User Form and Toolbox

The User Form

The first thing that you should familiarize yourself with in the Visual Basic .NET programming language is the user form. The user form is the box where you can add all sorts of features. On older versions of Visual Basic, the user form has dots on it. The user form acts as a basic interactive tool between the programmer which is you and the one who will use the program.

The image above is the user form. It is the basic frame where the programmer and the user interact.

You can add so many features and objects on your user form. These things are more commonly referred to as controls. Controls are such things like textboxes, comboboxes, option buttons, etcetera... You will learn more about certain controls in this chapter and the later chapters.

The Toolbox

Your Visual Basic program is equipped with a toolbox. You can access your toolbox anytime and manipulate your forms, controls, modules, etcetera... Simply click on a control and add it to your user form so that your user can access it when your program is run.

Shown above is an image of a basic toolbox in Visual Basic. You can see the general tools that are made available to you. You can manipulate your user form with any of the tools that are available.

The controls that are going to be discussed in this chapter are the most basic. They are the label, the textbox, and the command button.

Just click on the corresponding buttons on your Toolbox to access the controls. Shown above are the respective buttons.