Discussing user interfaces today. First program is due by midnight Friday. Don’t want to forget that.It’s important a user interface be pleasant to see/use. Don’t use colors with too much or too little contrast. arrange things in a logical manner. Etc.
This is one of the strengths of VB, and all the Visual (something) environments in general. Easy to take advantage of Microsoft’s existing work on interfaces.
When planning the user interface for an application, you first figure out what tasks the application will be performing, then use that to decide what objects will be performing those tasks, and finally what events will trigger action by/on those objects. After that you can develop the actual application.
Names for objects in Visual Basic are apparently not case sensitive. Didn’t realize this. That could matter in some edge cases. As long as I program like a sane human being, rather than having declarations that are identical except for case, it shouldn’t matter, but you never know.
Most Windows application design consists of one primary windows, with the potential for multiple primary windows, and secondary windows which are daughters of the current primary window. Secondary windows are also called dialog boxes.
Dialog boxes cannot normally be resized, minimized, or maximized. They have exclusive focus in the program while open. This means that a dialog box must be addressed before any other action can be taken in the program. Forms with this behavior are considered modal forms.
A displayed form which does not prevent other forms from having focus is modeless.