Providing programmers and developers of all skill levels with a comprehensive tutorial and reference to Visual Basic (VB) 2008, Microsoft MVP Rod Stephenspresents a broad, solid understanding of essential topics on the latest version of VB. He explains the forms, controls, and other objects that VB furnishes for building applications in a modern windows environment. Plus, he examines the powerful development environment that makes VB such a productive language, and he delves into the VB language itself to show you how to use it to perform an array of important development tasks.

New examples and extensively revised and retested code that complies with the 2008 release help you obtain a firm understanding of VB 2008. Extensive appendixes prove to be particularly useful to help you translate from the languages you already know into the corresponding VB syntax. Ultimately, you'll find coverage of the technologies you need in order to build sophisticated applications with VB 2008.

What you will learn from this book

• Extension methods for adding new features to existing classes

• How to select and use Windows Forms Controls for a specific purpose

• Tips for using subroutines and functions to break a program into manageable pieces

• Techniques for error handling and debugging

• Various important classes and objects to use when building an application

• How to use the graphics device interface routines to draw images in VB

• Ways an application interacts with its environment

Who this book is for

This book is for programmers who are looking to explore the latest features of the new release of Visual Basic. No prior experience with earlier versions of Visual Basic is necessary.

Wrox Professional guidesare designed to give the experienced developer straight facts on a new technology, without hype or unnecessary explanations.  They deliver hard information with plenty of practical examples to help you apply new tools to your development projects today.

Rod is a Microsoft Visual Basic Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and ITT adjunct instructor. He has written 18 books that have been translated into half a dozen different languages, and more than 200 magazine articles covering Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, Delphi, and Java. He is currently a regular contributor to DevX ( www.DevX.com ).

Rod ’ s popular VB Helperweb site www.vb-helper.com receives several million hits per month and contains thousands of pages of tips, tricks, and example code for Visual Basic programmers, as well as example code for this book.

Introduction.

Part I: IDE.

Chapter 1: Introduction to the IDE.

Chapter 2: Menus, Toolbars, and Windows.

Chapter 3: Customization.

Chapter 4: Windows Form Designer.

Chapter 5: WPF Designer.

Chapter 6: Visual Basic Code Editor.

Chapter 7: Debugging.

Part II: Getting Started.

Chapter 8: Selecting Windows Forms Controls.

Chapter 9: Using Windows Forms Controls.

Chapter 10: Windows Forms.

Chapter 11: Selecting WPF Controls.

Chapter 12: Using WPF Controls.

Chapter 13: WPF Windows.

Chapter 14: Program and Module Structure.

Chapter 15: Data Types, Variables, and Constants.

Chapter 16: Operators.

Chapter 17: Subroutines and Functions.

Chapter 18: Program Control Statements.

Chapter 19: Error Handling.

Chapter 20: Database Controls and Objects.

Chapter 21: LINQ.

Chapter 22: Custom Controls.

Chapter 23: Drag and Drop, and the Clipboard.

Chapter 24: UAC Security.

Part III: Object-Oriented Programming.

Chapter 25: OOP Concepts.

Chapter 26: Classes and Structures.

Chapter 27: Namespaces.

Chapter 28: Collection Classes.

Chapter 29: Generics.

Part IV: Graphics.

Chapter 30: Drawing Basics.

Chapter 31: Brushes, Pens, and Paths.

Chapter 32: Text.

Chapter 33: Image Processing.

Chapter 34: Printing.

Chapter 35: Reporting.

Part V: Interacting with the Environment.

Chapter 36: Configuration and Resources.

Chapter 37: Streams.

Chapter 38: File-System Objects.

Chapter 39: Windows Communication Foundation.

Chapter 40: Useful Namespaces.

Part VI: Appendices.

Appendix A: Useful Control Properties, Methods, and Events.

Appendix B: Variable Declarations and Data Types.

Appendix C: Operators.

Appendix D: Subroutine and Function Declarations.

Appendix E: Control Statements.

Appendix F: Error Handling.

Appendix G: Windows Forms Controls and Components.

Appendix H: WPF Controls.

Appendix I: Visual Basic Power Packs.

Appendix J: Form Objects.

Appendix K: Classes and Structures.

Appendix L: LINQ.

Appendix M: Generics.

Appendix N: Graphics.

Appendix O: Useful Exception Classes.

Appendix P: Date and Time Format Specifiers.

Appendix Q: Other Format Specifiers.

Appendix R: The Application Class.

Appendix S: The My Namespace.

Appendix T: Streams.

Appendix U: File-System Classes.

Appendix V: Index of Examples.

Index.