Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damien, If it is VS.NET 2002 don't even bother installing it. It is unaccessible, the IDE totally sucks, and it uses a very very old .NET framework that isn't supported any longer. VS.NET 2003 is ok, it works well enough with Jaws 7 and Window Eyes 5, but the only reason I can think of against it is that it still uses .NET Framework 1.1. Now, days developers are in the process of migrating from 1.0/1.1 to 2.0 which is supported in VS.NET 2005. One thing I can say in favor of 2003 was that the debugger wasn't so chatty and didn't interrupt Jaws and Window Eyes with constant error windows if you typed in a wrong function, misspelled a variable, or similar offence. x-sight interactive wrote: well, i know that, tried to tell the school, they wouldn't listen, they keep using supernova because they have people working for dolphin computer access who used to go to the college and it was just down the road, blah blah blah, freedom scientific are in the usa so it'd be harder to get support, blah blah blah, we don't have enough money, blah blah blah, so i can't really control what the school does, i can only control my computer. the school have given me access to their vs.net discs, with it being a network license, but i don't know whether they've updated it from that end, but i have jfw 7.0 on my system, so would 2003 or 2002 work with that or is it still not worth installing that version? and how can i check which version i have before installing it? thanks. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Our country is devided. People in the south get jaws, people in the north get hal. And there is a fight to use either reader. I have both. Mainly because I had hal for school and got jaws later. At 06:27 PM 10/31/2006, x-sight interactive wrote: well, i know that, tried to tell the school, they wouldn't listen, they keep using supernova because they have people working for dolphin computer access who used to go to the college and it was just down the road, blah blah blah, freedom scientific are in the usa so it'd be harder to get support, blah blah blah, we don't have enough money, blah blah blah, so i can't really control what the school does, i can only control my computer. the school have given me access to their vs.net discs, with it being a network license, but i don't know whether they've updated it from that end, but i have jfw 7.0 on my system, so would 2003 or 2002 work with that or is it still not worth installing that version? and how can i check which version i have before installing it? thanks. regards, damien - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 12:35 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Oh, I see. Well, I recommend putting on VS.NET Express 2005. VS.NET 2003 was known for huge crashes and VS.NET 2002 was worse. If they are using Super Nova it was no wonder the IDE sucked. Super Nova isn't known for supporting Visual Studio anything very well. For that you need Jaws 7 or Window Eyes 5.5 or later to be effective. x-sight interactive wrote: it wasn't actually my computer i tried it on it was one of the college's that i go to. they run windows xp service pack 2 and supernova (what??? yuck!!! lol) as their screenreader. i don't know what the versions are for the ide and the net stuff, it wasn't 2005 express though they bought a proper license for it. could've been 2003. regards, damien ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damien In DirectX there is a function to have it wait for the wave file to finish playing. It looks something like wave1.Play DSBPLAY_DEFAULT Do DoEvents Loop While wave1.GetStatus = DSBSTATUS_PLAYING There is also a function just to check to see if it is still playing so that your game can be doing other things in the mean time. And here is my Hello World VB6 program x = MsgBox( Hello World , 1, ) You may want to put a end unload me Just so that the program finishes correctly. HTH BFN Jim Anything simple is stated in the most complicated manner. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
unload me? that's strange lol, so what's the difference between end and unload me then? regards, damien - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: x-sight interactive Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 9:11 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Damien In DirectX there is a function to have it wait for the wave file to finish playing. It looks something like wave1.Play DSBPLAY_DEFAULT Do DoEvents Loop While wave1.GetStatus = DSBSTATUS_PLAYING There is also a function just to check to see if it is still playing so that your game can be doing other things in the mean time. And here is my Hello World VB6 program x = MsgBox( Hello World , 1, ) You may want to put a end unload me Just so that the program finishes correctly. HTH BFN Jim Anything simple is stated in the most complicated manner. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
You may want to ge tonthe agdev list and discuss this. To answer your question however, unload me runs the unload event of the form which let's you clean up what ever messes you've made. -Original Message- From: x-sight interactive [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:46 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic unload me? that's strange lol, so what's the difference between end and unload me then? regards, damien - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: x-sight interactive Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 9:11 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Damien In DirectX there is a function to have it wait for the wave file to finish playing. It looks something like wave1.Play DSBPLAY_DEFAULT Do DoEvents Loop While wave1.GetStatus = DSBSTATUS_PLAYING There is also a function just to check to see if it is still playing so that your game can be doing other things in the mean time. And here is my Hello World VB6 program x = MsgBox( Hello World , 1, ) You may want to put a end unload me Just so that the program finishes correctly. HTH BFN Jim Anything simple is stated in the most complicated manner. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. __ NOD32 1.1659 (20060713) Information __ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damien, Well, in my experience learning from a person doesn't work as well as reading programming books and working through them on a purely beginner to advance level of learning. Books can fill in so much more than any one person. That includes college profs which only have an hour or so each day to cover the high-points. It is the books themselves that hold the goodies. x-sight interactive wrote: wow, sounds cool. just godda understand it all now. i have this guy trying very hard to teach me c but i just don't get it. i'm not giving up this time ... regards, damien ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Oh, I see. Well, I recommend putting on VS.NET Express 2005. VS.NET 2003 was known for huge crashes and VS.NET 2002 was worse. If they are using Super Nova it was no wonder the IDE sucked. Super Nova isn't known for supporting Visual Studio anything very well. For that you need Jaws 7 or Window Eyes 5.5 or later to be effective. x-sight interactive wrote: it wasn't actually my computer i tried it on it was one of the college's that i go to. they run windows xp service pack 2 and supernova (what??? yuck!!! lol) as their screenreader. i don't know what the versions are for the ide and the net stuff, it wasn't 2005 express though they bought a proper license for it. could've been 2003. regards, damien ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damien, Unload Me is used to unload the active form. If the form happens to be the main form the game will close. x-sight interactive wrote: unload me? that's strange lol, so what's the difference between end and unload me then? regards, damien ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
well, i know that, tried to tell the school, they wouldn't listen, they keep using supernova because they have people working for dolphin computer access who used to go to the college and it was just down the road, blah blah blah, freedom scientific are in the usa so it'd be harder to get support, blah blah blah, we don't have enough money, blah blah blah, so i can't really control what the school does, i can only control my computer. the school have given me access to their vs.net discs, with it being a network license, but i don't know whether they've updated it from that end, but i have jfw 7.0 on my system, so would 2003 or 2002 work with that or is it still not worth installing that version? and how can i check which version i have before installing it? thanks. regards, damien - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 12:35 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Oh, I see. Well, I recommend putting on VS.NET Express 2005. VS.NET 2003 was known for huge crashes and VS.NET 2002 was worse. If they are using Super Nova it was no wonder the IDE sucked. Super Nova isn't known for supporting Visual Studio anything very well. For that you need Jaws 7 or Window Eyes 5.5 or later to be effective. x-sight interactive wrote: it wasn't actually my computer i tried it on it was one of the college's that i go to. they run windows xp service pack 2 and supernova (what??? yuck!!! lol) as their screenreader. i don't know what the versions are for the ide and the net stuff, it wasn't 2005 express though they bought a proper license for it. could've been 2003. regards, damien ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi, I can say from previous experience paperback programming books do not scan well, and do not make it in any sense through the scanning process. It is better to buy the programming books through a online vender like Safari rather than scan them. Jude DaShiell wrote: If you can get a scanner and bought beginning programming language books that aren't available, why not check for them on bookshare.org? If you don't find them why not consider becoming a bookshare.org volunteer and uploading those scanned books. They'll go through a proofreading process and be made available eventually to the whole bookshare.org membership. It's $50.00 for the first year's membership but if you scan books or do other volunteer work, your next year's membership will be cut in cost by the credits you've earned. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
