The book is divided into two parts and a series of appendices. The first part introduces the basic concepts of the Visual Basic environment and explains the form- and event-driven paradigm. Five chapters later, the authors explain forms, controls, and projects and give a quick primer on the unique structure of the Visual Basic language, its data types, and its use of functions, procedures, and code modules.
The second part, "What You Can Do with Visual Basic," makes up the majority of the book. A chapter on user-interface creation illustrates how to create single and multiple-document interfaces and how to implement dialogs and toolbars, and presents some general user-interface tips. Following chapters cover each of the Visual Basic custom controls, present advanced project-compilation concepts, and introduce the object-oriented features of Visual Basic.
The guide then presents ActiveX components, event and error handling, text and graphics manipulation, performance optimization, and other crucial topics. Four appendices spell out Visual Basic's limits, coding conventions, compiler options, and how to add help to your programs. No matter what your skill level, this programmer's guide will become a frequently visited companion. --Stephen Plain