9780321398000

"I have never reviewed a book I enjoyed as much as this one. Excellent coverage, perfect for the intended audience. Concise, clear, accurate descriptions. This is a winner." Ken Getz, MCW Technologies, LLC Master Visual Basic 2005 by Building a Complete, Production-Quality Application from Start-to-Finish! This book is the fastest, best way for experienced programmers to truly master real-world Visual Basic 2005 development. You wonrs"t just learn syntax and features: yours"ll build a complete, robust, data-driven application. Yours"ll put Visual Basic 2005 to work in solving real business problems, overcoming the practical challenges of building production systems, and you will learn to see Visual Basic 2005 projects as they were intendedas complete, cohesive solutions. Patrickrs"s engaging style and crystal-clear explanations will help you stay focused, learn fast, and apply what yours"ve learned. bull; Master every stage of the application lifecycle and every step in the development process bull; Walk through all facets of database design and ADO.NET data access bull; Create advanced Windows applications with Windows Forms and Web applications with ASP.NET 2.0 bull; Make the most of classes, inheritance, and other object-oriented Visual Basic 2005 features bull; Effectively utilize data types, generics, error processing, XML, GDI+, and many other language and platform features bull; Learn how to personalize and restrict your applicationrs"s features based on user preferences bull; Determine the best way to license, localize, document, deploy, and support your application Start-to-Finish Visual Basic 2005 is the perfect tutorial for existing Visual Basic programmers moving to Visual Basic 2005, programmers moving from other traditional procedural languages, and experienced Visual Basic .NET/2005 programmers who want to deepen their skills in developing entire projects. Tim Patrick is a software architect and developer with nearly 25 years of experience in designing and building custom software solutions. As a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, he spends his days writing Visual Basic 2005 applications. Tim is the author of The Visual Basic Style Guide and The Visual Basic .NET Style Guide, and co-author of Visual Basic 2005 in a Nutshell and Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook. The companion website (www.awprofessional.com/titles/0321398009) contains the complete software application and source code for the book, plus chapter-specific versions showing each step of the sample projectrs"s construction. The code was written to work with every edition of Visual Studio 2005, Visual Basic 2005, and SQL Server 2005, including Microsoftrs"s free Express editions.

Preface	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xix
About the Author	p. xxi
Introducing NET	p. 1
Introducing Visual Basic	p. 35
Introducing the Project	p. 91
Designing the Database	p. 115
.NET Assemblies	p. 157
Data and Data Types	p. 187
Windows Forms	p. 231
Classes and Inheritance	p. 275
Error Processing	p. 317
ADO.NET	p. 339
Security	p. 369
Operator Overloading	p. 401
XML	p. 437
Application Settings	p. 471
Files and Directories	p. 499
Generics	p. 521
GDI+	p. 553
Localization and Globalization	p. 597
Printing	p. 627
Reporting	p. 661
Licensing Your Application	p. 697
Web Development	p. 735
Adding Online Help	p. 771
Deployment	p. 791
Project Complete	p. 817
Installing the Software	p. 825
Software License Agreement	p. 829
Index	p. 831
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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Preface PrefaceWelcome toStart-to-Finish Visual Basic 2005! I know you're going to enjoy it; I've read it five times already. You're probably anxious to get to Chapter 1, but I recommend you read this preface to make sure you paid for the right book. Who Is Reading This Book?Writing a book is a lot like writing a Visual Basic application. Well, except for the parts about finding a publisher and working with an editor. And then there's that pesky rule about correct spelling. Come to think of it, they're really quite different. But in one way, books and programs are similar: They are both written to meet the needs of the user. When writing software applications, the user's needs drive the organization and features of the final program. When writing a book, like the one you're looking at now, the needs of the user--that's you, the reader--drive the organization and features of the final text.So it was with you in mind that I set out to write this book. Oh, there's the fame and the prestige, but it's really about you. You, the person who seeks to understand Visual Basic and the .NET Framework on which it is built. When I thought about you and your needs, I came up with these ideas: You might know how to program, but maybe not.In the programming world, there are four types of people: (1) those who already program joyfully; (2) those who don't program, but will learn it and love it; (3) those who don't program, but will learn it and struggle; and (4) those who should return this book immediately to the bookstore. If you are in one of the first three groups, this book is definitely for you. I believe that anyone who can break down a task into its basic step-by-step instructions can successfully program in Visual Basic. If you are unsure about your ability to quantify tasks in this way, you might want to start out with a book on basic programming concepts. One example is Dan Appleman'sHow Computer Programming Works(Apress, 2000). You might know how to program in Visual Basic or .NET, but maybe not.And that's OK, because this book will teach you. Most of the chapters introduce important topics in Visual Basic and .NET development, like object-oriented programming concepts, or using the different types of variables available to you, or interacting with a database. If you already know how to use Visual Basic 6 or earlier, that's great, but it's not a prerequisite. You want to write programs. Most programming books teach you to write code in ten-line increments. At least that's what's scattered throughout their pages. I've put some of those "code snippets" in this book. But I spend my days writing real programs, not ten-line sample programs. If you want to write whole programs, you should learn using whole programs. And so I also put a program in my book--a whole program. Over the next several hundred pages, I will develop a real program--a database for a small library--and you will write it with me.I put all of these ideas into 25 easy-to-read chapters and had Addison-Wesley glue the pages together for your convenience. When you reach the index, you will have learned how to write complete programs in Visual Basic and .NET. It will be a programming adventure, so let's get started! What's in This Book?Since we are going to be spending a lot of time together, you probably want to know something about me. Well, my name is Tim Patrick, and I live just up the street from the big Microsoft campus. I've been writing programs for nearly 25 years. I spend my days writing custom database-oriented Visual Basic applications for small- to me

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Start-to-finish Visual Basic 2005

Start-to-finish Visual Basic 2005

0321398009

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