How to Put a Quotation Mark in a Text String in Visual Basic

Visual Basic uses the double-quote marks (“) to indicate strings of literal text within the source code. For example:
Console.WriteLine(“This is text.”)
The quotation marks are used to indicate to Visual Basic that the text “This is text.” is not Visual Basic code, but English text designed to be printed to a user at some point. There is a special way to print out a quotation mark in a text string in Visual Basic.

Create a new project by clicking “File” and “New Project.” Choose “Console Application.” Alternatively, the same code will work in a graphical user interface, or GUI, based programs.

Enter the following code to create a string:

Dim s as String

Type the following code to fill the string with embedded quote marks and print the results to the console. Double-quotation marks within a quote will print a quote.

s = ” “”This is a quote,”” he said. ”

Console.WriteLine(s)

Console.ReadKey()

This will print out the following:

“This is a quote,” he said.

How to Set Attributes in Visual Basic

Attributes are used by Windows to keep track of special information about the role played by files. Common attributes include “read only,” which specifies that a user cannot modify a file, and “hidden,” which prevents file browsers like Explorer from displaying the file within a directory. Normally, these attributes can be set by a user in the file properties of Windows Explorer. But a programmer can modify file attributes within a Visual Basic program using the SetAttr function.

Open a new Visual Basic project by clicking “File” and “New Project.” Select “Console Application.” This brings up a code editor in which users can enter the code. They can use the same code later, without modification, in graphical user interface programs.

Change the most common file attributes, using Visual Basic shortcuts, by typing the following code:

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, vbReadOnly)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, vbHidden)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, vbSystem)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, vbNormal)

Each time you set an attribute, it overwrites the previous attribute. The above example sets the file “csv.txt” as read-only, then unsets the read-only flag and sets it as hidden, then makes it a system file, then a normal file.

Use the following code to combine attributes:

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, vbHidden + vbReadOnly + vbSystem)

This uses the “+” operator to indicate that the “csv.txt” file should be flagged as hidden, read only, and a system file.

Paste the following to set some of the more exotic attributes:

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.Archive)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.Directory)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.SparseFile)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.Encrypted)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.Compressed)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.NotContentIndexed)

SetAttr(“c:\csv.txt”, System.IO.FileAttributes.Temporary)

These attributes are rare and should be used with caution, since misuse of the attributes can cause problems for the system. Most of the entries are self-explanatory: compressed files are compressed, temporary files are meant to be temporary and quickly deleted. NotContentIndexed indicates that a file should not have its contents inspected by search utilities such as Google Desktop and Windows Search. Finally, a sparse file is an extremely large file that is usually expected to be mostly empty. Windows saves space on these files by only recording the information that has already been written to the file, then compressing the empty regions.

How to Make a Drop Down Menu in Visual Basic

Software users are accustomed to accessing the features of software applications through a series of drop-down menu options. The drop-down design uses minimal screen real estate, since it displays the top level of your menu choices until they are needed. Clicking on a top-level option drops down a list of associated menu choices that roll back up once you make your selection. Adding a drop-down menu to a Visual Basic program is a straight-forward, visual process.

Start Visual Basic by clicking “Start”>All Programs>Microsoft Visual Studio>Microsoft Visual Studio.”

Start a new project. Click “File>New>Project” to display the “New Project” dialog box. Select “Other Languages>Visual Basic>Windows” in the “Installed Templates” panel to use the Visual Basic (VB) Windows form template. Select “Windows Forms Application” and click “OK.” Start your design in the empty form displayed.

Click the “Menu Strip” component in the “Toolbox” and drop it onto your form. Click “View>Toolbox” or press “Ctrl+Alt+X” if the Toolbox panel is not visible. Locate the Menu Strip in the “Menus and Toolbars” section.

Build the menu hierarchy by responding to the visual prompts on the toolbar. Type your first menu element in the text box that says “Type Here.” Type “File,” since that is traditionally the leftmost menu item. Add an access-key combination to the menu item. Type an ampersand before the letter you want to function as the hotkey, or keyboard shortcut key (see “Tips”).

Add the remaining menu elements at the prompts, which appear to the right and bottom of the element just added. Type a hyphen where you want to draw a separator on the menu (see “Tips”).

Compile the program by pressing “F7” or clicking “Build>Build Solution.” Test your menu to ensure it works as designed.

