Talk:Visual Basic

How to use this talk page
Just a couple of suggestions: kwhitefoot 06:50:07, 2005-08-26 (UTC)
 * please sign everything with four tilde characters like this ~ so that it is easier to tell who says what to whom.
 * Please be as specific as possible when complaining that the book is inadequate so that effort can be better focussed,
 * consider putting placeholder chapter headings in the actual book. I watch the contents page and all the pages I edit so I'll see the placeholders and try to expand them,
 * If you just change the spelling of a few words or correct some grammar here and there please mark it as a minor edit.

Guidelines for contributors
--kwhitefoot 18:14, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Please capitalize VB code as in the VB IDE.
 * Remember that the book is about programming in VB Classic not VB.Net.
 * Prefix the names of all images with Visual Basic Classic. Please fix any instances that fail to follow this 'rule'.
 * The book is laid out like a printed b ook, everything is at the same level except for main page.  If you follow the Next link in the navigation template you should visit all the pages in the same order as they are found in the table of contents.

To Do

 * Rework the contents page in Python style perhaps. kwhitefoot 13:34:41, 2005-09-04 (UTC)
 * Add previous, next and Up navigation to each page using the prognav template? kwhitefoot 13:34:41, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

Too much like an encyclopaedia articla
This seems more like a Wikipedia explaination than a wikibooks lesson. I came looking to learn something, but went away with a description. HELP! -Jeshii 03:34, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Probably too late for you, but it is getting better. kwhitefoot 06:50:07, 2005-08-26 (UTC)

Reply Yeah.. It does look like a encyclopedic article rather than a book. But I'll try to add more examples to make it more tutorial-ish.EugeneH 20:42, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) Okay. I'll probably add a new section in the future if I have time...

Added some
I added the getting started section, this is my first Wiki work, so I hope I didn't mess anything up.

Moving
I think the Data types should have their own chapter. Beginner programmers shouldn't need to know it right away, and in depth like that should be saved for later in the book. Maybe after Data I/O?

Beginner's book?
I think this book is way too hard for a beginner... They will soon lose interest. Maybe this book should have more on GUI(Graphical user interface), since that's what VB is mostly used for. If we really want to make this book an easy tutorial, a lot must be rewritten. At least the structure of the tutorial should look like something to this effect:

Introduction - what's the advantages and disadvantages of vb? (in layman's terms) VB is made to be very convenient and user-friendly. Tell them you can make a program in 5 minutes. What is event-driven programming? Give the reader some ideas about it. Take some screenshots. List some cool things VB is good at. i.e. games, applications with heavy GUI, APIs(you can use APIs to make beeping noise etc.)

Exercise 1: Hello world How to create,save and compile your first program in VB Using Print statement to print "hello world" extension: using message boxes, using input boxes to make hello world

Exercise 2: Make a calculator Tell them what they should know: Buttons, Click events, Variables (simple data types), Some built-in functions they need. After they're done, tell them what else they could add to make it better.

Exercise 3: Simple text editor Tell readers what they need to know: Components - learn about rich text boxes More about functions, subroutines How to improve

Exercise 4: First game Introduce: Keyboard events, pictureboxes, shapes, imageboxes, timer movement, game loop, random numbers(rnd and randomize),Types extension: music,winsock(for multiplayer games),classes(OOP)

Exercise 5: how to make an extremely annoying program more on APIs, GUI, ... ...


 * sigh* but you almost have to change everything...

its not impossibble
Thats where I was going with the getting started, learning how to print. This does need to cater more to beginners, however, the advanced content should stay. Just as learning anything goes, it should be progressively harder. If you want to extend the "getting started" area with some examples, go ahead. After giving the user an idea of the VB layout and uses, then they can get into the advanced of loops and such. Once I do some more I hope to make alot more reference programs, like the blast effect and such. I appreciate your contribution though, but maybe we should have some direction? Are you OK with you making the Beginners area more extensive, and I go on with Loops and Data and all the good stuff? Also, we should add programs to the end of each section, showing a common application of the learned technique.

okay I'll extend the beginner's sections. The "visual" part. I think we should have more of those since VB is made for rapid application development... But the fundamentals certainly can't be ignored.

