 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Seeing the Basics: Visual Basic Bookshelf Tony Stevenson |
Two worthy books for your VB library
Two of the most important aspects of writing Windows programs using Visual Basic are, first, the design of the user interface and, second, the underlying file storage system used.
Of the many hundreds of computer books published annually, only a relatively small number are devoted to the topic of graphical user interface (GUI) design. One such book is Carl Zetie's Practical User Interface Design, which is aptly subtitled Making GUIs Work.
And as regards the underlying storage medium used in VB applications, many developers like to use Microsoft Access as their preferred relational database. It is robust, powerful, and provides the features required for many professional database application. Because it is from the same company as Visual Basic, there is not the potential for conflict, which can sometimes happen with products from different vendors mixed together in the one program suite.
For information about database development using VB, the preferred choice for many developers is Roger Jenning's Database Developer's Guide with Visual Basic 4.
Practical User Interface Design: Making GUIs Work
The development tools available today would appear to make interface design and creation a straightforward process. By using your mouse, you simply select a Window object, such as a command button or text box from a tool box, drag it onto the window being created, and then manipulate it, by either using your mouse again, or by changing the contents of the control's properties using the keyboard.
Anyone who has been in computing for a number of years (especially going back to before the rapid advances made possible with personal computers) would not deny that the modern processes are indeed far easier (and much more fun) than the laborious techniques previously used.
However good interface design is much more involved than just throwing together a whole bunch of controls and objects onto a window, and then releasing the application to users. As stated in the introduction of Zetie's book, User interface design is a complex, multi-faceted discipline. It is far from easy ...
Well-designed interfaces must be easy to use and possess the capacity to increase the productivity of their users.
The introduction to this book looks at some of the myths associated with the graphical user interface before covering different aspects such as measuring the user interface, the user interface architect, usability testing, graphic design and visual appearance.
Subsequent chapters of the book cover
- The fundamental principles of design
- Conceptual models and metaphors - for example, the Macintosh uses a desktop as its conceptual model, whilst a rubbish bin is used as a metaphor representing an object associated with the desktop
- Taskflow, which involves investigating the manner in which the various units of work making up a task are to be satisfactorily accomplished
- Dialog design
- The issues, steps, and objects (that is, controls such as check boxes, pop-down lists, etc.) which are involved in the detailed design of interfaces
- And finally two aspects of the interface design process which are unfortunately too often overlooked or given scant attention - error handling and the provision of help and adequate documentation.
| Carl Zetie: Practical User Interface Design: Making GUIs
Work Published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1995 251 pages plus floppy disk ISBN: 0 07 709167 1 RRP: $69.95 |
Database Developer's Guide with Visual Basic 4
(Second Edition)
Roger Jennings has written a comprehensive text of over a thousand pages, with a companion CD-ROM.
Just some of the topics covered include chapters devoted to Visual Basic 4.0 data access objects and controls
(with an introduction to, and detailed explanation of the Microsoft Jet 3.0 Data Access Object (DAO), a
thorough knowledge of which is mandatory for the successful development of VB database applications), and the
concepts underlying database and query design as well as database front-end design. Later chapters cover
advanced programming guidelines and techniques, the database front ends required for multi user and
client/server environments, and the steps and processes involved in the distribution of commercial database
front ends (including documentation, help files, and the creation of distribution disks).
Three other chapters of Jenning's book focus on the benefits and advantages to be gained from using the
features available in the Enterprise edition of Visual Basic 4.0. Topics include the Remote Data Object (RDO)
and the Remote Data Control (RDC), Remote Automation Objects, and Visual SourceSafe 4.0 (which is a version
control system especially utilised in those larger, and mission critical, VB projects where lots of
developers are involved in coding the application).
The disc contains the example databases and the associated programs developed throughout the course of the
book, along with:
- The Attila / VB add-on; VB add-ons allow the Visual Basic 4.0 development environment to be customised, for example, through the addition of extra options and items onto the existing VB 4.0 menu structure. Attila can be used to impose naming conventions, to set up default settings for the fonts used in controls, and to establish a custom property set for the different types of controls used in an application. For example, a custom property set for all text boxes might stipulate that they all use the same designated background colour.
- The TrueGrid Pro control can be used to set up the automatic feeding in of data elements (at run time) from tables in specified databases into a grid like control. The grid's layout and appearance can also be altered interactively at design time.
- The DataTable Spreadsheet / Grid control, plus a selection of sample versions and product demonstrations of other components suitable for use within VB 4.0 applications. These include gauge controls, wizards for generating source code for message and input boxes and common dialogs, charting controls, a report writer tool, a data modeling tool, a geographic mapping and analysis control, VB-Cert (used in preparing for the Microsoft Visual Basic Application Development exam), as well as the means for writing Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) with Visual Basic without having to use the C programming language or the Windows SDK (Software Development Kit).
| Roger Jennings: Database Developer's Guide with Visual
Basic 4 (Second Edition) Published by Sams Publishing, 1996 1088 pages plus CD-ROM ISBN: 0 672 30652 2 RRP: $94.95 |
Reprinted from the April 1997 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
