Introduction to Programming

Using Visual Basic.NET

Basic.NET

Prepared by
Prof.Ahmed Fahmy Amin Mahrous
Professor of Computer, AAST
Minister's Consultant for Information Technology

Revised by

Translated by

Prof. Salah Amin Elewa

Eng. Emad El-Din

in Elsayed
Elsa
Ahmed

Director, Technology Development

Ministry of Education

American University in Cairo

Acknowledgments
Most importantly, we are grateful to Prof. Yousry Saber Elgamal,
the Minister of Education, for giving us the opportunity to write this
book, for his support and understanding.
Many people have worked very hard to design and produce this
text. However, there are a number of people who deserve special
recognition. First we would like to thank Mrs. Suzan Abdel Fatah
Marzouk, the general director of Computer Education, and Mrs. Salma
Aly Ibrahim, the Computer expert, for their extremely helpful
suggestions on content and pedagogy as well as revision of the Arabic
version.
The Graphics department at the Ministry of Education also
deserves recognition and thanks for all their help. This includes Dr.
Fathia khairy and Eng. Manal Elgendy for their remarkable job that
turned the rough wording into a fine book.

Preface

This

book

is

designed primarily to

teach

programming

fundamentals. The important point here is that many Visual Basic texts
focus on the Cool Visual Basic gizmos and, in doing so, fail to teach
the programming concepts that are common to all languages. That is why
we titled our book Introduction to programming using Visual Basic Dot
NET, not Learning Microsoft Visual Basic Dot NET. We think this
distinction is important because languages come and go, but fundamental
concepts underlying the programming process stay fairly constant.
If teaching programming fundamentals is our primary goal, then
why we have chosen Visual Basic Dot NET and not some other
language? The answer is simple: we feel that Visual Basic Dot NET is the
language that facilitates our main goal by being relatively easy to learn
without the overly complex syntactic and semantic rules found in some
other languages.
In fact, our book is consisting of two parts, one part for each term.
If you look at table of contents of this part, you will find that it consists of
6 Chapters:
Chapter 1 gives you an idea about programming languages
and the differences between compilers and interpreters.
Chapter 2 explains the Flowcharting. This chapter has many
solved examples.
Chapter 3 explains the Pseudocode fundamentals. In this
chapter we wrote the pseucode for all examples of Chapter 2.
Chapter 4 explains the principles of Object Oriented
Programming (OOP) in a very smooth way.

 Chapter 5 gives you a tour of Visual Basic .NET 2005

Integrated Development Environment (IDE). In addition, it
shows you how to Create your first Visual Basic project.
Chapter 6 Lists the characteristics of several Visual Basic
.NET
Controls the objects that appear on the user interface- and
the uses of each one. It includes many examples to show
you how to use the controls.
The course website, available at www.moe.org.eg contains a number of
files that give you the opportunity to see visually the steps taken to solve
any given example.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

An introduction to Programming

1.1 Information system

1.2 Computer Operations

1.2.1 Input Data (Reading Data)

1.2.2 Store data in memory

1.2.3 Perform arithmetic operation on data

1.2.4 Compare two values and select one of

two alternative actions

1.2.5 Repeat a group of actions any number of

times
1.2.6 Output the results of processing
1.3 Programs and Programming
1.3.1 Programming Languages
1.4 Questions

CHAPTER TWO

5
5
6
6
9

Problem Solving and Flowcharting

2.1 Introduction

10

2.2 Flowcharting

10

2.2.1 The Meaning of a Flowchart

14

2.2.2 Guidelines for Drawing a Flowchart

14

2.2.3 Advantages of Using Flowcharts

15

2.2.4 Limitations of Using Flowcharts

17

2.3 Some Examples of Flowcharting

2.4 Questions

18
18
34

Pseudocode

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

3.1 Introduction

36

3. 2 Components

37

3.3 Rules and Constraints

38

3.4 Program Logic Structures

39

3.4.1. Sequence

39

3.4.2. Selection

39

3.4.2. Iterations

41

3.5 Advantages and disadvantages of Pseudocode

43

3.6 Some Examples on Pseudocoding

44

3. 7 Questions

57

Object Oriented Programming (OOP)

36

59

4.1 Introduction

59

4.2 The Object Model

60

4.2.1 Objects

60

4. 2.2 Properties

61

4.2.3 Methods

62

4.2.4 Events

64

4.2.5 Classes

66

4.3 The Object Oriented Terminology

69

4.3.1 Encapsulation

69

4.3.2 Inheritance

71

4.4 Questions

72

CHAPTER FIVE

Introduction to Integrated Development

Environment (IDE)

75

5.1 Installing Visual Basic .NET 2005

75

5.2 The Visual Basic 2005 IDE

75

5.2.2 The New Project Dialog

77

5.2.3 The IDE main window

78

5.3 Creating your first Visual Basic (VB)

81

Project

CHAPTER SIX

5.4 Saving Your Application

85

5.5 Running your Windows Form

86

5.6 Questions

89

Introduction to Controls

91

6.1 The Windows Form Control

91

6.2 The Button Control

92

6.2.1 Button's appearance and properties

92

6.2.2 Events

99

6.3 The Label Control

116

6.3.1 Label Control 's appearance and

117

properties
6.3.2 Events
6.4 The TextBox Control
6.4.1 TextBox Controls appearance and

118
126
126

properties
6.4.2 Events

130

6.4.3 Methods

135

6.5 The MsgBox Statement

136

6.5.1 The syntax for MsgBox Statement

136

6.5.2 The Message Box buttons

139

6.5.3 The Message Box Icons

141

6.5.4 Mixing the Message Box Buttons

and the Message Box Icons
6. 6 Questions

APPENDIX

Appendix A
Installing of Visual Basic .NET 2005

144
148

151