- New: lets you create new applications by using various wizards or starting from scratch.
- Existing: lets you select and open an existing Visual Basic project.
- Recent: displays a list of Visual Basic projects you’ve recently opened or created.
When you select the icon labeled VB Application Wizard on the New tab, the wizard begins its work. The first screen that the wizard displays is an introductory title screen that explains the wizard is about to begin. As with most wizards, when you finish reading and selecting from one wizard screen, you click the Next button to display the next screen that the wizard has to offer. Figure shows the next wizard screen from which you must select an interface type.
Here are the options from which you can select:
• Multiple Document Interface (MDI) allows your application to contain multiple document windows. In effect, this interface lets you work with several sets of data in multiple windows within your program. Each document window is called a child window.
• Single Document Interface (SDI) limits your application to one open document window at a time. Most applications that you write will probably be SDI applications.
• Explorer Style lets your application take on a Windows Explorer-like interface with topic summaries in the left window and details for a selected topic in the right pane.
You can click any of the three options to read a description and see a thumbnail sketch of a sample program window. Many of your applications will contain the single document interface because many applications require only a single window with data that is open at any one time.
The Application wizard adds the menu options that you select to your application menu. The options are common Windows options found on most Windows programs. The menus will be the typical Windows drop-down type.
The ampersand (&) next to a letter in a menu name indicates the underscored accelerator key letter; in other words, &New indicates that New (notice the underscore) appears on the menu and that the user can select the option by pressing Alt+N. If you want to place an actual ampersand in the name, use two; for example, typing A&&B produces A&B.
The next wizard screen, lets you select the toolbar buttons that your application will have. As you can see, the Application wizard does a lot of work for you. By creating an initial toolbar, the wizard takes care of a lot of tedium that you would otherwise have to handle. The left window pane indicates the available toolbar buttons and the right window pane lists the buttons on your application’s toolbar. As with the menu options in the previous screen, click Next to accept all the default toolbar settings.
The next wizard screen to appear is the Resource screen from which you can elect to use resources in your program, such as Multilanguage text files. Simple programs often do not require external resources. For this example, keep the option labeled No checked and click the Next button to continue.
