Programming Visual Basic .NET is the complete guide to application development using Visual Basic .NET. Targeted at programmers with some prior programming experience, the book covers the major areas of application development for Microsoft's new .NET platform.
After starting with the traditional "hello world" application, the book discusses the two basic building blocks of any .NET application built with Visual Basic--the Visual Basic .NET programming language and the .NET Framework.
Topics covered include:
Visual Basic language elements
Visual Basic's object-oriented language features
Programming with attributes
The Common Language Runtime
Garbage Collection and the Finalize and Dispose methods
Programmatically reading from and writing to .NET configuration files
The remainder of the book focuses on the three major kinds of applications that can be developed with the .NET Framework: Windows Forms applications, ASP.NET applications, and web services. In each case, the book shows you how to build an application using Visual Studio .NET as well as using a text editor and the VisualBasic command-line compiler. This gives you an "under the hood" look at what Visual Studio is doing and allows you to gain a greater understanding of how a .NET application works--an understanding that you can take advantage of in building your own applications. Individual development topics covered in these chapters include:
Developing Multiple Document Interface (MDI) Windows Forms applications.
Handling form and control placement and resizing
Working with Windows Forms menus
Working with Windows Common Dialogs
Taking advantage of .NET printer services programmatically
Using ASP.NET HTML controls and Web controls
Understanding security in ASP.NET
Creating, discovering, and consuming web services
Accessing data in your .NET applications using ADO.NET
Published just in time for the first release of Visual Studio .NET,Programming Visual Basic .NET is sure to become a key component of developers' .NET libraries.
Chapter 1 Introduction
What Is the Microsoft .NET Framework?
What Is Visual Basic .NET?
An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
Chapter 2 The Visual Basic .NET Language
Source Files
Identifiers
Keywords
Literals
Types
Namespaces
Symbolic Constants
Variables
Scope
Access Modifiers
Assignment
Operators and Expressions
Statements
Classes
Interfaces
Structures
Enumerations
Exceptions
Delegates
Events
Standard Modules
Attributes
Conditional Compilation
Summary
Chapter 3 The .NET Framework
Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and Common Language Runtime (CLR)
Common Type System (CTS)
Portions of the CLI
Modules and Assemblies
Application Domains
Common Language Specification (CLS)
Intermediate Language (IL) and Just-In-Time (JIT) Compilation
Metadata
Memory Management and Garbage Collection
A Brief Tour of the .NET Framework Namespaces
Configuration
Summary
Chapter 4 Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
Creating a Form
Handling Form Events
Relationships Between Forms
MDI Applications
Component Attributes
2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
Printing
Summary
Chapter 5 Windows Forms II: Controls, Common Dialog Boxes, and Menus
Common Controls and Components
Control Events
Form and Control Layout
Common Dialog Boxes
Menus
Creating a Control
Summary
Chapter 6 ASP.NET and Web Forms: Developing Browser-Based Applications
Dave Grundgeiger is a senior software engineer at Esker Software . Dave's research interests include artificial intelligence, with particular interests in both natural language processing and robotics. He is especially interested in AI techniques that facilitate human-like interaction with computers. Dave has written for MSDN Magazine and C/C++ Users Journal and is the author of O'Reilly's Programming Visual Basic .NET and CDO & MAPI Programming with Visual Basic.
