VB.NET from beginner to advanced programmer Part 1 - Introduction and Installation - Visual Basic Tutorials

Welcome to the VB.NET tutorial series: "VB.NET from beginner to advanced programmer" which will take you from the very beginning to be a good programmer. VB.NET is a good first language for new programmers so this 21 part long series is written for completely beginners but it will also works perfectly fine if you already know another programming language.

VB.NET from beginner to advanced programmer

It's time to get started. VB.Net is a very good language for a beginner, it looks like English and is easy to use.

First you will need to download Visual Basic. It's where you'll write and compile your programs, you can download it here: Downloads.

After you have downloaded and installed Visual Basic and then started it, you will now see the Start Page. Click File in the menu and select New Project... or you can just press Ctrl+N on your keyboard for the same function.

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Now you will see a new window asking which template you want to use for your program.
We'll use "Windows Forms Application", make sure it's selected. Then you will need to select a name for the project.
Note: This is not the name of the program, just the project's name.
I name mine "TestApplication". Then Press OK.

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Now you will automatically be showed to the design view of our project. As default you have the layout of the program in the middle of the screen. This is how the program will look like. In the design view it's WYSIWYG editing, if you don't change the look with your code too.

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But before we continue we'll need to rename our form. It's good to learn this right from the beginning: "The name of an object should tell what it is and what it is for."
So we want to rename Form1 (this is the form you can see in the middle, a program can be made of more then on form) to frmMain. This is so you (by only seeing the name) will know it's a form and that it is our main one.

To change the name of the form click on Form1.vb in the menu in the upper-right corner. In this menu you can see everything in your project (and even the whole solution, but you don't need to think about that).
Then go to the menu below the other menu and change File Name from "Form1.vb" to "frmMain.vb". In this other menu you can change the properties of the selected object.

You maybe have noticed that it still stands Form1 on the form in the middle. Thats because the text of the form is still "Form1". Click on the form in the middle.
Now you will see a long list in the properties menu. Now we're going to change some values here. Change Text to "My First Program".

If you want to see your program you can press F5 to start debugging. It's not anything to see really since it's just an empty form with the title "My First Program".
Save your project by clicking save all under file in the top menu. The first time you'll need to choose a name for it, but it's just to press ok since we already have chosen the name.

This was Part number 1, see you in the next part.

Attached Files

Overview.PNG 100.46K 1328 downloads
New2.PNG 28.62K 193 downloads
New.PNG 53.04K 259 downloads

Edited by Vswe, 18 January 2010 - 04:03 AM.
Download link fixed

Introduction and Installation Objects and Events Variables The basic data types Logical Operators Relational Operators If statements Arithmetical Operators Loops Part 1 Arrays Loops Part 2 Try Catch statements Subs and Functions Difference between Scopes Select Case Statements Multidimensional arrays Structures Classes Enumerations Advanced Comments Compiling Directives