adding menus to a visual basic

8/8/2019 Adding Menus to a Visual Basic

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Adding Menus to a Visual Basic

.NET Form


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Start a new project. To your new form, use the

toolbox to add a MenuStrip control:

Double click the control to add one to yourform. When you do, you'll notice two things.

At the top of your form, you'll see this:

. Examine the bottom of your screen, on the left. You'll see this:


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This is the control itself. If you click onthis (it's highlighted above), you'll seethat the Properties box on the rightchanges.

To start building your menu, click insidethe area that says "Type Here". Type theword File:

To create items on your File menu, click

inside the Type Here box. Enter the wordNew, and press the enter key on yourkeyboard again.


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Your menu will then look like this:

The final item we'll add to our menu is an "Exit"

item. But you can add a separator between the"Save" and "Exit".


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To add a separator, click inside the blue "Type

Here" box. Instead of typing a letter, type the

minus character "-" (in between the "0" keyand the "+/=" key on your keyboard). When

you hit your return key, you'll see the

separator appear


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Adding code to a VB.NET menu

Press F7 on your keyboard to go

to the code window

Click the black arrow at the top,where it says General:

The Exit menu here is"ExitToolStripMenuItem".


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However, "ExitToolStripMenuItem" is

very difficult to remember. We canrename our menu items so that they

are more descriptive. So do this:

Get back to your form by pressing

Shift + F7 on your keyboard

On the Property window, change theProperty name to mnuExit.


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Now press F7 again to bring the code window

up. Click the drop down arrow of the General

box, and you should see the new name appear(Notice that MenuItem6 has vanished): you

can see mnuExit.

Now select the mnuExit and the event is click. There's only one line of code to add. It's this:

Me.Close( )

The word "Me" refers to the form. When yourtype the word Me, you'll see a list of items

appear.


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Add Shortcuts to your Menu Items

Underline Shortcut To add an underline, do this:

Click on your New menu item once. This will

select it Position your cursor before the "N" ofNew

Type an ampersand symbol (&)


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Add underlines for the "F" of you File menu,

the "O" ofOpen, the "S" ofSave, and the "X"

ofExit.

Run your program and try your shortcuts.


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Key combination shortcuts

In Design time, select the Exit item on your

menu

Look at the properties box on the right

Locate the ShortcutKeys item:

Click the down arrow to reveal the following:

Your Exit menu should have a Ctrl X shortcut


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A VB .NET Menu Project Add the following Main Menu items to the menu bar

you have already designed in this section: Edit

View

On your Edit Menu, place the following menu items:

Undo Cut

Copy

Paste

On your View Menu, place the following menu items:

View Textboxes

View Labels

View Image


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When you have finished, your menus

should look like these

Edit Menu

View Menu


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Code for The Open File Dialogue Box

First, place two textboxes on your form.In the properties box, locate the

MultiLine property. It is set to False by

default (which is why you can't changethe height of textboxes). Change this

value to True.

Type some default text for the TextProperty of textbox1. Change the Font

size to 14 points.


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Open up your toolbox, and locate the

control called "OpenFileDialog".

Double click the control to add one to

your project.

But notice that the control doesn't getadded to your form. It gets added to the

area at the bottom, next to your menu

control:


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On the properties window. Click on the Name

property and change the name to openFD

Access the code for your File > Open menu

item.

The Initial Directory


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The Initial Directory

openFD.InitialDirectory = "C:\"

openFD.ShowDialog()

Run your programme again, and see theresults in action. You should see the

contents of the "C" folder on your hard

drive (if you root folder is calledsomething else, change the code above).


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The Title Property

openFD.InitialDirectory = "C:\"

openFD.Title = "Open a Text File"

openFD.ShowDialog()

Run your code again, and Click File > Open

from your menu. You should see this at the

top of the Open dialogue box:


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The Open File Dialogue Box Filter

Property

We'll restrict our users to only opening Text files,those that end in the extension ".txt".

The following code (in bold) shows how to use the

filter property: openFD.InitialDirectory = "C:\"

openFD.Title = "Open a Text File"openFD.Filter = "Text Files|*.txt"

openFD.ShowDialog() Run your code. Click File > Open on your menu, and

then click the arrow on the drop down box for "Filesof Type".


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You should see this:

Or put this to see the one belowopenFD.Filter = "Text Files(*.txt)|*.txt"


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OpenFD.FileName

However, this is a property that returns a

value (a string value). The value is thename of a file. So you have to assign this

value to something. We can assign it to a

new variable:

Dim strFileName As String

strFileName = OpenFD.FileName

The value in the variable strFileName will

then hold the name of the file selected


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So change your code to this

Dim strFileName As StringopenFD.InitialDirectory = "C:\"

openFD.Title = "Open a Text File"openFD.Filter = "Text Files|*.txt"

openFD.ShowDialog()

strFileName = OpenFD.FileName

MsgBox strFileName


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Run your programme, and click your File >

Open menu. Navigate to where you have

some text files. Click one to select it. Thenclick the Open button. You should see the

name of the file displayed in your message

box:


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The SaveFileDialog Control

Double click this control to add one to your

project. If you look at the bottom of the

screen, you'll see the control added there,

rather than onto your form:


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Changed the Name property of

your control to something moremanageable. Change it to saveFD

Access the code for your File >

Save menu item. Then add the

following code:

saveFD.ShowDialog()


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Run your programme, then click your File >

Save menu item. You should see the Save As

dialogue box appear.

Just like the Open control, you can use the

properties of the Save control on your

dialogue boxes. Try changing these properties,just like you did with the Open properties:

Initial Directory

TitleFilter

FileName


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There's another useful property you can use

with the Save control - the Overwrite prompt.

When you set this property, a message boxpops up warning you that the file will be

overwritten, and do you want to continue. To

use this property, the code is this:saveFD.OverwritePrompt = True

However, just like the Open box, when you

click the Save button no file is actually beingsaved. You have to write your own code for

this.


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Cut, Copy, Paste and Undo in VB .NET

The Copy Menu If you type Textbox1 in your code window,

then a full stop, you get a list of properties

and methods available to the textbox. Scroll

up to the top and locate the Copy method:


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Your code window should look something like

this:


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The Paste Menu


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The Cut Menu

Access the code for you Cut menu item. Add

the following code to it:

TextBox1.Cut()

Run your program, and select the text in

textbox one. From your menu, click Edit > Cut.

The text should disappear (it's on the

clipboard, though). Click inside textbox two,

and click Edit > Paste. The text should bepasted over.


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The Undo Menu

For the Undo menu, add this line of code:

TextBox1.Undo()

The Edit menu we implemented is only a simple

one. But it does demonstrate what you can do

with VB.NET and menus.


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adding menus to a visual basic

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