Letter to the Student

Welcome to INFO 2283: Advanced Visual Basic Programming. I have great hopes for this year’s class. You are about to enter into a sixteen-week journey and when you finish, you should be able to impress your friends and family with your newfound knowledge.

I have a few expectations of you, as adult students. If you look around you will find that your classes are made up of people from all walks of life. Our classes have men and women of all races and cultural diversity. I expect you to take advantage of the situation by learning and growing from the interaction that you will experience in these classes. You will be in classes with people who work full- or part-time, with parents and grand parents. The average age of our student population is 28 years old. Take advantage of the wisdom of those older than you and the energy of those younger. You will find fresh ideas on how to live life and improve in the area of this subject by keeping an open and active mind. We are living in exciting times and I hope that you can learn to feel some of that excitement.

I expect you to read all of your assignments, do all of your homework and participate in each class. This is not only because each of these things will effect your grade; it is because it will also make this a learning experience that will add value to your life and mine. You are here to prepare to enter the work world. That means that I will expect you to come to class on time, to earn your grades, and not to quit just because you have a bad day or week. I expect you to respect your fellow students and me and I will do the same for you. This holds especially true when it come to asking questions. There are no stupid questions except for those that you don’t ask. If you class mates ask a question that sounds silly to you, show them respect by keeping that opinion to yourself. You may have the opportunity to ask a question someday and would want that same respect.

Let’s get ready and begin our exploration into the world of computer programming.

Advanced Visual Basic

Southeast Arkansas College

Syllabus

Instructor: William M. McNew, MBA, CNE.

Office: McGeorge Hall

Phone: (870) 543-5979

Email: bmcnew@seark.edu

Grading Scale:

A: 90-100

B: 80-89

C: 70-79

D: 60-69

F: below 60

Introduction: MS Visual BASIC.NET (VB.NET) is a modern, powerful, intuitive, and advanced Windows computer language. It was designed by Microsoft engineers to work within the Windows programming environment and with it you can program anything that can be done with any other Windows based language. There is a substantial demand for programmers in industry today for people who can conveniently program in Windows languages.

The course will entail mostly hands-on teaching in the lab as well as lecture and testing. The class can also be adopted to focus on any reasonable particular needs of someone who wants to apply the language in their workplace. Much of the programming will be done in the lab and students are also encouraged to program outside lab time if they can, although that is not a mandatory requirement.

Advanced Visual BASIC is intended to be an advanced programming course using standard exe applications and more advanced database programming and design features and methods.

Prerequisite: INFO 2173 : Visual Basic Programming.

Required Text. Advanced Guide to programming with Microsoft Visual Basic.NET: by Micheal V. Ekedahl. Course Technology. © 2004.

Most of the training will focus on the book exercises and students who have a computer at home need to install the trainer CD onto their hard drive.

Evaluation: The course grade for the semester will be evaluated on 3 major tests making up 75% of the total grade and daily grades making up the other 25%.

Expectations: Students are required to be in class and on time. Assignments are due on time unless there is a family emergency. Cheating will not be tolerated. There will be no disrespect of the teacher or fellow classmates.

There will be 3 exams that count most of the grade. Daily grades are based on finishing programs in the lab in a timely manner.

The semester grade is based on the following:

25% Test 1

25% Test 2

25% Test 3

25% Daily grades (programs)

Course Description

INFO 2273: Advanced Visual Basic Programming 3 Cr. (3 Lec.)

(Prerequisite: INFO 2173 : Visual Basic Programming) This course reveals the fundamentals of event driven programming, creating data services using ADO, accessing a database with SQL and Active X Controls, and delves into intensive Multiple Document Interface Programming. Emphasis will be on specific industry demanded skills as well as Visual Basic for applications.

Naming Conventions

Abstract

When you write programs consisting of numerous variables and modules, adhering to a well-defined set of standards will make a program more readable and easier to maintain. The standards used in this syllabus are derived from the Reddick VBA Naming Conventions, naming conventions recommended by Microsoft in their reference documentation, and suggestions from other sources. In some cases, subtle differences exist between naming conventions. In these situations, the chosen prefix represents the author's interpretation of the most common and intuitive name.

