Learn Practical Skills At Home

Each of your comprehensive lessons includes easy-to-follow instructions that make every Visual Basic concept and technique come alive for you – step by fascinating step. Your reading assignments are challenging and engaging at the same time. A few clicks at your keyboard allow you to:

• Enjoy interactive, web-based instructional enhancements that engage students in the learning process
• Perform practice exercises and take exams online – and receive grades and helpful feedback immediately
• Move on to your next lesson and exam without delay

Choose our Correspondence (Print-based) study option if you don’t have a computer. Or choose our Online (Web-enhanced) study option for fast-track training at your PC. It’s the smart way to learn – and you’ll still receive reading assignments and study materials by mail!

Enroll online or call 1-800-535-1613 to speak with an Admission Advisor!

Meet Your Instructor

James Potter is the course author and chief instructor of The Visual Basic Programming for Windows Course. Since 1983, he has been Professor of Computer Information Systems at California State University. He is proficient in a dozen programming languages. And he is the author of more than twenty computer instruction publications.

David T. Ronan is the course technical editor. He has worked with computers for more than 25 years, including 20 years as a trainer and field service technician for IBM. He has developed many training programs for home study.

What You’ll Learn Lesson By Lesson in this Course

Lesson 1, Starting Out With Visual Basic. A history of programming languages; OOP terminology; starting and exiting Visual Basic; setting an object’s properties; the display; how to create, save, run, and stop an application.

Lesson 2, Using Controls; Writing Code. Getting help; adding, moving, sizing, and deleting a control; adding label and image controls, a command button, and a frame control; how to set and change label control properties; saving files under a different name; the code writing process; the BorderStyle property; hiding and displaying controls; the Options dialog box; the ActiveX control; how to change the Code window display; printing your results; how to make executable files.

Lesson 3, Planning Applications; Building the User Interface. Planning an OOED application; the Task, Object, Event chart; creating a layout; labeling; graphics; using color and fonts; creating the user interface; adding a text box control; the Tabindex property; locking the controls; assigning the proper access keys.

Lesson 4, Coding, Debugging & Creating Variables & Constants. The Print, Calculate Order, and Clear Screen buttons; writing equations; the VAL and Format functions; the MiniButton, MaxButton, ControlBox, and BorderStyle properties; testing and debugging; documentation; using variables to store information; declaring a variable; the Option Explicit statement; creating local, form-level, and global variable; removing and adding a file; symbolic constants.

Lesson 5, Modifying & Improving the Skateaway Sales Application. Using local land form-level variables; understanding concatenate strings; the InputBox function; using the Object Browser; the vnNewLine constant; using the default button; how to add an existing form; the dialog box; loading and displaying a form; adding a code module and a copyright form.

Lesson 6, If, Then, Else & Select Case Statements; More Controls. The selection structure; how to write pseudocode; flowcharts; logical operators; the UCase function; nested selection structures; the case form; the Select Case and Call statements; using To and Is in an Expressionlist; the math application; using icons; the option button and check box controls; coding Level 1, Level 2, addition, subtraction, and default option buttons; understanding the user-defined sub procedure.

Lesson 7, Static Variable, Looping & The Gotfocus Event. Static variables; the Verify Answer button; the GotFocus function; coding the Display summary information check box; creating the For Next, Do While, and Do Until repetition structures; how to move a control across the screen; using counters and accumulators.

Lesson 8, Using Control Arrays; Coding the Change Event; The MSGBOX. How to create a control array and set the Enabled property; how to code a control array’s Click and GotFocus events and the Change event; aligning label control contents; the MsgBox function; the Unload event.

Lesson 9, Sequential Access Data Files & Menus. Adding a list box control; adding items to a list box; setting the Sorted and the Listindex properties; creating, opening, and closing a sequential access data file; how to write records to and read records from a sequential access data file; alignment; using the printer spacing chart; using the MultiLine, ScrollBars, ScaleHeight, ScaleWidth, and SelText properties; the Resize event; accessing the Clipboard object using Clear, GetText(), and SetText.

Lesson 10, String Manipulation & Dialog Boxes. How to manipulate strings using the Left, Right, and Mid functions; the Instr function; the Common Dialog control; the Filter, Filename, and Flags properties.

Lesson 11, Coding & Completing the Text Editor Application. The Save As dialog box; the Print # statement; the CancelError property; error handling routines; the File menu’s New, Save, Print, and Open commands; the Input and LOF functions; the Unload event.

Lesson 12, Using Random Access Files & the Cole’s Playhouse Application. How to create a user-defined data type; opening, closing, initializing, writing data to, and reading data from a random access file; utilizing a control array and a random access file in an application; color constants in a code; how to pass information on to a sub-procedure.

Lesson 13, Coding a Control Array; Using Visual Data Manager. How to refer to a control in another form; clearing a record from a random access file; understanding the Trip function; database concept and terms; creating the Cole database and index; data validation rules in a table.

Lesson 14, The ADO Data Control & Code to Add, Delete & Update Records. UDA, OLE DB, and ADO; how to display database records using the ADO data control; the SQL Select command; the Recordset and Field objects and the Fields collection; understanding AddNew; Delete, and MoveNext; CancelUpdate; Update; the EOF property; Refresh.

Lesson 15, Variable Arrays, the Datagrid Control & Object Variables. Variable arrays; creating and searching one-dimensional variable arrays; computing and updating an array’s contents; two-dimensional arrays; the DataGrid control; updating database contents; creating object variables; rounding numbers.

Lesson 16, Passing Arrays & Objects to a Function; The Drag-And-Drop Feature. How to create a function; passing arrays and objects to a function; the Flags application; the DragMode and DragIcon properties; the DragDrop event; coding the New button.

Supplement: Time Management Guide. Tips and techniques for increasing your personal efficiency and optimizing the use of your time—first as a student, and later as a programmer.

Supplement: Your Career Search. The effective career search; creating your résumé; interview and other tips.