Introduction

In the first chapter, you have seen how easy the Application wizard is to use. Although creating a program without the Application wizard is not difficult, you need to understand VB's environment a little more.

The New Project Window

The New Project Window appears when you first start Visual Basic or when you select File, New Project. Throughout this tutorial, you'll begin most new applications from the New Project Window.

The Toolbar

The toolbar provides quick access to commonly used commands in the programming environment. You click a button on the toolbar once to carry out the action represented by that button. VB has a total of four toolbars.

• Debug: This toolbar appears when you use the interactive debugging tools to trace and correct problems.
• Edit: This toolbar aids your editing of VB code.
• Form Editor:This toolbar helps you adjust objects on forms.
• Standard:This toolbar is the default toolbar that appears beneath the menu bar.

By default, the Standard toolbar is displayed when you start Visual Basic. Additional toolbars for editing, form design, and debugging can be toggled on or off from the Toolbars command on the View menu or right click the standard toolbar and select Customize from the popup menu that appears.

Do rest your mouse cursor over a button that you don't recognize to see a pop-up screen tip message.