Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! (20 page)

what you developed. It also

makes your code more readable

and facilitates getting help from

somebody. Write your com-

Verify that the name and type of control is the one you intend to work with.
ments in normal English without

too many jargon words. Another

Double-click the blue disk on the designer surface and you will be presented with the default event 3

Continued on next page

template for this control, which is the click event.

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Add the following line of code to the saveToolStripButton_Click event procedure. (I will explain what it 4 does below.)

Continued from page 76

this.saveFileDialog1.ShowDialog();

thing to remember is that the

comments are never compiled

This block of code displays the SaveFileDialog1 by calling the ShowDialog() method on it. At this 5

in the application you execute

point, if you want to see the effect of the change, just build and execute the application by pressing
so they will never slow down the

F5
and click the
Save
icon to see that the save dialog will show up.
performance of your application.

As you can see in the list-

In every SaveFileDialog, there is a save button and a cancel button. The cancel button is automatically 6

ing in step 8, you can comment

taken care of for us. But we need to wire what is going to happen when the user clicks on the save
your code by inserting two for-

button of that new dialog.

ward slashes (//) for a one line

comment or using /* and */ on

To wire the save button, select the
saveFileDialog1
icon in the component tray and double-click it to 7

the same line or on a separate

get to the most common event, which is the FileOk event in this case.

line for a multi-line comment.

Your comment should appear

Whenever the user clicks the Save button, your application will take the content of the three text 8

in green; if not, then your line is

boxes and write them into a file on the hard drive. When finished, your code should look like the list
not seen as a comment by the
ing below. Examine the comments to understand what we are trying to accomplish. You can use the Insert
compiler. Another good way to

Snippet and use a using snippet.

comment your code is to use two

SaveFileDialog1_FileOk Method

buttons from one of the tool-

bars. Let’s say you decide that all

private void saveFileDialog1_FileOk(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)

the previous code in the FileOk

{

event is not the code you want to

// By using the using statement, not to be confused with the using
execute because you want to test

// directive on top of the file, we are making sure that if an

something else. You do not want

/* exception is happening that a finally is executed to close the
to delete all the text but you

* file. The using is in fact a try - finally block. */

using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(this.saveFileDialog1.FileName))
can comment out the code by

{

selecting it and then clicking on

// Add the three text boxes to the file

the Comment Out the Selected

sw.WriteLine(this.txtMessage.Text);

Lines button. And if you want

sw.WriteLine(this.textBox2.Text);

to uncomment a block of code,

sw.WriteLine(this.textBox3.Text);

you just have to select the code

}

you want to uncomment and

}

then click the Uncomment the

Selected Lines button.

9 Add the following using directive to the top of the code file:

using System.IO;

Chapter 5: Creating Your First Full Windows Application

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10 Now we just need to attach the same event code to the File/Save menu choice. Double-click the Save choice in the File menu and add the same code as in step 4. Build the application and execute it by pressing F5. Type some text in the text boxes and then save the content to a file by using the Save menu or the Save toolbar button. You should check that the content of the file your application saved is really what was on the form. To verify that it worked properly, open the file with Visual Studio by selecting the File/Open File menu, browsing to the location of the saved file, and then opening it to view its contents. We just handled two events, but I want to point out that we already handled events previously by coding the Button1_Click and modifying properties of other controls. For instance, we modified the Text property of our TextBox controls when we handled the button click. And we were able to do that by using the control’s name property.

In Summary…

Wow, that was a big chapter with a lot of new features. These features will definitely help you write your applications. We went over some IDE features such as the snap lines to help
Finding Additional

you to align the controls on the form. We went on to the rich features of IntelliSense that
Information

help you with typing of your code by either suggesting appropriate choices, completing
Even though it’s a bit

code sentences for you, or providing you with code snippets. In the end, IntelliSense is there
outdated, there is a really

to reduce the amount of typing you do so that your productivity can increase. On top of
good article on extending the

that, it is a great tool for beginners.

IntelliSense Code Snippets that

We then saw the benefits of the new refactoring feature to rename elements in your
you’ll find at the following URL:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/

source code, elements such as: code elements, comments and even string literals. Then the
vcsharp/default.aspx?pull=/

refactoring-extract method lets you restructure your code by extracting blocks of code and
library/en-us/dnvs05/html/

automatically creating new methods and all the supporting code. It is especially useful to
codesnippets.asp

replace autogenerated variable names with more meaningful variable names. We examined
Another good source of

the most common controls you will find in every Windows application with some graphical
information is the videos from

examples and justification on their usage. Finally, we ended the chapter with how event
MSDN specifically done to cover
the Visual C# 2005 Express

based programming is performed.

Edition product. I suggest you

Continued on next page

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In the next chapter, you’ll put into practice everything you just learned in this chapter. You’ll also take a look at some new features, controls, and concepts that you’ll use as we
Continued from page 78

continue with the Web browser project.

watch the following two les-

sons as a complement; they will

reinforce a lot of topics covered

in this chapter.

Lesson 2 video:
http://

go.microsoft.com/fwlink/

?linkid=44030&clcid=0x409

Lesson 3 video:
http://

go.microsoft.com/fwlink/

?linkid=44030&clcid=0x409

Those two lessons will be

a pretty good visual live summary to this chapter.

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Modify Your Web

Browser Now!

How to Bring Up Your

After reading the avalanche of new concepts presented in the first few chap
Application, 82

ters, you’re ready to apply them and take your Web browser to the next level. In this chapter, you’ll add rich features to your browser such as a splash

Interacting Through

screen, an About box, tool strips, menu strips, a tool strip container that will

Dialog Boxes, 89

give you a rich user experience “à la Internet Explorer,” a status strip control,

A Professional Look and

a progress bar, professional-looking toolbars with “déjà vu” icons, and new

Feel at Your Fingertips, 96

Microsoft® Visual C#® 2005 Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

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features, like the Document Outline window. You’ll also learn to respond to events coming from the Web Browser control.

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How to Bring Up Your Application

When you load an application, you often see something called a
splash screen
. Some good examples of splash screens are the opening information boxes you see for Microsoft Office, Visual Studio® 2005, and most other programs. Although they’re often very nice looking,

those screens aren’t there just to display the software version and appealing artwork or to
In this chapter, I’ve created a

starting browser application

make sure you’re not bored. These screens serve a function. Once you’ve started an applica
that is the same as the applica-
tion, a lot of processing is happening; for instance, the application is connecting to databas
tion you created in Chapter 4.
If you installed the companion

es, populating controls with data from the database, getting saved configurations for the
content to the default location,

it should be at the following

user interface (UI) preferences, and so on. Displaying the splash screen while all of this pro
location on your hard drive: My
cessing is happening helps inform the user that the application is working.
Documents\Microsoft Press\VCS

2005 Express\Chapter6\. Look for

You’ll now add the splash screen to your project. Remember that a splash screen is only a
a folder named Start under the

regular form that you bring up at the start of a program. It can have two different usages: to
Chapter6 folder. Double-click the

MyOwnBrowser.sln solution. If you

simply display information and a logo or to serve the same purpose but with a lot of pro
want, you can also start from your
cessing happening in the background. In your case, you’ll add the splash screen simply to
own Chapter 4 browser project.

introduce your browser.

Figure 6-1

Add New Item dialog for the creation

of the splash screen

TO CREATE A SPLASH SCREEN

To start, you’ll give Form1 a more meaningful

1 name. (Keep in mind that everything in your application needs to be meaningful for readability and maintainability.) In the Solution Explorer, rename Form1.cs to
Browser.cs
. When asked if you want to rename all references to Form1 in the project, click
Yes
. To add a regular form to your project you can