Introduction to the VB6 IDE

[Eevee204]

Hello, my name is Sythnet and just to give a little back to the community, I thought I'd give a brief tutorial to new users to the VB6 IDE.

NOTE: This Tutorial will benefit beginner programmers, if you're an expert I advise you don't use this.

So getting to the tutorial. First thing I'd say is that VB6 IDE stands for: Visual Basic 6 Integrated Development Environment, okay so this tutorial will be laid out in sectors, so you don't have to follow it through to understand it.

NOTE: To follow this through you must have a working copy of VB6 and have it running. If you can't get it running I advise you follow this guide written by Robin: http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/smf2/index.php/topic,68399.0.html - Although it says E 2.0.0, setting up VB6 will work the same for Eclipse 3.0 also.

1\. Adding a new form to your project.

>! When you're working on your game you may want to add a new form to your class for whatever reason, to do this you'd need to open up the the Projects section. This by default is usually on the right hand screen and looks like this:
>! If you do not see this, to open it you can simply click the icon that looks like the default VB6 icon.
>! Alright now once you have this open right-click on the folder called 'EO (Client.vbp)' and click 'Add' and then select 'Form'.
>! So you should so something like this:
>! Once you done that you should get something like this:
Click the form tab and click 'Open' and you've created a new form.
>! What you do with it now is your own business!

2\. Using a toolbox to add new controls to your form

>! This here if you like can take off from section 1\. but it doesn't have to. 2\. Will explain how to add new controls to your form and allow you to use them.
>! Okay getting to it now, the toolbox will look like this:
>! If you do now see this, at the top of the screen click the Hammer and Spanner which looks like:
>! Okay so we're going to use a button for this tutorial. Simply click and drag the button onto your form or double click it to place it on the form.
>! Now if you double click it, don't panic by the code of lines that appear for that you don't need to worry about them, in between:
```
Private Sub Command1_Click()
```and```
End Sub
```
Add:
```
MsgBox ("Hi")
```
This will simple allow a message box to appear when you run it. There are other useful controls which I suggest you take a look at.

3\. Using the properties window to edit controls.

>! Now with controls there is a useful tab you can used called the Properties Window, this will allow you to edit properties of a control.
>! To open the properties windows simple click on the button at the top which looks like this:
>! and when you've done this will look like this:
>! Now if click on a control on your form (If you need to know how go back to section 2.) and the properties for that control will appear.
I'm only to going to explain a couple of basic properties to get you started.
>! (Name) - This is the name of the button, call this something related to what control and the purpose of the control; for example: btnWelcomeMSG. The btn stands for button and WelcomeMSG means it's something to do with a welcome message. This will help explain what the control does when you're working with tones of code.
>! Caption: This is the name of the control which is visible to the user, so where it says: Command1 on a new button you add, if you change the caption, it will change into whatever you change it to.
>! Visible: This is something which allows you to choose if the control starts off invisible (true) or invisible (false). You can make a control appear again by using the code; picture1.visible = true;

4\. Compiling your game.

>! Once you've finished your game/application, you can then publish it for everything to use, to do this at the top corner you'll see 'File' and near the button you'll see 'Make project.exe'. Which will look like this:
>! and when you've done this will look like this:
>! Now if you want to go about publishing it fully to the public, I'd recommend following this tutorial also by Robin. http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/smf2/index.php/topic,68370.0.html

I hope people find this useful, any other suggestions to add feel free to say.