Example program 2 -
Address Program
The code for the program below will allow the user to enter
various pieces of information. It will then use the information
in these form controls to create a message box with all their
information in.
Interface
Code when btnDisplay clicked
MessageBox.Show("Address Details" & vbNewLine & "Street: " & txtNumber.Text & " " &
txtStreet.Text & vbNewLine & "Town/City: " & txtTown.Text & vbNewLine &
"County: " & txtCounty.Text & vbNewLine & "Postcode: " & txtPostcode.Text)
This is what happens when the button is clicked:
You can concatenate (join together) controls with strings in
a MessageBox.Show() command. In the address
example MessageBox.Show("Street: " & txtnumber.Text &
" " & txtStreet.Text & vbNewLine & "Town/City: " +
txtTown.Text) will combine the strings “Street” and
“Town/City” with the form controls txtNumber, txtStreet and
txtTown.
vbNewLine is used to start a new line when it is displayed on
screen.
Outputting Data - List
Boxes
One of the other methods of outputting data is through a list
box.
To add data to a list box you need to use the following code:
Listboxname.Items.Add(Data to add to list box)
Consider the following interface:
To add the name entered and the email address entered to
the list box when the button is clicked you need the following
code:
Code when btnAdd clicked
lstOutput.Items.Add(txtName.Text & vbTab & txtEmail.Text)
This is what happens when the button is clicked:
You can add multiple rows of data to a list box. You can
simply change the information in the text boxes and click the
button again. vbTab is used to put a tab space between the
two pieces of data.
Sometimes when you use list boxes it makes it difficult to
make the formatting look neat, this is shown in the
screenshot above where the data is not lined up. To
overcome this problem you can use a list view.
With a list view box you can add columns and headings to
make it look like a table, like the example shown below:
When you add a list view control, you have to change a
property to get it to work. Change the view from Large
Icon to Details, like shown below:
The code for when the button is clicked needs to follow the
following format:
LISTVIEWBOXNAME.Items.Add(New ListViewItem({COLUMN1, COLUMN2, COLUMN3, COLUMN4,
COLUMN5}))
For this example, the code would be:
lstOutput.Items.Add(New ListViewItem({txtName.Text, txtEmail.Text}))
This is because there are only two pieces of information,
therefore you only need to fill in the information you want in
two of the columns.
As well as adding code for when the button is pressed, you
also need to add the column headings when the form loads.
You should double click on the form itself and add the code
in this subroutine. The format of the code for the column
headings is:
LISTVIEWBOXNAME.Columns.Add(“Text”, Size , Alignment)
In this example as there are two headings the code would
be:
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles
MyBase.Load
lstOutput.Columns.Add("Name", 150, HorizontalAlignment.Left)
lstOutput.Columns.Add("Email", 250, HorizontalAlignment.Left)
End Sub
