VB and Visual Web Developer

[ResidentBiscuit]

Hi everyone, I usually only deal with C++ (Beginner at that even, got a lot of the core concepts down though), but I have a class this upcoming semester that works with VB and Visual Web Developer. Now, I have done a little VB work in the past (found it really boring), but have never even heard of Visual Web Developer. I have it downloaded, but I was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with it and how they liked it. Also, I was wondering if it uses the BASIC syntax, some other, or one of it's own?

Thank you in advance!

[NateSwany]

ResidentBiscuit,

Hi! I'm a college student at UAT and one of my assignments this week is to try to be of assistance on the cplusplus.com forums or post a question of my own.

I have not worked with VWD, but I have worked extensively with FrontPage, which appears to be VWD's predecessor. FrontPage was extremely easy to use and in fact I still use it occasionally. I should probably upgrade to VWD (Express), so I researched it a bit for both of us.

VWD's data language focus is ASP.NET, which I am a bit familiar with, though not to the extent that I would like. However, I have also worked with other dynamic data / database languages such as ColdFusion and MySQL so I understand the general concept of how dynamic web pages function. Also, I have worked extensively with other web languages such as HTML, CSS, XML, and JavaScript and have either helped build or been the sole scripter for half a dozen websites.

Anyway, back to ASP.Net, the neat thing about it is that you can "write ASP.NET code using any supported .NET language" (Wikipedia, 2011. Verified at MSDN.com.)

Here's what else I was able to find. According to MSDN, VWD is "a tool for creating and working with ASP.NET Web applications (called simply "Web sites") in a variety of configurations" (Microsoft, 2010). There are a lot of really great tutorials at MSDN (see links below).

Here is some example XML code from MSDN for creating the basic structure of a menu:

<siteMap>
  <siteMapNode title="Home" description="Home" url="default.aspx" >
    <siteMapNode title="Products" description="Our products" 
     url="Products.aspx">
      <siteMapNode title="Hardware" 
       description="Hardware choices"
       url="Hardware.aspx" />
      <siteMapNode title="Software" 
       description="Software choices" 
       url="Software.aspx" />
    </siteMapNode>
    <siteMapNode title="Services" 
     description="Services we offer" 
     url="Services.aspx">
      <siteMapNode title="Training" 
       description="Training classes" 
       url="Training.aspx" />
      <siteMapNode title="Consulting" 
       description="Consulting services" 
       url="Consulting.aspx" />
      <siteMapNode title="Support" 
       description="Support plans" 
       url="Support.aspx" />
    </siteMapNode>
  </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>

You can also use VB within VWD to do things like "catch the click event of Menu1" and "instead of navigating to any location, use the value to determine what the second Menu control displays" (Microsoft, 2011).

Protected Sub Menu1_MenuItemClick(ByVal sender As Object, _
  ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.MenuEventArgs) _
  Handles Menu1.MenuItemClick
  Select Case e.Item.Value
    Case "Products"
      SiteMapDataSource2.StartingNodeUrl = "Default.aspx?node=hardware"
    Case "Services"
      SiteMapDataSource2.StartingNodeUrl = "Default.aspx?node=consulting"
    Case "Support"
      SiteMapDataSource2.StartingNodeUrl = "Default.aspx?node=drivers"
  End Select
End Sub

Or if you wanted to do it in C#:

protected void Menu1_MenuItemClick(Object sender,    
      System.Web.UI.WebControls.MenuEventArgs e)
{
  switch(e.Item.Value)
  {
    case "Products":
      SiteMapDataSource2.StartingNodeUrl = "Default.aspx?node=hardware";
      return;
    case "Services":
      SiteMapDataSource2.StartingNodeUrl = "Default.aspx?node=consulting";
      return;
    case "Support":
      SiteMapDataSource2.StartingNodeUrl = "Default.aspx?node=drivers";
      return;
  }
}

Check out the links below for more information. I hope that helps!
~Nate Swanson





Links:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178093%28v=VS.100%29.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb515247.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/305w735z.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/16yk5dby.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asp.net
http://www.asp.net/vwd
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k1s94fta.aspx