8 Part I Getting Started with Microsoft Visual Basic 2010
not all) of the programming tools. Collectively, these features are the components that you
use to construct, organize, and test your Visual Basic programs. A few of the programming
tools also help you learn more about the resources on your system, including the larger
world of databases and Web site connections available to you. There are also several
powerful Help tools.The menu bar provides access to most of the commands that control the development
environment. Menus and commands work as they do in all Windows-based programs, and
you can access them by using the keyboard or the mouse. Located below the menu bar is
the Standard toolbar, a collection of buttons that serve as shortcuts for executing commands
and controlling the Visual Studio IDE. My assumption is that you’ve used Word, Excel, or some
other Windows-based application enough to know quite a bit about toolbars, and how to
use familiar toolbar commands, such as Open, Save, Cut, and Paste. But you’ll probably be
impressed with the number and range of toolbars provided by Visual Studio for programming
tasks. In this book, you’ll learn to use several toolbars; you can see the full list of toolbars at any
time by right-clicking any toolbar in the IDE.Along the bottom of the screen, you may see the Windows taskbar. You can use the taskbar
to switch between various Visual Studio components and to activate other Windows-based
programs. You might also see taskbar icons for Windows Internet Explorer, antivirus utilities,
and other programs installed on your system. In most of my screen shots, I’ll hide the taskbar,
to show more of the IDE.The following screen shot shows some of the tools and windows in the Visual Studio IDE.
Don’t worry that this screen looks different from your current development environment
view. You’ll learn more about these elements (and how you adjust your views) as you work
through the chapter.The main tools visible in this Visual Studio IDE are the Designer, Solution Explorer, the
Properties window, and the Toolbox, as shown here. You might also see more specialized
tools, such as Server Explorer and Object Browser, or they may appear as tabs within the
IDE. Because no two developers’ preferences are exactly alike, it is difficult to predict what
you’ll see if your Visual Studio software has already been used. (What I show is essentially
the “fresh download” or “out-of-the-box” view .)If a tool isn’t visible and you want to see it, click the View menu and select the tool. Because
the View menu has expanded steadily over the years, Microsoft has moved some of the less
frequently used View tools to a submenu called Other Windows. Check there if you don’t see
what you need.The exact size and shape of the tools and windows depend on how your development
environment has been configured. With Visual Studio, you can align and attach, or dock,
windows to make visible only the elements that you want to see. You can also partially
conceal tools as tabbed documents along the edge of the development environment