Lesson 1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Visual Basic 2015 is the version of Visual Basic introduced by Microsoft in 2015. Microsoft has added many new features particularly those features for building mobile applications. Visual Basic 2015 is a full-fledged Object-Oriented Programming(OOP) Language implemented in the .NET Framework.  Visual Basic 2015 is bundled together with other Microsoft Programming languagesC++, F#, JavaScript, Python and more in an IDE called Visual Studio Community 2015.

Although Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2017, you can still download Visual Studio Community 2015 from the following link.

https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/older-downloads/

After clicking the link about, you will be asked to enter your Microsoft username and password. Next, the following window will appear, as shown in Figure 1.1

Select Visual Studio Express 2015 for Windows Desktop and then click the download button. After the installation file is downloaded, click on it to install VS Express 2015.

1.2 Visual Studio Community 2015 Start Page

When you first launch  Visual Studio Community 2015, the following start Page appears, as shown in Figure 1.2

Now click on New Project under Start to launch the New Project window, as shown in Figure 1.3

In the New Project window, you can build many kinds of applications using different programming languages. They are Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual F#, JavaScript, Python and more. As we are only dealing with Visual Basic, we shall click on Visual Basic Windows Form Application. Before you continue, enter the application name at the bottom. Change the default name WindowsApplication1 to My First VB2015 project.

1.3 Visual Basic Community 2015 Integrated Development Environment

Upon clicking Windows Form Application, the  Visual Basic Community 2015 Integrated Development Environment appears, as shown in Figure 1.4. You can see that the name of the project you entered earlier appears on the top right corner of the IDE.

Visual Basic  Community 2015 IDE comprises a few windows, the Form window, the Solution Explorer window and the Properties window. It also consists of a toolbox which contains many useful controls that allow a programmer to develop his or her Visual Basic 2015 programs.

Now, we shall proceed to show you how to create your first program in Visual Basic 2015. First, change the text of the form to My First VB2015 Program in the properties window, it will appear as the title of the program. Next, insert a button and change its text to Show Message. The design interface is shown in Figure 1.5

Click on the Show Message button to bring up the code window and enter the following statement between Private Sub and End Sub procedure, as shown in Figure 1.6

When you run this program and click on the show Message button, you should get the following popup message box.

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The function MsgBox is a built-in function of Visual Basic 2015 and it will display the text enclosed within the brackets. Now you have created your first program in Visual Basic 2015, we shall learn more Visual Basic 2015 programming techniques in coming lessons.