Book VIII 1 in Visual Studio .NET

Encode UPC-A Supplement 5 in Visual Studio .NET Book VIII 1

Class modules: These contain new objects that you want to build You could use a class module to create a new data type To select an object so you can see and change its properties, highlight it in Project Explorer To open the object so you can modify it, double-click the object

Project Explorer has a number of hidden talents, which you can find by rightclicking objects to see what you can do with them For example, right-click the Microsoft_FrontPage entry at the top of Figure 1-2 to see the context menu shown in Figure 1-3

It s amazing to see what s hidden on this menu Don t worry about using all the menu entries now Each menu entry appears at least once (and probably more often) in this book The important thing to remember now is that most objects have a context menu that you can access by right-clicking or by using the Context Menu key (on a Windows keyboard, it s just to the right of the key with the Windows logo)

Because you can obtain data used in FrontPage from other Office applications, you might need to work with Word or Excel when creating a macro Nothing prevents you from creating a FrontPage macro that interacts with other applications that support VBA Sometimes, when you work with another product, you see a special entry in Project Explorer For example, when you work with a Word document, you might see a References folder, which contains any references that the Word document makes Normally the folder lists the templates that the document relies upon for formatting

In many cases, you can t modify the objects in the special folders This is the case with the References folder used by Word document objects The References folder is there for information only To modify the referenced template, you need to find its object in Project Explorer In this book, I don t discuss special objects because you normally don t need to work with them

When you look at an actual object such as an apple, you can see some of its properties say, whether it s red, green, or yellow (or, for that matter, rotten) Most objects that you click in the Visual Basic Editor have properties sets of specifications that describe the elements of the object For VBA objects, properties control how they appear on-screen for example, a button can have a caption (the text that users see when they look at the button) The following sections provide details about the Properties window (refer to Figure 1-1)

A property must describe the object When you look at an object, you naturally assume something about the information provided by a particular property For example, when describing the color of an apple, you expect to use red, yellow, or green Likewise, VBA object properties have specific types; here are some common examples: Text: This is one of the most common property types The Caption property of a form is one way text is used The text appears at the top of the form when the user opens it Logical or Boolean values: This property type determines a logical condition for the object, usually True or False For example, if a control has a Visible property and this property is set to True, the control appears on-screen Set this property to False, and the control won t appear on-screen, even though it still exists as part of the application Numeric values: Properties that use these specify how or where an object appears on-screen For example, to describe where to place a control on-screen, set the Top and Left properties to specific numeric values These values tell how many pixels are between the top and left corner of the screen and the top-left corner of the control Associated controls: Sometimes a property can display a drop-down list box from which you can choose the correct value Other properties display dialog boxes, such as the one for color shown in Figure 1-4