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2. 2 User Interface Design Chapter McGraw-Hill
© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. Objectives (1 of 2)
Use text boxes, group boxes, check boxes, radio button, and picture boxes effectively
Set the BorderStyle property to make controls appear flat or three-dimensional
Select multiple controls and move them, align them, and set common properties
Make your projects easy for the user to understand and operate by defining access keys, setting an accept and a cancel button, controlling the tab sequence, resetting the focus during program execution, and causing ToolTips to appear

4. Objectives (2 of 2) Clear the contents of text boxes and labels.
Change text color during program execution.
Code multiple statements for one control using the With and End With statements.
Concatenate (join) strings of text.
Make a control visible or invisible at run time by setting its Visible property.

5. More Controls
Click the plus and minus signs on the tabs to open and close each section
Forms can have several different types of controls such as text boxes, group boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, picture boxes
Each class of controls has its own set of properties. To see a complete list of
the properties for any class of control, you can (1) place a control on a form and
examine the properties list or (2) click on a tool or a control and press F1 for
context-sensitive Help.

6. Text Box Allows for user input Text property
What is displayed in text box
What user entered in text box
TextAlign property or HorizontalAlignment.Left
Controls alignment of text in the text box
Use a text box control when you want the user to type some input and a form may have more than one textbox
The user can move from one box to the next, make corrections, cut and paste if desired, and click the Display button when finished
You can set the properties of textboxes or you can use code to set values for the property 7

7. Masked Text Box A specialized form of the Text Box
You can specify the format (the Mask property) of the data required of the user
For example, you can select a mask for a ZIP code, a date, a phone number, or a social security number
At run time the user cannot enter characters that do not conform to the mask

8. Group Box
Used as containers for other controls such as radio buttons and check boxes
Improves readability of form by separating the controls into logical groups
Example Names for Group Boxes
colorGroupBox
styleGroupBox 7

9. Check Box
Allows the user to select or deselect one or more items in any group
Checked property
Checked = True
Unchecked = False
Use the Text property for the text you want to appear next to the box
Example names for Check Boxes
boldCheckBox
italicCheckBox 10

10. Radio Button User may select only one in any group
First create a group box and then create each radio button inside the group box
Checked property
Selected = True
Unselected = False
Text property
What is displayed next to the radio button
Example Names for Radio Buttons
redRadioButton
blueRadioButton 9

11. Picture Box Displays/contains an image Image property
Complete path and filename of graphic; it’s a good idea to place the graphic into the folder with your project before it is assigned to a picture box
Can set extension to .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .ico, .emf, .wmf
PictureBox controls have several useful properties such as the SizeMode property
StretchImage causes picture to be resized to match the size of the control or the
Visible property which can be set to False to make the picture disappear 11

12. Borders and Styles
Most controls can appear to be three-dimensional or flat
Labels, text boxes, and pictures boxes all have a BorderStyle property with different style choices including:
None
FixedSingle
Fixed3D properties can be changed to the style of choosing
Fixed3D – default for text boxes
None – default for labels and picture boxes 14

13. Selecting Multiple Controls
(1of 2)
There are several methods of selecting multiple controls which means controls can be moved as a group
Shift-Click or Ctrl-Click to select/deselect multiple controls
Use the mouse to drag a selection box around multiple controls
When wanting to select most of the controls on the form used a combination of the two methods
To deselect all selected controls click elsewhere on the form 15

14. Selecting Multiple Controls (2 of 2)
Use the mouse to drag a selection box around multiple controls
When multiple controls are
selected, each has resizing
handles (if resizable)

15. Working with Multiple Controls
What are some of the benefits of working with Multiple Controls?
Drag a group of selected controls to move the entire group to a new location at one time
Set common properties
Use Format Menu or Layout Toolbar to
Align controls to each other
Make controls the same size
Modify the spacing between controls

16. Designing the User Interface
The design of the screen should be easy to understand and “comfortable” for the user. The best way to accomplish these goals is to follow industry standards for the color, size, and placement of controls.
To the user the Interface should be
Familiar
Comfortable
Organized – group controls
Sans Serif Fonts are best, not boldface or large
Gray is a neutral color that works well
Keyboard Accessible
One of the goals of good programming is to create programs that are easy to use.
Your user interface should be clear and consistent
You should design your applications to match other Windows applications.