The following naming conventions reflect a standardized technique to name objects. As you develop more and more applications, you will undoubtedly derive your own prefixes. The key point is to be consistent.

Object Names

Object names should begin with a prefix, which is usually three characters long, followed by the body of the object name. The body of the object name should consist of upper and lower case characters such that the first character of each word is capitalized as illustrated in the example column of Figure 1. Object names should be less than 32 characters. To adhere to variable length requirements, use standard abbreviations for words when necessary. Figure 1 lists suggested names for several Visual Basic objects

Figure 1

Object Name	Prefix	Example
ActiveX Document	doc	docCurrent
Collection	col	pcolPrinters
Control (generic)	ctl	ctlCurrent
Error	err	perrCurrentOperation
Form	frm	frmMain
Object	obj	pobjCurrent
Property Page	pag	pagGeneral
Screen	scr	scrCurrentScreen

Figure 2 lists the prefixes for several intrinsic and supported ActiveX controls:

Figure 2

Control Name	Prefix	Sample
3D Panel	pnl	pnlItems
ADO Data control	adc	adcData
Animated Button	ani	aniOpen
CheckBox	chk	chkOnOff
Combo box	cbo	cboSelectionList
Command button	cmd	cmdCancel
Common dialog	cdl	cdlFileSave
Communications	com	comModem
Data control	dat	datCurrentDB
Data-bound combo box	dbc	dbcCurrentField
Data-bound grid	dbg	dbgCurrentTable
Data-bound list box	dbl	dblCurrentField
Date Time Picker	dtp	dtpCurrentDate
Directory list box	dir	dirInitialDirectory
Drive list box	drv	drvInitialDrive
File list box	fil	filInitialFile
Flat scroll bar	fsb	fsbVertical
Frame	fra	fraOptions
Gauge	gau	gauPercentFull
Graph	gph	gphSalaryComparison
Grid	grd	grdAmortization
Horizontal scroll bar	hsb	hsbHowMany
Image	img	imgCurrent
Image Combo	ic	icList
ImageList	ils	ilsAllPictures
Internet Transfer control	itt	ittFTPClient
Key status	key	keyCapsStat
Label	lbl	lblItemPrompt
Line	lin	linSeperateSections
List box	lst	lstAllowableCodes
ListView	lvw	lvwHeadings
MAPI message	mpm	mpmMessageReceived
MAPI session	mps	mpsSession
MCI	mci	mciVideoSession
Menu	mnu	mnuFileSave
MS Flex Grid	msg	msgItems
MS Tab	mst	mstCustomerInfo
OLE	ole	oleExcelChart
Outline	out	outFileList
Pen BEdit	bed	bedName
Pen Hedit	hed	hedName
Pen ink	ink	inkDrawing
Picture	pic	picCurrentDrawing
Picture clip	clp	clpThing
Printer	prt	prtCurrentPrinter
ProgressBar	pb	pbCurrentAction
Report	rpt	rptCurrentPayroll
RichTextBox	rtf	rtfNotes
Shape	shp	shpBox
Slider	sld	sldScale
Spin	spn	spnProgress
StatusBar	sbr	sbrCurrentDatabase
TabStrip	ts	tsOptions
TextBox	txt	txtInterestRate
Timer	tmr	tmrWakeUp
Toolbar	tbr	tbrSelections
TreeView	tvw	tvwHierarchy
UpDown	upd	updDirection
Vertical scroll bar	vsb	vsbHowMany
Winsock	sok	sokSocket

In addition to Visual Basic objects, the Microsoft Jet database engine uses several objects. These objects form the Data Access Objects (DAO) hierarchy. Figure 3 lists the DAO object names.

Figure 3

Database object

Advanced Visual Basic.NET

Phone: (870) 543-5979

D: 60-69

Required Text. Advanced Guide to programming with Microsoft Visual Basic.NET: by Micheal V. Ekedahl. Course Technology. © 2004.

Naming Conventions

Abstract

Object Names

Figure 1

Object Name

Prefix

Example

Figure 2

Control Name

Prefix

Sample

Figure 3