ok guys you win. i'm still using autoit for now, but i've given up comaudio. it broke on my system and philip bennefall's having problems with it. i can't get it to work at all on mine. i did actually try at one point with msvs.net and the ide was terrible - kept hanging on my system. so all i have now is msvs6. so yes, i'm currently trying to learn dx myself and am beginning to understand it. however there are still basic concepts i don't know how to code in vb, like how to make it wait, how to create arrays, how to use timers, position forms, if i can sort all that out i may just switch from autoit altogether, don't know yet. regards, damien - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:38 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Quintin: Autoit is an excelent language to get your feet web. However, if you are serious about doing anything serious, your best bet is to learn a language like c sharp or vb. I'm a very big vb fan, and I know me and Tom will disagree. But, it's what works for me, and it's what I can teach people on the best. Grnated, my dot net stuff is rusty, but I'm still learning, and I've found all I need to know to get dx to work fairly well. However, Tom is right in that there is not a lot out there for beginner programmers. I really really do not like autoit though. There is much better out there. I won't write a whole list of the things I don't like, just know that I dislike it greatly. Hahaha. Liam -Original Message- From: Quinten Pendle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 5:28 AM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Thomas Where can one find the agdev-newbies list to subscribe to it? Also, what do you think of AutoIT as a programming language? The little that I saw of it, looked quite good. Best regards Quinten Pendle PENDLE PRO Klerksdorp, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 83 395 4593 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ahakimbo Website: www.pendlepro.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:51 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Robin, In the future posts like this should probably go over to the agdev-newbies list where we discuss such issues like this more in depth. However, since I am writing this email anyway. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I have a few questions of my own. /Snip I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. End Snip Is there any special reason you decided to go for Visual Basic rather than say C#, called C-Sharp. I highly recommend going with C-Sharp over VB for the primary reason many things are better documented and supported. One of these important areas in particular to you will be DirectX. While you can use MS DirectX in VB games Microsoft does not officially support it, and do not provide code samples, instructions, etc on writing games in VB .NET 2005. Snip 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? End Snip Yes, but you will find that good and reliable documentation for newbies is extremely lacking. Visual Basic became famous among amature and rapid application developers during the 90's but it's popularity is on the decline. Most of the VB croud have switched to C-Sharp. Just some historical background when DirectX 7 and 8 came out Microsoft unvailed it with VB 6.0 examples etc and offered newbies a simple basic language with a good set of multimedia libraries for developing games and other amature home wrote applications. In 2001 Microsoft converted all there Visual Studio languages to the .NET Framework furthering increasing the power of the languages as well as a universal development platform, and unvailed a new rapid development language C#, called C-Sharp, which had many improvements over VB, used C++ style coding conventions, reused allot of concepts from Java, and became a very new and innovative language. Now, it is rising in popularity, and in some areas has passed up VB in popularity among amature programmers. In 2003 when Microsoft DirectX 9.0 was unvailed to the world the documentation was for C++ and C-Sharp users, and VB devs were left in the cold documentation and support wise. Since I know both C-Sharp and VB as well as DirectX I know I could get DirectX up and running in no time in VB, but for a newby I don't see that happening without good samples and training. Snip 2. Where can I find the toolbox? End Snip Press control+w then press the letter x. Your screen reader should land you on the toolbox area of the screen. Keep in mind there is two columns in the toolbox window. There is one side which sets the type of tools you wish to view
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
ya know? i really, really, really admire them people that can understand languages like c. visual basic and autoit are, what, 3 lines, if that, to write a simple hello world program. in c it's 85 lines, half of which i don't have a clue what they all mean, such as: HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nShowCmd that hardly makes sense at all to me. those aren't even the start headers. i can make out little bits, like CMDLine is for command line parameters, etc, but most of it is half another language altogether, whereas #include GUIConstants.au3 GUICreate(Hello World!) GUISetState() is a lot easier to understand. that's why i started with autoit. maybe i'm just far too impatient *grin* regards, damien - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 3:04 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Liam, No change isn't always bad, and in this case I feel it was about to happen sooner or later. As I understand it from what I have heard from Microsoft on the subject was that many VB programmers in the field bombarded MS with requests to update the language and include more features present in more powerful languages such as C++ and Java. These days it is unreasonable to not have a good oop design present in a programming language. Especially, seeing as all the really popular languages like C++, Java, Python, etc have a good oop design and are more popular than non-oop languages. Strictly speaking from my personal opinion and experiences when I was a student in college they started us out on VB 5. Oh, I was happy as a clam to be able to write something constructive, Mr. Programmer, and all. However, as time went on I got in to more complex languages like C++ and Java, and with them came more complex advanced concepts, new design conventions, and so on. Once I learned, grasped, and understood the advantages of what C++ and Java had to offer VB 5 seamed like a joke, or a toy language for kids. I mean I was really impressed with a simple subject like class inheritence. How you could start out with a master class let's say starship, put all your major variables and functions in there, and then begin branching out, and create more and more specialised classes which inherit the more generalised classes. With the creation of one instance of an object you have access to not only the specialised class you have access to variables and functions to everything that specialised class was derived from. Even cooler you wrote the variables and functions once, but everytime you create an instance of an object which points to that class those variables are duplicated in memory for the specific use of that object without having to write them over again for that item, object, character, you are storing data for. I guess to sum it up I learned oop design, and I couldn't live without it. I found languages without oop design to be backward, outdated, and really the hard way of doing things. Liam Erven wrote: Jim. It's much much different. There's many major differences than in vb6. I was surprised to find out you could program in vb6 like you would in an older form of basic, but the whole system is much much different now. Change isn't always bad. I'm really enjoying this new version quite a lot. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damion,
Actually, a Hello World type program can be written in C++ in 6 lines as
long as you are writing a text program without all the Windows Win32
junk with it. It would look like this.