17. Keyboard Access Keys
Many people prefer to use the keyboard, rather than a mouse, for most operations
Also referred to as Hot Keys
Underlined Letter
User presses Alt + underlined letter
Use Windows-Standard Keys
Defined using Text property
You can set access keys for buttons, radio buttons, and check boxes
Text=&OK
Text=E&xit 17

18. Accept & Cancel Buttons
Accept Button
Identified visually on Form by its darker outline
Responds to Enter key
Form's AcceptButton property
Cancel Button
Form's CancelButton property
An example of a Cancel button is the Esc key
Once a person’s fingers are on the keyboard, most people prefer to press the Enter key, rather than to click the
mouse. If one of the buttons on the form is the accept button, pressing Enter is
the same as clicking the button.
An example of a good time to set the CancelButton property is on a form with OK and Cancel
buttons.

19. Setting the Tab Order for Controls (1 of 2)
One control on a Form always has the focus
Not all control types can receive the focus
Text boxes, buttons - focus
Picture boxes and labels – no focus
TabStop property is applicable only for controls that are capable of receiving the focus
Designates whether a control is allowed to receive the focus; set to True or False
TabIndex property determines the order the focus moves as the Tab key is pressed
You can see the focus change as you tab from control to control. For controls such as
buttons, the focus appears as a thick blue border. For text boxes, the insertion
point (also called the cursor) appears inside the box.
Two properties determine whether the focus stops on a control and the order in
which the focus moves. Controls that are capable of receiving focus have a
TabStop property, which you can set to True or False. If you do not want the
focus to stop on a control when the user presses the Tab key, set the TabStop
property to False.
The TabIndex property determines the order the focus moves as the Tab
key is pressed. As you create controls on your form, Visual Studio assigns the
TabIndex property in sequence. Most of the time that order is correct, but if you
want to tab in some other sequence or if you add controls later, you will need to
modify the TabIndex properties of your controls.

20. Setting the Tab Order for Controls (2 of 2)
Users should be able to use the Tab key to move the focus through a form in an organized manner; top to bottom, left to right
TabIndex property
Number in tab sequence
0 for first control to receive the focus when the form loads
Use View Menu, Tab Order to set
When your program begins running, the focus is on the control with the
lowest TabIndex (usually 0).
You may be puzzled by the properties of labels, which have a TabIndex property
but not a TabStop. A label cannot receive focus, but it has a location in the
tab sequence. This fact allows you to create keyboard access keys for text boxes.
When the user types an access key that is in a label, such as Alt + N, the focus
jumps to the first TabIndex following the label (the text box).
To use a keyboard access key for a text box, the TabIndex of the label must precede the
TabIndex of the text box. 18

21. Setting the TabIndex Property
With the Design window active, select View / Tab Order or click the Tab Order button on the Layout toolbar
Click on each control in sequence to set TabIndex property of controls automatically
To set the tab order for controls, you can set each control’s TabIndex property in
the Properties window. Or you can use Visual Studio’s great feature that helps
you set TabIndexes automatically.

22. Setting the Form's Screen Location
You can set the form’s screen position by setting the StartPositionproperty of the form
To center a form on the user’s screen, set the StartPosition property to CenterScreen

23. Creating ToolTips
Small label that is displayed when user pauses mouse pointer over a control
Add a ToolTip Control to Form
The new control appears in a new pane, Component Tray that opens at the bottom of the Form Designer
After you add the component to your form, each of the form’s controls has a new property
Select ToolTip on ToolTip1 property of each control and add Tool Tip comments
If you are a Windows user, you probably appreciate and rely on ToolTips, those small labels that pop up when you pause your mouse pointer over a toolbar
button or control.
To define ToolTips, select the ToolTip tool from the toolbox and click anywhere on the form or double-click the ToolTip tool in the toolbox.
You also can add multiline ToolTips. In the ToolTip on ToolTip1 property, click the drop-down arrow. This drops down a white box in which you enter the
text of the ToolTip. Type the first line and press Enter to create a second line; press Ctrl + Enter to accept the text (or click somewhere outside the Property
window). 19

