Windows controls.

Microsoft's .NET Framework provides Visual Basic 2010 programmers with the capability to create full object-oriented programs, just like the ones created using C# or C++. The .NET Framework provides a set of base classes that are common to all programming languages in Visual Studio 2010, which provides you with the same capability to create object-oriented programs as a programmer using C# or C++.

This book will give you a thorough grounding in the basics of programming using Visual Basic 2010; from there the world is your oyster.

WHOM THIS BOOK IS FOR

This book is designed to teach you how to write useful programs in Visual Basic 2010 as quickly and easily as possible.

There are two kinds of beginners for whom this book is ideal:

• You're a beginner to programming and you've chosen Visual Basic 2010 as the place to start. That's a great choice! Visual Basic 2010 is not only easy to learn, it's also fun to use and very powerful.

• You can program in another language but you're a beginner to .NET programming. Again, you've made a great choice! Whether you've come from Fortran or Visual Basic 6, you'll find that this book quickly gets you up to speed on what you need to know to get the most from Visual Basic 2010.

WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS

Visual Basic 2010 offers a great deal of functionality in both tools and language. No one book could ever cover Visual Basic 2010 in its entirety—you would need a library of books. What this book aims to do is to get you started as quickly and easily as possible. It shows you the roadmap, so to speak, of what there is and where to go. Once we've taught you the basics of creating working applications (creating the windows and controls, how your code should handle unexpected events, what object-oriented programming is, how to use it in your applications, and so on) we'll show you some of the areas you might want to try your hand at next:

• Chapters 1 through 9 provide an introduction to Visual Studio 2010 and Windows programming.

• Chapter 6 provides an introduction to XAML and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) programming.

• Chapter 10 provides an introduction to application debugging and error handling.

• Chapters 11 through 13 provide an introduction to object-oriented programming and building objects.

• Chapter 14 provides an introduction to creating Windows Forms user controls.

• Chapters 15 and 16 provide an introduction to programming with databases and covers Access, SQL Server, and ADO.NET.

• Chapters 17 and 18 provide an introduction to Dynamic Data Web Sites and ASP.NET and show you how to write applications for the Web.

• Chapter 19 provides a brief introduction to XML, a powerful tool for integrating your applications with others—regardless of the language they were written in.

• Chapter 20 introduces you to deploying applications using ClickOnce technology.

WHAT YOU NEED TO USE THIS BOOK

Apart from a willingness to learn, all you'll need for the first 15 chapters are a PC running Windows 7 (preferred), or Windows Vista, Windows XP (Home or Professional Edition), Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003; Internet Explorer; and of course:

• Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Professional Edition

  or

• Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Premium Edition

  or

• Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Ultimate Edition

  or

• Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Team Edition

CONVENTIONS

To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what's happening, we've used a number of conventions throughout the book.

Boxes like this one hold important, not-to-be forgotten information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text.

As for other conventions in the text:

• New terms and important words are highlighted in italics when first introduced.

• Keyboard combinations are treated like this: Ctrl+R.

• Filenames, URLs, and code within the text are treated like so: persistence.properties.

This book uses monofont type with no highlighting for most code examples.
This book uses bolding to emphasize code that is of particular importance in the present context.

					  

SOURCE CODE

As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually or to use the source-code files that accompany the book. All of the source code used in this book is available for download at www.wrox.com. Once at the site, simply locate the book's title (either by using the Search box or by using one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book's detail page to obtain all the source code for the book.

Once you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternately, you can go to the main Wrox code download page at www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

ERRATA

We make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one is perfect, and mistakes do occur. If you find an error in one of our books, like a spelling mistake or faulty piece of code, we would be very grateful for your feedback. By sending in errata, you may save another reader hours of frustration, and at the same time you will be helping us provide even higher-quality information.

To find the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box or one of the title lists. Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link. On this page you can view all errata that have been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete book list, including links to each book's errata, is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.

If you don't spot "your" error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to send us the error you have found. We'll check the information and, if appropriate, post a message to the book's errata page and fix the problem in subsequent editions of the book.

P2P.WROX.COM

For author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. The forums are a web-based system on which you can post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies and interact with other readers and technology users. The forums offer a subscription feature to e-mail you topics of interest of your choosing when new posts are made to the forums. Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts, and your fellow readers are present on these forums.

At http://p2p.wrox.com you will find a number of different forums that will help you not only as you read this book, but also as you develop your own applications. To join the forums, just follow these steps:

Once you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages other users post. You can read messages at any time on the Web. If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum e-mailed to you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.

For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works, as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wrox books. To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page.