#include iostream
int main()
{
std::cout Hello world! endl;
return 0;
}
So saying you have to have 85 lines to write a Hello World program in
C++ simply isn't true. However, what you seam to be getting confused
about is the Microsoft Win32 API. That is responcible for handling
Windows, buttons, listboxes, and other Windows controls. If you count
the Win32 API and want Hello World to appear in it's own window rather
than in a text window than 85 is probably about right.
To understand the stuff you are talking about such as HINSTANCE you need
to understand the Win32 API. For example, HINSTANCE hInstance is an
object that is often used to control the current handle of the active
window. The HINSTANCE hPrevInstance is the previous instance, of the
window handle and so on. The
LPSTR lpCmdLine is a string used to process commandline parameters that might
be externally passed to the application.
\
x-sight interactive wrote:
ya know? i really, really, really admire them people that can understand
languages like c. visual basic and autoit are, what, 3 lines, if that, to
write a simple hello world program. in c it's 85 lines, half of which i
don't have a clue what they all mean, such as:
HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine,
int nShowCmd
that hardly makes sense at all to me. those aren't even the start headers. i
can make out little bits, like CMDLine is for command line parameters, etc,
but most of it is half another language altogether, whereas
#include GUIConstants.au3
GUICreate(Hello World!)
GUISetState()
is a lot easier to understand. that's why i started with autoit. maybe i'm
just far too impatient *grin*
regards,
damien
- Original Message -
From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 3:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Liam,
No change isn't always bad, and in this case I feel it was about to
happen sooner or later. As I understand it from what I have heard from
Microsoft on the subject was that many VB programmers in the field
bombarded MS with requests to update the language and include more
features present in more powerful languages such as C++ and Java. These
days it is unreasonable to not have a good oop design present in a
programming language. Especially, seeing as all the really popular
languages like C++, Java, Python, etc have a good oop design and are
more popular than non-oop languages.
Strictly speaking from my personal opinion and experiences when I was a
student in college they started us out on VB 5. Oh, I was happy as a
clam to be able to write something constructive, Mr. Programmer, and
all. However, as time went on I got in to more complex languages like
C++ and Java, and with them came more complex advanced concepts, new
design conventions, and so on. Once I learned, grasped, and understood
the advantages of what C++ and Java had to offer VB 5 seamed like a
joke, or a toy language for kids.
I mean I was really impressed with a simple subject like class
inheritence. How you could start out with a master class let's say
starship, put all your major variables and functions in there, and then
begin branching out, and create more and more specialised classes which
inherit the more generalised classes. With the creation of one instance
of an object you have access to not only the specialised class you have
access to variables and functions to everything that specialised class
was derived from. Even cooler you wrote the variables and functions
once, but everytime you create an instance of an object which points to
that class those variables are duplicated in memory for the specific use
of that object without having to write them over again for that item,
object, character, you are storing data for.
I guess to sum it up I learned oop design, and I couldn't live without
it. I found languages without oop design to be backward, outdated, and
really the hard way of doing things.
Liam Erven wrote:
Jim. It's much much different. There's many major differences than in
vb6.
I was surprised to find out you could program in vb6 like you would in
an
older form of basic, but the whole system is much much different now.
Change isn't always bad. I'm really enjoying this new version quite a
lot.
___
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visit
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make
any subscription changes via the web.
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Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damion, Snip There are still basic concepts i don't know how to code in vb, like how to make it wait, how to create arrays, how to use timers, position forms... End Snip When you mean make it wait are you waiting on a certain sound to finish, wait for a Windows message cue, or what exactly do you need to know about waiting. As far as arrays goes any VB book has good documentation on how to create an array. They are actually quite easy to work with. As far as timers goes those are easy as well. Select one from the toolbox, place it on your form, and go in to it's properties. Name it, set it for how many cycles per second you want it to update, and press enter on the timer control and VB will nicely create the function for you. From that point just put code in it like any other function that needs to be updated every so many times per second. All you need to do from that point is enable or disable the timer in another function like GameTimer.Enabled = True. As far as potioning forms I don't see you needing to fool with Forms much. The only major form you will have to deal with is the main form where your game code will go. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damion, Snip i did actually try at one point with msvs.net and the ide was terrible - kept hanging on my system. End Snip Hmmm... Which version of the IDE did you have? Also what versions of Windows are you running, screen reader, and when was the last time your computer has had a good reformat and reinstall of Windows. Visual Studio 2005 Express shouldn't be locking up unless your Windows is messed up or there is something incompatible on your machine. Smile. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
wow, sounds cool.
just godda understand it all now. i have this guy trying very hard to teach
me c but i just don't get it. i'm not giving up this time ...
regards,
damien
- Original Message -
From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Damion,
Actually, a Hello World type program can be written in C++ in 6 lines as
long as you are writing a text program without all the Windows Win32
junk with it. It would look like this.