Just some standards
I got rid of any mention of file numbers in I/O, just thought it was confusing, also never heard the use of file number before :P Replaced it with channel number instead. Just keep this in mind when adding more for the sake of the reader. Any ideas on other things to make standard, so we're not using a bunch of different terms to confuse the reader?

yes Yeah that's fine with me. I'll let you know in the future before changing any terms. I never heard of channels before either. But that makes it easier for the readers.

Another note we need to make a standard for picture box names. I feel "pic" works fine, so if its ok with you, ALWAYS use pic.print and what not.

hmmm pic is fine for a picture box, but when "Printing", it's easier to type "print" than "pic.print". :/ It just "prints" on the current Form instead of a picture box. So why don't we all use print?

nah I always thought that was sloppy and hard to read, pic.print is only 4 letters more :P

Random Numbers
Shouldn't the random numbers section mention "ranzomize"? -Joshtek (from other Wikipedia)

This may be rather basic, but shouldn't you tell them how to find/get a Visual Basic editor?

Credits and permissions
Not sure how material lifted from other works should be acknowledged but it seems a good idea to actually record any documentation regarding permissions.
 * This is now collected on Credits and Permissions. --kwhitefoot 17:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

GUI Computing Pty Ltd/Mark Trescowthick
Copy of email giving permission for use of coding standards and forum content.

Kevin,

In answer to both emails.

1. Copyright. All we would require is a general statement on the contents page, we certainly wouldn't wish the effort on you of somehow trying to keep track of AVDF content page by page... that would render it pretty much unusable I should have thought! A link to avdf.com would be nice if that doesn't cause any stress.

2. Licensing. Having reviewed your licensing arrangements, I can confirm that GUI Computing Pty Ltd, owner of all copyrights in the material contained both on avdf.com and in the GUI Coding standards, agrees for you to use our above referenced work under terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

3. Contribution. Keep me in the loop as the project moves forward. I shall mention it to my developers at our next meeting... these days, of course, most of them are .NET hotshots who consider VB "legacy", but there are a couple who might be interested.

Finally, if you need anything in addition to the above, please yell.

All the best,

Mark

> -Original Message- > From: Kevin Whitefoot [mailto:kwhitefoot@hotmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2005 4:31 AM > To: Mark Trescowthick > Cc: kwhitefoot@hotmail.com > Subject: RE: Visual Basic Classic WikiBook > >  > I've just skimmed the coding standards document. I think > that it would be > perfect addition. It is similar in many ways to the corporate coding > standards in force (though not enforced) at the company where > I work. I > can't use ours without rephrasing it completely because in such a big > company there is no one with the authority to allow it, > anyway, your's is > much better written. > > The Wikimedia project is a bit paranoid about copyrights and > so on so at > risk of sounding ridiculously finicky I think I should ask > for an explicit > statement from you that you are willing for the work to be > relicensed under > the GFDL. Here is an excerpt from the Wikibooks boilerplate > request for > permission > (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Boilerplate_request_fo > r_permission): > > =====quote > However, we can only use your materials if you are willing to grant > permission for us to use your above referenced work under > terms of the GNU > Free Documentation License. This means anybody will have the > right to share > your materials and update them: for example, to keep up with new > information. You can read this license in full at: > http://wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License > (note: To keep things simple, we don't use Invariant > Sections, Front-Cover  > Texts, or Back-Cover Texts) > > The license also expressly protects authors "from being considered  > responsible for modifications made by others" while ensuring > that authors > get credit for their work. There is more information on our > copyright policy > at: > http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Copyrights > =====end quote > >  > Kevin Whitefoot > > ---

