Visual Basic.NET How to Program (PDF)

524 Graphical User Interfaces Concepts: Part 2 Chapter 13
Outline
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Menus
13.3 LinkLabels
13.4 ListBoxes and CheckedListBoxes
13.1 Introduction
This chapter continues our study of GUIs. We begin our discussion of more advanced topics
with a frequently used GUI component, the menu, which presents a user with several
logically organized commands (or options). We discuss how to develop menus with the
tools provided by Visual Studio .NET. We introduce LinkLabels, powerful GUI components
that enable the user to click the mouse to be taken to one of several destinations.
We consider GUI components that encapsulate smaller GUI components. We demonstrate
how to manipulate a list of values via a ListBox and how to combine several checkboxes
in a CheckedListBox. We also create drop-down lists using ComboBoxes and
display data hierarchically with a TreeView control. We present two important GUI components—tab
controls and multiple-document-interface windows. These components
enable developers to create real-world programs with sophisticated GUIs.
Visual Studio .NET provides a large set of GUI components, many of which are discussed
in this chapter. Visual Studio .NET enables programmers to design custom controls
and add those controls to the ToolBox. The techniques presented in this chapter form the
groundwork for creating complex GUIs and custom controls.
13.2 Menus
13.4.1 ListBoxes
13.4.2 CheckedListBoxes
13.5 ComboBoxes
13.6 TreeViews
13.7 ListViews
13.8 Tab Control
13.9 Multiple-Document-Interface (MDI) Windows
13.10 Visual Inheritance
13.11 User-Defined Controls
Summary Terminology Self-Review Exercises Answers to Self-Review Exercises Exercises
Menus provide groups of related commands for Windows applications. Although these
commands depend on the program, some—such as Open and Save—are common to
many applications. Menus are an integral part of GUIs, because they organize commands
without “cluttering” the GUI.