#include iostream
int main()
{
std::cout Hello world! endl;
return 0;
}
So saying you have to have 85 lines to write a Hello World program in
C++ simply isn't true. However, what you seam to be getting confused
about is the Microsoft Win32 API. That is responcible for handling
Windows, buttons, listboxes, and other Windows controls. If you count
the Win32 API and want Hello World to appear in it's own window rather
than in a text window than 85 is probably about right.
To understand the stuff you are talking about such as HINSTANCE you need
to understand the Win32 API. For example, HINSTANCE hInstance is an
object that is often used to control the current handle of the active
window. The HINSTANCE hPrevInstance is the previous instance, of the
window handle and so on. The
LPSTR lpCmdLine is a string used to process commandline parameters that
might be externally passed to the application.
\
x-sight interactive wrote:
ya know? i really, really, really admire them people that can understand
languages like c. visual basic and autoit are, what, 3 lines, if that,
to
write a simple hello world program. in c it's 85 lines, half of which i
don't have a clue what they all mean, such as:
HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine,
int nShowCmd
that hardly makes sense at all to me. those aren't even the start
headers. i
can make out little bits, like CMDLine is for command line parameters,
etc,
but most of it is half another language altogether, whereas
#include GUIConstants.au3
GUICreate(Hello World!)
GUISetState()
is a lot easier to understand. that's why i started with autoit. maybe
i'm
just far too impatient *grin*
regards,
damien
- Original Message -
From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 3:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Liam,
No change isn't always bad, and in this case I feel it was about to
happen sooner or later. As I understand it from what I have heard from
Microsoft on the subject was that many VB programmers in the field
bombarded MS with requests to update the language and include more
features present in more powerful languages such as C++ and Java. These
days it is unreasonable to not have a good oop design present in a
programming language. Especially, seeing as all the really popular
languages like C++, Java, Python, etc have a good oop design and are
more popular than non-oop languages.
Strictly speaking from my personal opinion and experiences when I was a
student in college they started us out on VB 5. Oh, I was happy as a
clam to be able to write something constructive, Mr. Programmer, and
all. However, as time went on I got in to more complex languages like
C++ and Java, and with them came more complex advanced concepts, new
design conventions, and so on. Once I learned, grasped, and understood
the advantages of what C++ and Java had to offer VB 5 seamed like a
joke, or a toy language for kids.
I mean I was really impressed with a simple subject like class
inheritence. How you could start out with a master class let's say
starship, put all your major variables and functions in there, and then
begin branching out, and create more and more specialised classes which
inherit the more generalised classes. With the creation of one
instance
of an object you have access to not only the specialised class you have
access to variables and functions to everything that specialised class
was derived from. Even cooler you wrote the variables and functions
once, but everytime you create an instance of an object which points to
that class those variables are duplicated in memory for the specific
use
of that object without having to write them over again for that item,
object, character, you are storing data for.
I guess to sum it up I learned oop design, and I couldn't live without
it. I found languages without oop design to be backward, outdated, and
really the hard way of doing things.
Liam Erven wrote:
Jim. It's much much different. There's many major differences than
in
vb6.
I was surprised to find out you could program in vb6 like you would in
an
older form of basic, but the whole system is much much different now.
Change
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
it wasn't actually my computer i tried it on it was one of the college's that i go to. they run windows xp service pack 2 and supernova (what??? yuck!!! lol) as their screenreader. i don't know what the versions are for the ide and the net stuff, it wasn't 2005 express though they bought a proper license for it. could've been 2003. regards, damien - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:34 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Damion, Snip i did actually try at one point with msvs.net and the ide was terrible - kept hanging on my system. End Snip Hmmm... Which version of the IDE did you have? Also what versions of Windows are you running, screen reader, and when was the last time your computer has had a good reformat and reinstall of Windows. Visual Studio 2005 Express shouldn't be locking up unless your Windows is messed up or there is something incompatible on your machine. Smile. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
waiting for sounds to finish most of the time. i don't know of any other time i'd need to make it wait. but when i say creating forms i'm talking about making general programs also. oh, so a timer is just like a control, i see. in autoit you have the sleep function for it waiting, the TimerInit function to initialise a timer,k the TimerDiff function to work out the time on the timer, but, well, maybe i should stick to vb for making game programs, at least for the moment, if i'm to get some fun out of it without getting frustrated with c *smile* regards, damien - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 4:31 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Damion, Snip There are still basic concepts i don't know how to code in vb, like how to make it wait, how to create arrays, how to use timers, position forms... End Snip When you mean make it wait are you waiting on a certain sound to finish, wait for a Windows message cue, or what exactly do you need to know about waiting. As far as arrays goes any VB book has good documentation on how to create an array. They are actually quite easy to work with. As far as timers goes those are easy as well. Select one from the toolbox, place it on your form, and go in to it's properties. Name it, set it for how many cycles per second you want it to update, and press enter on the timer control and VB will nicely create the function for you. From that point just put code in it like any other function that needs to be updated every so many times per second. All you need to do from that point is enable or disable the timer in another function like GameTimer.Enabled = True. As far as potioning forms I don't see you needing to fool with Forms much. The only major form you will have to deal with is the main form where your game code will go. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
hmm. I did programm structures. Although I havn't seen actual c here is my translation. instance. An instance is the current thing running at that time, and previous instances ofcause. And well commands and interupts. Its not all of it but I did 2 programming courses and I well I have some knowledge. But mail me off list I may attempt to learn all the studio things. We will see. At 02:43 PM 10/30/2006, x-sight interactive wrote: ya know? i really, really, really admire them people that can understand languages like c. visual basic and autoit are, what, 3 lines, if that, to write a simple hello world program. in c it's 85 lines, half of which i don't have a clue what they all mean, such as: HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nShowCmd that hardly makes sense at all to me. those aren't even the start headers. i can make out little bits, like CMDLine is for command line parameters, etc, but most of it is half another language altogether, whereas #include GUIConstants.au3 GUICreate(Hello World!) GUISetState() is a lot easier to understand. that's why i started with autoit. maybe i'm just far too impatient *grin* regards, damien - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 3:04 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Liam, No change isn't always