INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL STUDIO 2010

Visual Basic 2010 is the latest version of Visual Basic launched by Microsoft in 2010. It 

is almost similar to Visual Basic 2008 but it has added many new features. Visual Basic 

has gone through many phases of development since the days of BASIC that was built 

for DOS. BASIC stands for Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
The 

program code in Visual Basic resembles the English language. Different software 

companies had produced many different versions of BASIC for DOS, such as Microsoft 

QBASIC, QUICKBASIC, GWBASIC, and IBM BASICA and more. Then, Microsoft 

launched the first graphical BASIC, Visual Basic Version 1 in 1991. It is GUI based and 

especially developed for MS window. Since then Microsoft slowly phased out the DOS 

versions of BASIC and completely replaced them by Visual Basic.  

Visual Basic was initially a functional or procedural programming language until the 

popular Visual Basic 6. Then, Microsoft transformed Visual Basic into a more powerful 

object oriented programming language by launching Visual Basic.Net, Visual Basic 

2005, Visual Basic 2008 and the latest Visual Basic 2010. Visual Basic 2010 is a full-

fledged Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Language; it has caught up with other 

OOP languages such as C++, Java, C# and others. However, you do not have to know 

OOP to learn VB2010. In fact, if you are familiar with Visual Basic 6, you can learn 

VB2010 effortlessly because the syntax and interface are almost similar. Visual Basic 

2010 Express Edition is available for free download from the Microsoft site as shown 

below:

Download Visual Studio 2010

The Start Page  

When you launch Visual Basic 2010 Express, you can see the start page of the 

Integrated Development Environment, as shown in Figure :-

The IDE consists of a few panes, namely:   

   

• The Recent Projects Pane- it shows the list of projects that you have created 

recently.  

  

• The Get Started Pane- It provides some helpful tips so that you can quickly 

develop your new application. 

• The Latest News pane- It provides latest online news about Visual Basic 2010 

Express. It will announce new releases and updates. 

 Besides that, it also shows two icons, New Project and Open Project

The New Project Dialog  

 When you click on the New Project icon, the Visual Basic 2010 New Project dialog will 

appear, as shown in Figure :-

The Dialog box offers you five types of projects that you can create. They are Windows 

Form Application, WPF Application, Console Application, Class Library and WPF 

Browser Application. As we are going to create a standard Windows application, we will 

select Windows Forms Application. At the bottom of this dialog box, you can change the

default project name WindowsApplication1 to some other name you like, for example, 

MyFirstApplication. After you have renamed the project, click OK to go into the 

Designer interface. 

The Designer Interface  

The VB2010 IDE Designer interface is shown in Figure 1.3. The Designer consists of 

the Menu bar, the Toolbars, an empty Form, the Solution Explorer and the 

Properties Window.  

The VB2010 Designer environment that appears on your PC or laptop might not be the 

same here, depending how you customize it. You can customize your interface by 

dragging the windows and dock them or let them float. You can also hide them. To dock 

a window, you drag its title bar and drag it to the side, top or bottom of the workspace or 

another window. In Figure shown below, we have dragged the Solution Explorer and the 

Properties Window to the side and docked them. You can also resize the docked 

window by dragging the side of the window. To free up and float the docked window, 

you just drag its title bar and move it away from the edge of the workspace. 

If you do not see a particular window such as the properties window, you can click on 

the View menu and click the name of the window, that particular window will appear. 

 Form-

The Form is the first place to build your application. It is the place to design the user interface. 

 Solution Explorer -

The solution explorer displays a list of projects, files and other components that you can easily browse and access.

 Properties Window-

 This is the place to set the properties of the objects in your application. The objects include the default form and the controls you place in the form. We will learn more about setting properties later.  

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