24. ToolTip Control
Component Tray

25. Clearing Text Boxes & Labels
Set Text property equal to an Empty String
Empty String is 2 quotation marks with no space between them ("")
Use the Clear Method of a Text Box or set Text property to String.Empty
nameTextBox.Text = ""
messageLabel.Text = ""
dataTextBox.Clear( )
messageLabel.Text = String.Empty
This empty string is also called a null string or zero-length string. 20

26. Resetting the Focus Places the Insertion Point in a Text Box
Use the Focus Method
nameTextBox.Focus( )
As a program runs, you want the insertion point to appear in the text box where the user is expected to type.
The focus should therefore begin in the first text box. 21

27. Setting the Checked Property of Radio Buttons and Check Boxes
Selects/Deselects Check Box or Radio Button at design or run time
Set Checked property
True = Checked, selected
False = Unchecked, deselected
redRadioButton.Checked = True
displayCheckBox.Checked = False
The purpose of radio buttons and check boxes is to allow the user to make selections.
However, at times you need to select or deselect a control in
code. You can select or deselect radio buttons and check boxes at design time
(to set initial status) or at run time (to respond to an event). To make a radio button or check box appear selected initially, set its
Checked property to True in the Properties window. In code, assign True to its Checked property 22

28. Setting Visibility at Run Time
Make label invisible
messageLabel.Visible = False
You can set the visibility of a control at run time.
You may want the visibility of a control to depend on the selection a user makes in a check box or radio button.

29. Changing the Color of Text
ForeColor and BackColor Properties
Use VB Color Constants from the Color Class
Type the keyword Color and a period in the editor to view a full color list
nameTextBox.ForeColor = Color.Red
messageLabel.ForeColor = Color.White
Most controls have a ForeColor and a BackColor property.
The ForeColor property changes the color of the text; the BackColor property determines the color around the text.
Visual Basic provides an easy way to specify a large number of colors. These color constants are in the Color class. If you type the keyword Color and a
period in the editor, you can see a full list of colors. 23

30. Changing Multiple Properties of a Control
There are times when you will want to change several properties of a single control
Previous to version 4 the entire name (Object, Property) for each statement had to be written, such as:
titleTextBox.Visible = True
titleTextBox.ForeColor = Color.White
titleTextBox.Focus()
Now you VB provides With and End With statements

31. With and End With Change several properties at once in Code
Will run more efficiently
With titleTextBox
.Visible = True
.ForeColor = Color.White
. Focus( )
End With
The statements beginning with and ending with End With are called a
With block. The statements inside the block are indented for readability. Although
indentation is not required by VB, it is required by good programming
practices and aids in readability. 24

32. Concatenation
Think of concatenation as "tacking" text strings together
Use an ampersand (&) preceded and followed by a space between the two strings
messageLabel.Text = "Your name is: " & nameTextBox.Text
nameAndAddressLabel.Text = nameTextBox.Text & addressTextBox.Text
At times you need to join strings of text. For example, you may want to join a
literal and a property. 25

33. Continuing Long Program Lines
For long lines of code it is more readable to continue them on the next line
At the end of the line use a Line Continuation Character (a Space, an Underscore and press Enter)
greetingsLabel.Text = "Greetings " & nameTextBox.Text & ": " & _
"You have been selected to win a free prize." & _
"Just send us $100 for postage and handling."
Basic interprets the code on one line as one statement. You can type very long
lines in the Editor window; the window scrolls sideways to allow you to keep
typing. However, this method is inconvenient; it isn’t easy to see the ends of the
long lines.
When a Basic statement becomes too long for one line, use a line continuation
character. You can type a space and an underscore, press
Enter, and continue the statement on the next line. It is OK to indent the continued
lines. The only restriction is that the line-continuation character must
appear between elements; you cannot place a continuation in the middle of a
literal or split the name of an object or property. 26