bad, and in this case I feel it was about to happen sooner or later. As I understand it from what I have heard from Microsoft on the subject was that many VB programmers in the field bombarded MS with requests to update the language and include more features present in more powerful languages such as C++ and Java. These days it is unreasonable to not have a good oop design present in a programming language. Especially, seeing as all the really popular languages like C++, Java, Python, etc have a good oop design and are more popular than non-oop languages. Strictly speaking from my personal opinion and experiences when I was a student in college they started us out on VB 5. Oh, I was happy as a clam to be able to write something constructive, Mr. Programmer, and all. However, as time went on I got in to more complex languages like C++ and Java, and with them came more complex advanced concepts, new design conventions, and so on. Once I learned, grasped, and understood the advantages of what C++ and Java had to offer VB 5 seamed like a joke, or a toy language for kids. I mean I was really impressed with a simple subject like class inheritence. How you could start out with a master class let's say starship, put all your major variables and functions in there, and then begin branching out, and create more and more specialised classes which inherit the more generalised classes. With the creation of one instance of an object you have access to not only the specialised class you have access to variables and functions to everything that specialised class was derived from. Even cooler you wrote the variables and functions once, but everytime you create an instance of an object which points to that class those variables are duplicated in memory for the specific use of that object without having to write them over again for that item, object, character, you are storing data for. I guess to sum it up I learned oop design, and I couldn't live without it. I found languages without oop design to be backward, outdated, and really the hard way of doing things. Liam Erven wrote: Jim. It's much much different. There's many major differences than in vb6. I was surprised to find out you could program in vb6 like you would in an older form of basic, but the whole system is much much different now. Change isn't always bad. I'm really enjoying this new version quite a lot. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
well damon. I will at some point get the entire visual studio express dotnet. I will probably dabble in vc# and probably vwd. I will have everything though and well I'll see How far I will get. At 02:12 PM 10/30/2006, x-sight interactive wrote: ok guys you win. i'm still using autoit for now, but i've given up comaudio. it broke on my system and philip bennefall's having problems with it. i can't get it to work at all on mine. i did actually try at one point with msvs.net and the ide was terrible - kept hanging on my system. so all i have now is msvs6. so yes, i'm currently trying to learn dx myself and am beginning to understand it. however there are still basic concepts i don't know how to code in vb, like how to make it wait, how to create arrays, how to use timers, position forms, if i can sort all that out i may just switch from autoit altogether, don't know yet. regards, damien - Original Message - From: Liam Erven [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:38 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Quintin: Autoit is an excelent language to get your feet web. However, if you are serious about doing anything serious, your best bet is to learn a language like c sharp or vb. I'm a very big vb fan, and I know me and Tom will disagree. But, it's what works for me, and it's what I can teach people on the best. Grnated, my dot net stuff is rusty, but I'm still learning, and I've found all I need to know to get dx to work fairly well. However, Tom is right in that there is not a lot out there for beginner programmers. I really really do not like autoit though. There is much better out there. I won't write a whole list of the things I don't like, just know that I dislike it greatly. Hahaha. Liam -Original Message- From: Quinten Pendle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 5:28 AM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Thomas Where can one find the agdev-newbies list to subscribe to it? Also, what do you think of AutoIT as a programming language? The little that I saw of it, looked quite good. Best regards Quinten Pendle PENDLE PRO Klerksdorp, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 83 395 4593 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ahakimbo Website: www.pendlepro.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:51 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Robin, In the future posts like this should probably go over to the agdev-newbies list where we discuss such issues like this more in depth. However, since I am writing this email anyway. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I have a few questions of my own. /Snip I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. End Snip Is there any special reason you decided to go for Visual Basic rather than say C#, called C-Sharp. I highly recommend going with C-Sharp over VB for the primary reason many things are better documented and supported. One of these important areas in particular to you will be DirectX. While you can use MS DirectX in VB games Microsoft does not officially support it, and do not provide code samples, instructions, etc on writing games in VB .NET 2005. Snip 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? End Snip Yes, but you will find that good and reliable documentation for newbies is extremely lacking. Visual Basic became famous among amature and rapid application developers during the 90's but it's popularity is on the decline. Most of the VB croud have switched to C-Sharp. Just some historical background when DirectX 7 and 8 came out Microsoft unvailed it with VB 6.0 examples etc and offered newbies a simple basic language with a good set of multimedia libraries for developing games and other amature home wrote applications. In 2001 Microsoft converted all there Visual Studio languages to the .NET Framework furthering increasing the power of the languages as well as a universal development platform, and unvailed a new rapid development language C#, called C-Sharp, which had many improvements over VB, used C++ style coding conventions, reused allot of concepts from Java, and became a very new and innovative language. Now, it is rising in popularity, and in some areas has passed up VB in popularity among amature programmers. In 2003 when Microsoft DirectX 9.0 was unvailed to the world the documentation was for C++ and C-Sharp users, and VB devs were left in the cold documentation and support wise. Since I know both C-Sharp and VB as well as DirectX I know I could get DirectX up and running in no time in VB, but for a newby I don't see that happening without good samples and training. Snip 2. Where can I find the toolbox? End Snip
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi, Yeah, Jaws 4 definately won't cut it. You should at least have Jaws 6 or 7 for Visual Studio 2005 or Window Eyes 5.0 or better. I hear Window Eyes 6 beta 1 has some improvements with 2005 so it is possible Jaws 8 beta does as well. Jim Kitchen wrote: Hi Thomas, Yeah, not only don't I have the system requirements, but after I said that maybe I should check out VB 2005 I remembered that I bet that the version of JFW that I am running 4.02 probably will not work with anything newer than VB6. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Ron, Assuming you have the proper training materials you should be able to pick up either C#, (C-Sharp,) or VB.NET rather quickly using the Express compilers from Microsoft. I highly recommend the beginner books like Learning VB.NET, Learning C#.NET, and the In a Nutshell series from O'reilly because they start you out from a absolutely newby and talk you through very simple basic programs, explaining everything, and work your way up to more complex things. Your first program might be a simple text program that displays Hello World or your name, and by chapter 13 or so you will be designing Windows forms and Windows based applications. In the chapters from 1 to 13 they don't consentrate on complex things but discuss each concept such what is a variable, what is a class, what is an object, how to use loops, if statements, perform math operations, and so on. The time it takes depends on how fast you grasp each chapter and concept, and how fast you go through the training materials. I'd say on average 6 months to a year before you can really right your first game like a space invaders shoot-m-up or so. For this effort I really should write a free, open source, shoot-m-up game in C#.NET or VB.NET and post it on USA Games where people could have something to look at. Ron Schamerhorn wrote: Greetings I was just wondering if either express editions of C# or VB# would be okay for a non-programmer such as myself. For playing around with and what sort of learning curve, in time and such would I be looking at? I'm actually quite interested in learning how to program. Ron ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
