Very Easy Program for Beginners

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Introduction

This program has a few features to help you create a simple program.

Using the Code

The features included are: changing the font and color of all the labels and buttons, adding an About Box, using the MenuStrip control, linking click events, and entering text into a text box and having it display in a message box.

1. Open Visual Studio
2. Click New Project:

   

3. Select Windows Form Application from the list
4. In the Name text box, change the name to EasyProject
5. Next to the Location text box, click browse and save your work in whatever folder you want, for this one I am just working off the Visual Studio project folder in My Documents.
6. Click OK
7. Right click the form and select Properties from the list:

   

8. In the Properties Pane, scroll down to Text property
9. Replace the words Form1 with Easy Project and hit enter
10. If your Toolbox is not on the left side of the screen, click View in the menu bar and then select Toolbox:

    

11. In the Toolbox pane, scroll down to Menus & Toolbars and drag a MenuStrip control to your form and let go:

    

12. Click in the white text box that says Type Here
13. When you see an insertion point, type File
14. Click the white text box to the right of file and type Edit
15. Click in the white text box to the right of edit and type Help

    

16. Click File again and a white text box that says Type Here appears under File
17. Click where it says Type Here and type Exit
18. Under Edit type in Font and under Font type in Color
19. Under Help type in About:

    

20. Click the Toolbox again and find the Button control and drag one over to your form
21. View the button1 properties and go to the (Name) property
22. Replace button1 with exitButton
23. Still in the properties for the button find the Text property
24. Replace button1 with Exit
25. Now to insert the first line of code into your program:

    

26. Double click on the new Exit button you just made
27. Now this is where you will see the code for your project:

    

28. Under exitButton_Click, type:
    
    
    C#

    this.Close();

29. Your code will now look like this:
    
    
    C#

    private void exitButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        this.Close();
    }  

30. Go back to your design view by clicking Form1.cs[Design]*
31. Click File on your program and then click Exit on your program
32. Make sure the properties show up for the Exit you just clicked
33. Click the Events button which is the lightning bolt

    

34. Next to Click, click the drop-down arrow and select exitButton_Click:

    

35. Now we get to run your program for the first time
36. Click the green arrow in the Standard Toolbar to run your program:

    

37. Click the Exit button and watch your program close with the code we entered
38. Run the program again and click File > Exit
39. The program also closes because we linked the Exit button to the MenuStrip Exit we made by clicking the lightning bolt and linking the two together
40. Go back to the Toolbox and drag a Label to your form
41. Click the label1 and copy it
42. Paste the label1 2 times, so you are looking at 3 labels
43. Move the labels around so they look like this:

    

44. Click label1 and view its properties
45. Find the (Name) property and replace the text label1 with firstNameLabel
46. Scroll down to the Text property and replace label1 with First Name:
47. Click label2 and view its properties
48. Find the (Name) property and replace the text label2 with middleNameLabel
49. Scroll down to the Text property and replace label2 with Middle Name:
50. Click label3 and view its properties
51. Find the (Name) property and replace the text label3 with lastNameLabel
52. Scroll down to the Text property and replace the text label3 with Last Name:
53. Align the labels so they still look good like this:

    

54. Go back to the Toolbox and drag a TextBox over to your form
55. Copy the TextBox and paste it 2 times
56. Align the 3 TextBoxes to be next to each Label
57. Click the first TextBox and change the (Name) property to firstNameTextBox
58. Click the second TextBox and change the (Name) property to middleNameTextBox
59. Click the third TextBox and change the (Name) property to lastNameTextBox
60. Click each TextBox and make it longer and your outcome should look like this:

    

61. Go back to the Toolbox and add a FontDialog control to your form
62. The control appears at the bottom in the Component Tray
63. Click Edit > then double click Font
64. Type this code which will allow you to change the font of all the labels and buttons:
    
    
    C#

    private void fontToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        fontDialog1.Font = this.Font;
        fontDialog1.ShowDialog();
        this.Font = fontDialog1.Font;
    } 

65. Run your program after you type the code for the Font control
66. Click Edit > Font and just play around and see what you can do now
67. When you're done having fun, exit the program
68. Go back to Design View
69. Go to the Toolbox and add a ColorDialog control
70. Click Edit > and double click Color
71. Add the following code which will allow you to change the color of all the labels and buttons:
    
    C#

    private void colorToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        colorDialog1.Color = this.ForeColor;
        colorDialog1.ShowDialog();
        this.ForeColor = colorDialog1.Color;
    } 

72. Run your program again and play with the Font and Color features you now have
73. When you're done, exit the program:

    

74. In the Standard Toolbar click the drop-down arrow next to Add New Item
75. Select Add New Item from the list:

    

76. When the Dialog Box appears, select About Box in the list of items
77. Leave the Name the same and click Add:

    

78. When the About Box Form appears, double click the OK button:

    

79. Type the following code which when you click OK will close the box:
    
    
    C#

    private void okButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        this.Close();
    } 

80. Go back to Design View for the main form and click Help in your program, then double click About in your program
81. Type the following code to have the About Box appear when you click Help > About:
    
    C#

    private void aboutToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        AboutBox1 aboutForm = new AboutBox1();
        aboutForm.Show();
    } 

82. Run your program and click Help > About
83. The About Box appears but there is no information. Let's fix this.
84. Exit the program
85. Click Project > EasyProject Properties in the Menu Bar:

    

86. Click Assembly Information
87. Fill out all the information you would like to appear:

    

88. Click OK
89. Run the program again and click Help > About and now you can see the information you just entered
90. If your title appears twice in the About Box, here is how to fix it
91. Go to the AboutBox.cs tab at the top of your project. If it isn't there, just open the About Box designer and double click on OK
92. In the line, delete one of the {0}s:
    
    
    C#

    this.Text = String.Format("About {0} {0}", AssemblyTitle);  

93. Your code should now look like this:
    
    
    C#

    this.Text = String.Format("About {0}", AssemblyTitle);

94. Run your program. Click Help > About and notice that only one title now appears
95. Exit your program
96. Go back to Design View for the main form
97. Go to the Toolbox and drag another Button to the left of Exit
98. Go to the new Button’s properties
99. Change the (Name) to displayButton
100. Scroll down to the Text property and change it to Display

     

101. Double click on the Display button
102. Once you see the source code, scroll to the very top
103. Type the following line here:

     

104. Scroll back down to displayButton_Click and insert the following code:
     
     
     C#

     private void displayButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
     {
         nameString = firstNameTextBox.Text + " " + middleNameTextBox.Text + " " +
             lastNameTextBox.Text;
         string messageString = "My name is: ";
         MessageBox.Show(messageString + nameString, "Name");
     } 

105. After you have entered the code, run your program
106. Play with all the features you added
107. Type in your full name, hit Display and watch what happens:

     

108. That's it. You did it!

Feel free to comment if you have any questions or problems with the program.

History

• 5^th June, 2008: Initial post