How to Add a Scroll Bar to Visual Basic

It’s good to know how to enable scroll bars in your Microsoft Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET ) application, especially when you have users with lower screen resolution. VB.NET is a computer programming language developed by Microsoft that is fairly easy to learn and use. Scroll bars allow the user to scroll up and down or left to right on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to view a form. In a few steps you can write VB.NET code to enable horizontal and vertical scrollbars in your VB.NET application.

Start Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Express and select the “File” menu then click “New Project…” Click “Windows Forms Application” and select “OK.”

Double-click “Button” on the “Toolbox” menu to add a new button to your form. Double-click “Button1” to open the “Form1.vb” module.

Type the following inside your “Button1_Click” subroutine to show and enable the vertical scroll bar:

Me.VerticalScroll.Visible = True

Me.VerticalScroll.Enabled = True

Type the following to show and enable the horizontal scroll bar:

Me.HorizontalScroll.Enabled = True

Me.HorizontalScroll.Visible = True

Type the following to set “AutoScroll” to “True”:

Me.AutoScroll = True

Press “F5” to run your program then click “Button1” to show scroll bars.

How to Declare a Variable in Visual Basic

In programming, variables are words that are assigned to reference the locations in the computer’s memory where data can be stored. This allows programmers to give the data in their program descriptive, useful names, such as “x_position” or “acceleration.” Each programming language has its own rules for how a programmer creates (or declares) variables in that language. Microsoft’s Visual Basic is no exception, and has a number of principles used to declare variables.

Create a new project for the variable declaration experiment by clicking “File” and “New Project.” Choose the “Console Application” option, since it is the simplest to create a basic program in.

Declare a variable by pasting the following code:

Dim s as String

This defines a String (a collection of letters, numbers and punctuation marks). Notice, variable definitions begin with the “dim” keyword, are followed by the variable name, followed by “as” and the data type to be used.

This example merely declares the variable; it does not initialize it. Attempting to use this variable now would produce an error.

Declare and initialize a variable:

Dim s as String = “Hello.”

This is the same as the previous command, except s is given an initial value of “Hello” as soon as it is declared.

Paste the following shortcut:

Dim s = “Hello.”

When assigning an initial value, or initializing the variable, it is not necessary to specify a type for the variable using the “as” command. However, it is generally a good idea to do so, simply to increase the readability of the code.

How Execute VBS Script

A VBS script is a file that contains VBScript or Visual Basic Scripting codes. You can examine the script’s contents by opening the file in a text editor such as Windows Notepad or you can execute the script through Windows’ built-in Windows Scripting Host. Execute VBS scripts to make a series of changes to your system or perform quick tasks as long as you know exactly what the script does.

Run Windows Explorer from the Start menu and locate the VBS script that you wish to execute. Take note of the path where you found the VBS script by looking at the address bar. For example, if you have a VBS file found in the “Scripts” folder in drive C, your path is “C:\Scripts”.

Execute the VBS script by double-clicking the file only if you are certain that the script will not harm your system. See the warnings section below for tips regarding harmful VBS scripts.

Click the Start menu and go to “Run” if the script fails to execute or if a text editor loads instead. Type “cscript” without quotes followed by a space and then insert the path that you took note of in step 1. Press the backslash key on your keyboard and then finish it with the complete file name of the script ending with the “.vbs” extension. Enclose the entire path in quotation marks. For instance, if you have a file called “configure.vbs” located in “C:\scripts,” your command in the text box should look like this: cscript “C:\scripts\configure.vbs”. Press the “Enter” key to execute the VBS script.

Features of Visual Basic

Visual Basic (VB) is a unique computer language—at least it was when it first came out. Now there are many imitators. VB allows you to quickly and easily develop a bank of visual controls with sliders, switches and meters or a complex form for a user to fill out. It uses the BASIC language which is known to most computer programmers, and which can be learned quickly if it is not already known.

GUI Interface
VB is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) language. This means that a VB program will always show something on the screen that the user can interact with (usually via mouse and keyboard) to get a job done. The first step in building the VB program is to get the GUI items on the screen. This is done via pull-down menus that list the available graphical objects. Every system is slightly different (Mac differs from Windows and VB4 Differs from VB6) but, generally speaking, left-clicking on an object allows you to describe attributes like size and position. Right clicking allows you to write code. For example, if the GUI item is a switch, left-clicking would allow the programmer to say how big the switch was, how it was labeled and where on the screen it is positioned. Right-clicking on the switch would bring up a window that allows the programmer to write the code that describes what happens when the user clicks the switch.