I have used pascal and java script. I was origionally planning on using vb but I may just learn c#. This doesn't mean ofcause that I won't get all the bits and pieces. At 02:13 PM 10/26/2006, Ken the Crazy wrote: me too--but I can't even begin to understand vb2005--maybe it's just that I am using express? All I know is there are too many things on screen at once, and it couldn't upgrade the wrecking ball from vb6 for me--so unless I can learn vb.net I'm sticking with vb6. Ken Downey President DreamTechInteractive! And, Coming soon, Blind Comfort! The pleasant way to get a massage--no staring, just caring. - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Liam Erven Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:20 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Liam, I'm with you. Visual Basic, DirectX and the sapi5 TTS is what works for me as well. BFN Jim I am using BASIC, because I don't want to be C-sick. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.11/496 - Release Date: 10/24/2006 ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Thomas, Are you sure that one can not program in Visual Basic 2003, 2004, 2005 etc the same way as one does in Visual Basic 6? I mean I have always been told that one can not program in Visual Basic 6 as one did in GW Basic, Quick Basic etc, but it sure works for me. grin BFN Jim I tried snorting Coke once but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Jim. It's much much different. There's many major differences than in vb6. I was surprised to find out you could program in vb6 like you would in an older form of basic, but the whole system is much much different now. Change isn't always bad. I'm really enjoying this new version quite a lot. -Original Message- From: Jim Kitchen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 5:20 AM To: Thomas Ward Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Thomas, Are you sure that one can not program in Visual Basic 2003, 2004, 2005 etc the same way as one does in Visual Basic 6? I mean I have always been told that one can not program in Visual Basic 6 as one did in GW Basic, Quick Basic etc, but it sure works for me. grin BFN Jim I tried snorting Coke once but the ice cubes got stuck in my nose. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. __ NOD32 1.1659 (20060713) Information __ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Liam, I hear you there. I also have the problem with the error Window as well. It is not just related to VB.NET but all the IDEs have that particular problem with screen readers.I find it down right frustrating to say the least! The visual IDES have always done error checking, but in 2005 the debugger seams to be fanatical about its error checking. It pops a Window up for just about any miner infraction or miner mistake. If the screen reader could scream it would be screaming at me. The best solution I have found is to write my code out side of the VB.NET CS.NET IDE in a text editor of my choice, debug, and compile, in the IDE. Liam Erven wrote: The issue I have is the error windows that pop up and get in the way. I can't make them stop, but I end up working around them. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
[Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hello all, I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. I just downloaded Microsoft VisualBasic 2005 Express and I'm just confused because it's so complex. I wanted to use the tutorial that shows you how to create a small browser, but I got stuck because I couldn't find the toolbox. Now I have some questions: 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? 2. Where can I find the toolbox? 3. Is it a good idea to create a webbrowser at first? 3. Where can I find a good VB tutorial that explains all or at least most of all the features and how to use them? 4. Is there someone here who can program in VB and who could give me some lessons? Thanks for help! Robin. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Robin, In the future posts like this should probably go over to the agdev-newbies list where we discuss such issues like this more in depth. However, since I am writing this email anyway. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I have a few questions of my own. /Snip I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. End Snip Is there any special reason you decided to go for Visual Basic rather than say C#, called C-Sharp. I highly recommend going with C-Sharp over VB for the primary reason many things are better documented and supported. One of these important areas in particular to you will be DirectX. While you can use MS DirectX in VB games Microsoft does not officially support it, and do not provide code samples, instructions, etc on writing games in VB .NET 2005. Snip 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? End Snip Yes, but you will find that good and reliable documentation for newbies is extremely lacking. Visual Basic became famous among amature and rapid application developers during the 90's but it's popularity is on the decline. Most of the VB croud have switched to C-Sharp. Just some historical background when DirectX 7 and 8 came out Microsoft unvailed it with VB 6.0 examples etc and offered newbies a simple basic language with a good set of multimedia libraries for developing games and other amature home wrote applications. In 2001 Microsoft converted all there Visual Studio languages to the .NET Framework furthering increasing the power of the languages as well as a universal development platform, and unvailed a new rapid development language C#, called C-Sharp, which had many improvements over VB, used C++ style coding conventions, reused allot of concepts from Java, and became a very new and innovative language. Now, it is rising in popularity, and in some areas has passed up VB in popularity among amature programmers. In 2003 when Microsoft DirectX 9.0 was unvailed to the world the documentation was for C++ and C-Sharp users, and VB devs were left in the cold documentation and support wise. Since I know both C-Sharp and VB as well as DirectX I know I could get DirectX up and running in no time in VB, but for a newby I don't see that happening without good samples and training. Snip 2. Where can I find the toolbox? End Snip Press control+w then press the letter x. Your screen reader should land you on the toolbox area of the screen. Keep in mind there is two columns in the toolbox window. There is one side which sets the type of tools you wish to view, and the other side is the actual tools themselves. For your first experience with this I would say arrow up to have it show all tools, and then you can tab in to the tools and view the entire list. Obviously, later on you may want to customise your view as there are only certain types of tools you need for certain projects. Snip 3. Is it a good idea to create a webbrowser at first? End Snip No. Any seasoned developer will tell you that you need to start out extremely basic. For example my very very first program I wrote as a student was a text program which did nothing more than display my name on the screen. Some use hello world, your name, or whatever but the idea is to get you use to structures of programming, understanding functions, variables, data types, etc. Unless you know the basic termonology and use for things in a program you can not begin to write one. So first advice keep it simple stupid. Your first batch of programs are going to be lame, boring, throw away, projects, but worth the practice. Snip 3. Where can I find a good VB tutorial that explains all or at least most of all the features and how to use them? End Snip Well, I am very fond of recommending http://safari.oreilly.com which has books on just about any programming topic you can research for $20.00 US monthly. if you are going to do VB I suggest reading something like VB .NET In a Nutshell by O'reilly and Associates. Snip 4. Is there someone here who can program in VB and who could give me some lessons? Thanks for End Snip I know enough of VB .NET to get you started in designing games, but unfortunately I have a rather tight schedule aready and can't take on a student at this point in my life other than ocational pointers such as this email from time to time. Smile. ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Thomas Where can one find the agdev-newbies list to subscribe to it? Also, what do you think of AutoIT as a programming language? The little that I saw of it, looked quite good. Best regards Quinten Pendle PENDLE PRO Klerksdorp, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 83 395 4593 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ahakimbo Website: www.pendlepro.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:51 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Robin, In the future posts like this should probably go over to the agdev-newbies list where we discuss such issues like this more in depth. However, since I am writing this email anyway. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I have a few questions of my own. /Snip I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. End Snip Is there any special reason you decided to go for Visual Basic rather than say C#, called C-Sharp. I highly recommend going with C-Sharp over VB for the primary reason many things are better documented and supported. One of these important areas in particular to you will be DirectX. While you can use MS DirectX in VB games Microsoft does not officially support it, and do not provide code samples, instructions, etc on writing games in VB .NET 2005. Snip 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? End Snip Yes, but you will find that good and reliable documentation for newbies is extremely lacking. Visual Basic became famous among amature and rapid application developers during the 90's but it's popularity is on the decline. Most of the VB croud have switched to C-Sharp. Just some historical background when DirectX 7 and 8 came out Microsoft unvailed it with VB 6.0 examples etc and offered newbies a simple basic language with a good set of multimedia libraries for developing games and other amature home wrote applications. In 2001 Microsoft converted all there Visual Studio languages to the .NET Framework furthering increasing the power of the languages as well as a universal development platform, and unvailed a new rapid development language C#, called C-Sharp, which had many improvements over VB, used C++ style coding conventions, reused allot of concepts from Java, and became a very new and innovative language. Now, it is rising in popularity, and in some areas has passed up VB in popularity among amature programmers. In 2003 when Microsoft DirectX 9.0 was unvailed to the world the documentation was for C++ and C-Sharp users, and VB devs were left in the cold documentation and support wise. Since I know both C-Sharp and VB as well as DirectX I know I could get DirectX up and running in no time in VB, but for a newby I don't see that happening without good samples and training. Snip 2. Where can I find the toolbox? End Snip Press control+w then press the letter x. Your screen reader should land you on the toolbox area of the screen. Keep in mind there is two columns in the toolbox window. There is one side which sets the type of tools you wish to view, and the other side is the actual tools themselves. For your first experience with this I would say arrow up to have it show all tools, and then you can tab in to the tools and view the entire list. Obviously, later on you may want to customise your view as there are only certain types of tools you need for certain projects. Snip 3. Is it a good idea to create a webbrowser at first? End Snip No. Any seasoned developer will tell you that you need to start out extremely basic. For example my very very first program I wrote as a student was a text program which did nothing more than display my name on the screen. Some use hello world, your name, or whatever but the idea is to get you use to structures of programming, understanding functions, variables, data types, etc. Unless you know the basic termonology and use for things in a program you can not begin to write one. So first advice keep it simple stupid. Your first batch of programs are going to be lame, boring, throw away, projects, but worth the practice. Snip 3. Where can I find a good VB tutorial that explains all or at least most of all the features and how to use them? End Snip Well, I am very fond of recommending http://safari.oreilly.com which has books on just about any programming topic you can research for $20.00 US monthly. if you are going to do VB I suggest reading something like VB .NET In a Nutshell by O'reilly and Associates. Snip 4. Is there someone here who can program in VB and who could give me some lessons? Thanks for End Snip I know enough of VB .NET to get you started in designing games, but unfortunately I have a rather tight schedule aready and can't take on a student at this point in my life other than ocational pointers such as this email from time to time. Smile
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Quintin: Autoit is an excelent language to get your feet web. However, if you are serious about doing anything serious, your best bet is to learn a language like c sharp or vb. I'm a very big vb fan, and I know me and Tom will disagree. But, it's what works for me, and it's what I can teach people on the best. Grnated, my dot net stuff is rusty, but I'm still learning, and I've found all I need to know to get dx to work fairly well. However, Tom is right in that there is not a lot out there for beginner programmers. I really really do not like autoit though. There is much better out there. I won't write a whole list of the things I don't like, just know that I dislike it greatly. Hahaha. Liam -Original Message- From: Quinten Pendle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 5:28 AM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Thomas Where can one find the agdev-newbies list to subscribe to it? Also, what do you think of AutoIT as a programming language? The little that I saw of it, looked quite good. Best regards Quinten Pendle PENDLE PRO Klerksdorp, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 83 395 4593 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ahakimbo Website: www.pendlepro.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:51 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Robin, In the future posts like this should probably go over to the agdev-newbies list where we discuss such issues like this more in depth. However, since I am writing this email anyway. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I have a few questions of my own. /Snip I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. End Snip Is there any special reason you decided to go for Visual Basic rather than say C#, called C-Sharp. I highly recommend going with C-Sharp over VB for the primary reason many things are better documented and supported. One of these important areas in particular to you will be DirectX. While you can use MS DirectX in VB games Microsoft does not officially support it, and do not provide code samples, instructions, etc on writing games in VB .NET 2005. Snip 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? End Snip Yes, but you will find that good and reliable documentation for newbies is extremely lacking. Visual Basic became famous among amature and rapid application developers during the 90's but it's popularity is on the decline. Most of the VB croud have switched to C-Sharp. Just some historical background when DirectX 7 and 8 came out Microsoft unvailed it with VB 6.0 examples etc and offered newbies a simple basic language with a good set of multimedia libraries for developing games and other amature home wrote applications. In 2001 Microsoft converted all there Visual Studio languages to the .NET Framework furthering increasing the power of the languages as well as a universal development platform, and unvailed a new rapid development language C#, called C-Sharp, which had many improvements over VB, used C++ style coding conventions, reused allot of concepts from Java, and became a very new and innovative language. Now, it is rising in popularity, and in some areas has passed up VB in popularity among amature programmers. In 2003 when Microsoft DirectX 9.0 was unvailed to the world the documentation was for C++ and C-Sharp users, and VB devs were left in the cold documentation and support wise. Since I know both C-Sharp and VB as well as DirectX I know I could get DirectX up and running in no time in VB, but for a newby I don't see that happening without good samples and training. Snip 2. Where can I find the toolbox? End Snip Press control+w then press the letter x. Your screen reader should land you on the toolbox area of the screen. Keep in mind there is two columns in the toolbox window. There is one side which sets the type of tools you wish to view, and the other side is the actual tools themselves. For your first experience with this I would say arrow up to have it show all tools, and then you can tab in to the tools and view the entire list. Obviously, later on you may want to customise your view as there are only certain types of tools you need for certain projects. Snip 3. Is it a good idea to create a webbrowser at first? End Snip No. Any seasoned developer will tell you that you need to start out extremely basic. For example my very very first program I wrote as a student was a text program which did nothing more than display my name on the screen. Some use hello world, your name, or whatever but the idea is to get you use to structures of programming, understanding functions, variables, data types, etc. Unless you know the basic termonology and use for things in a program you can not begin to write one. So first advice keep it simple stupid. Your first batch of programs
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Liam, I'm with you. Visual Basic, DirectX and the sapi5 TTS is what works for me as well. BFN Jim I am using BASIC, because I don't want to be C-sick. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi, You can find the agdev-newbies list home page at http://lists.agdev.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/agdev-newbies where you can setup your account info for the list, view archives, and so on. As for AutoIt it's not technically a programming language but a tool kit. Personally, I am not very fond of it. If you are serious about real programming high-quality games you need a fully qualified programming language like C++, C-Sharp, or even VB with Microsoft DirectX used for your music, sounds, input, and optionally graphics. I don't know how far you wish to go with this, but if you want to write games of the quality of Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, or any other games like it or better than go with a real programming language. Quinten Pendle wrote: Hi Thomas Where can one find the agdev-newbies list to subscribe to it? Also, what do you think of AutoIT as a programming language? The little that I saw of it, looked quite good. Best regards Quinten Pendle PENDLE PRO Klerksdorp, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 83 395 4593 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ahakimbo Website: www.pendlepro.com ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Christian, Like I was saying in the last post VB.NET seams to be less documented in some areas than C-Sharp. Fortunately, the .NET languages are so similar that what you learn in C-Sharp will apply to VB.NET and VB.NET concepts will apply to C-Sharp. The difference is of course the structure of the programs, sintacs, etc... The key reason to the .NET frameworks success is that all of the .NET supported languages use the same set of libraries, namespaces, classes, etc for performing programming tasks. For example, in C style languages like C-Sharp they use allot of punctuation symbols like braces, brackets, and so on. Where in VB style languages they use less punctuation say it out right like End If, End Sub, End Function, End While, and so on where a brace would end that same block of code in C-Sharp. I'm not certain as to why this is, but I know many in the agdev comunity seam to feel comfortable with VB for the simple reason everything is more-or-less plane english like End If to end an If statement, End Function to mark the end of a Function block, and so on. However, I have been programming for about 10years, and most programming languages such as Java, Perl, C-Sharp, C, C++, etc are unlike VB and use braces, brackets, and so on to mark the start and end of a block, and I have never had a problem in figuring out where a block of code start and stops. Christian wrote: Hi Thomas and all, I would also be very interested in this since I am currently learning Visual Basic 2005 just for accessible games. If i don't find much of that documentaiton i might switch language before i have completed this one. Many thanks, Christian ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
Hi Jim and all, For purposes of this discussion for the newbies I think we should make a destinction between VB, meaning VB 6 and before, and VB.NET meaning 2002, 2003, and 2005. The primary reason for this destinction is that VB 6 and earlier were not primarily concerned with object oriented design concepts although it did have some. In VB.NET 2002 and later Microsoft adopted a Java-style object oriented design for VB.NET, C-Sharp, C++.NET, and that through old VB programmers for a loop. Suddenly, they had to relearn how to program using an Java-style object oriented design rather than the way they had been doing things. For those of us who had worked with Java the idea everything was based on an oop design was no big deal. The concepts were simple, and got on with learning on how it was to be written. Another point to make a destinction is in VB 6 we often imported Win32 dll files in our projects, and in VB.NET we depend heavily on the .NET Framework and not the Win32 API directly. In short Microsoft made several drastic changes between VB 6 and VB.NET 2002 and later which in many ways almost made VB.NET a completely different language except for the common language coding conventions, etc. Jim Kitchen wrote: Hi Liam, I'm with you. Visual Basic, DirectX and the sapi5 TTS is what works for me as well. BFN ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic
I just sat down and pounded out a quick guess the number game in vb dot net. It's very easy to use when you break it down and figgure out each window. I am not planning on upgrading any of my games to dot net though. -Original Message- From: Ken the Crazy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 8:14 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic me too--but I can't even begin to understand vb2005--maybe it's just that I am using express? All I know is there are too many things on screen at once, and it couldn't upgrade the wrecking ball from vb6 for me--so unless I can learn vb.net I'm sticking with vb6. Ken Downey President DreamTechInteractive! And, Coming soon, Blind Comfort! The pleasant way to get a massage--no staring, just caring. - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Liam Erven Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:20 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Liam, I'm with you. Visual Basic, DirectX and the sapi5 TTS is what works for me as well. BFN Jim I am using BASIC, because I don't want to be C-sick. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.11/496 - Release Date: 10/24/2006 ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. __ NOD32 1.1659 (20060713) Information __ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com ___ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