Elliot Spencer
From : 	Elliot Spencer  Sent : 	11 September 2005 13:48:26 To : 	"'Kevin Whitefoot'"  Subject : 	RE: VB tutorials You're welcome to use those bits from my site Kevin, I swapped over to DotNet as soon as it came out so I don't use vb6 anymore, haven't for quite some time. Sorry. Regards Elliot Spencer -Original Message- From: Kevin Whitefoot [mailto:kwhitefoot@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2005 7:51 PM To: elliotspencer@ilook.fsnet.co.uk Subject: VB tutorials I'm editing the Visual Basic book on WikiBooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Visual_Basic_Classic) and I wonder if I might include some of your articles in it. Of course if you felt like contributing to the book yourself that would be even better. When I started adding to it I thought I would be one among many but it seems that VB6 programmers are a shy and retiring lot. Kevin Whitefoot. (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kwhitefoot)

Name is not descriptive of the contents
This wikibook would be better named Visual Basic 6 since that is the only version it talks about. There were five other versions of VB Classic for Windows and one for MS-DOS, so the contents of the book don't really live up to the title. The contents describe features which won't work in VBWin3 or earlier and both the 16-bit VB IDEs and the VBDOS IDE are completely different from the one described here. In order to make the book match the title you either need to add a lot more material on the different versions, or to change the title. A title change would be a lot less work.

Must admit that I like the content though. You've done a good job of describing VB6.


 * You sound like a level headed and knowledgeable person; how about lending a hand? Please at least create an account and sign your contributions with four tildes so that we can tell who says what :-)  I agree that the emphasis is on VB6 but most will work on VB5 and a lot on VB4.  As for VB3 and VB.DOS, I've never used them for more than the most trivial of tasks so i'm not really qualified.  If you could track down a tutorial on VB.DOS, VB3, etc. that is in the public domain ro get an author to relicense one then we could create several books.  --kwhitefoot 22:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Are we going to rename this book? I think you would get more interest if the focus was narrowed to just VB6, especially if the title mentioned VB6. - Bevo 22:38, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I renamed it Visual Basic Classic because it was originally just Visual Basic and I wanted to distinguish it from VB.NET. The name VB Classic seems to be quite common now but I think you have a good point because it is mostly used by those who are already expert users.  For now I'll add a redirect page that uses VB6 in the title.  You said we in your first sentence, I hope that means you intend to take part :-) --kwhitefoot 10:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

How do you search inside a Wikibook?
With all the substructure to this Wikibook, I'm having trouble figuring out how to do a search within it (all of it, not just the current page). - 65.119.52.66 19:37, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If you can think of a better structure I'm open to suggestions. And if you ever find a way of confining a search to a specific book I'm sure a lot of people would love to know.  Probably best to discuss searching on this page: Wikibooks_talk:Searching  --kwhitefoot 20:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Search normally would but include the book title. So to search for the history of Visual Basic Classic withing this book, search for "Programming:Visual Basic Classic/History".SteveSims 23:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Visual Basic Classic suggested merge
User:Hagindaz has suggested that Programming:Visual Basic Classic should be merged with VB6 Command Reference? I think that a better course would be for the contributor to VB6 Command Reference to add to Programming:Visual Basic Classic but I might be biased. --kwhitefoot 13:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I meant that VB6 Command Reference should either be added as an appendix to Programming:Visual Basic Classic, or have any useful content added to Programming:Visual Basic Classic, then redirected. I found VB6 Command Reference as an orphaned module. Since both books are on the same subject, so I don't think there is any reason to have them both exist as separate books. I'm sorry I wasn't clear, you can't add notes to merge. --Hagindaz 17:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification. I wonder if we can change the merge template to allow for a short explanation?  Anyway I added a note to the talk page of the contributor, perhaps he or she will get in touch.  --kwhitefoot 20:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've just taken a look at the merge templates. In fact they do allow for optional reason to be added.  There are also mergeto and mergefrom templates that indicate which direction the content should move.  That was something I didn't know.  I'll try the exercise of changing the modules to add a reason for the merge.  --kwhitefoot 20:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Merge completed. (There was an uncommented program that I deemed not usable and of no real importance) --Panic (talk) 07:06, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Splitting into subpages
The book has originally been written as one page. It was split into subpages during August and September 2005 by. For one of the last revisions of the book in one page, see revision 211226. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 19:24, 7 September 2012 (UTC)