Modularization
It is considered good programming practice to modularize your programs. Instead of thinking of a computer program as a single large collection of code, the good programmer writes code so that you never need to look at more code than fits on the screen (or page) at one time. If you program in modules like this, the program is easier to understand and easy to update. Updating will likely be done by someone else so it is import that the program be easy to understand. Small (page size) modules where it is clearly indicated what comes into the module and what goes out makes a program easy to understand. VB forces you to program in a modular fashion because each GUI item contains part of the code—the part that applies to that GUI item.

Object Orentation
Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is a concept where the programmer thinks of the program in “objects” (however abstract the objects may be) that interact with each other. In OOP, all the code associated with that object is in one place. Once again, VB forces this good programming practice. The GUI items are the objects and all the code associated with the object are just a click away. This natural way of enforcing good programming practices—plus the ease of programming in BASIC—is exactly why VB has found so many devoted fans.

How to Make Comments in VBS Code

Visual Basic Script code, like all programming source code, can be difficult to read and understand when left to speak on its own. Structured programming practices can improve on this somewhat, but ultimately, if a programmer wants to make sure that he will understand his own coding weeks or months later when the time comes to maintain it, he will need to use comments to explain what the code is attempting to do. Visual Basic Script supports two different comment commands. When it encounters one of these commands, Visual Basic Script assumes the rest of the line contains comments intended for the developer rather than programming code.

Begin a line within a Visual Basic Script document with “Rem” to add a basic comment, like so: Rem This is a comment.

The Rem command stands for “Remark,” and it has been around since the original BASIC programming language.

Use a single quote instead of Rem to save a few characters, instead: ‘ This is a comment as well.

Besides being faster to type, the single quote is also easier to read in multiline comments, as the below example illustrates:

Rem This is a

Rem multiline

Rem comment.

‘ This is a

‘ multiline

‘ comment.

Each of the above sets of comments is valid, but it is easier to read the second set of comments than the first.

Use either “Rem” or a single quote at the end of a line, instead. To use “Rem,” type a colon and space first:

Document write(“This is printed to the screen”) : Rem This is a comment.

Or, use the single quote with nothing separating it from the code:

Document write(“This is printed to the screen”) ‘ This is also a comment.

By inserting “: Rem” or simply a single-quote mark, you’re instructing Visual Basic Script to ignore the rest of line, leaving you free to write comments.

What Is Microsoft Visual Basic 6.5?

Over time, programs have to be updated to keep up with the changing atmosphere online and in computer hardware. This leads to different names and numbers for these evolving programs. Visual Basic 6.5 is a particular version of a programming language from Microsoft.

Visual Basic
A programming language is a code that tells a computer what to do. Visual Basic holds its roots in a programming language called Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC for short. It is the particular BASIC language developed by Microsoft, and is offered in a program that can be used to write other programs with the language.

VB to VBA
Visual Basic was developed from version 1.0 to 6.0. Version 6.0 was released in 1998. In 2001, Microsoft released its .Net line of programming resources, and Visual Basic became Visual Basic.Net. In between these releases came Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which was the language Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 were written in.

VBA 6.5
Because Visual Basic ended with 6.0, Visual Basic 6.5 actually refers the Visual Basic for Applications version 6.5. This program is no longer supported by Microsoft, but remains popular with developers who are familiar with the programming language.

How to Disable the Task Manager in VB.Net

Windows Task Manager a program included with Windows operating systems that displays application information, such as applications open, processes, services and performance of your system. Microsoft Visual Basic.NET—or VB.NET—is an object-oriented programming language engineered by Microsoft. You may want to disable Task Manager to limit users from ending applications or processes while your VB.NET application is running. In a few steps you may write VB.NET code to disable the Task Manager.

Start Microsoft Visual Basic Express and click “New Project…” on the left pane of your screen. Double-click “Windows Forms Application” to start a new project.

Double-click “Button” on the “Tools” pane. Double-click “Button1” to open the “Form1.vb” module.

Press “Ctrl” and “A” and then press “Delete” to remove code.

Copy and paste the following code to your “Form1.vb” module:

Imports Microsoft.Win32

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim systemRegistry As RegistryKey = _

Registry.CurrentUser.CreateSubKey(“Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System”)

systemRegistry.SetValue(“DisableTaskMgr”, 1)

systemRegistry.Close()

End Sub

End Class

To enable Task Manager, replace the “1” with “0” as in the following line of code:

systemRegistry.SetValue(“DisableTaskMgr”, 0)

Press “F5” to run your program and click “Button1.”