Saturday, January 5, 2013

KEYPRESS EVENT IN VB.NET


Handle Keyboard Input at the Form Level in VB.NET
Windows Forms processes keyboard input by raising keyboard events in response to Windows messages. Most Windows Forms programs process keyboard input by handling the keyboard events.

How do I detect keys pressed in VB.NET
You can detect most physical key presses by handling the KeyDown or KeyUp events. Key events occur in the following order:
  KeyDown
  KeyPress
KeyUp
 
Note: Before a form can capture its key-related events, its keyPreview property MUST be set to TRUE
 
How to detect when the Enter Key Pressed in VB.NET
The following VB.NET code behind creates the KeyDown event handler. If the key that is pressed is the Enter key, a MessegeBox will displayed .

  If e.KeyCode = Keys.Enter Then
 MsgBox("enter key pressd ")
End If

How to get TextBox1_KeyDown event in your VB.Net source file ?
Select your VB.Net source code view in Visual Studio and select TextBox1 from the top-left Combobox and select KeyDown from top-right combobox , then you will get keydown event sub-routine in your source code editor.

  Private Sub TextBox1_KeyDown(...)..
End Sub

Friday, January 4, 2013

ADD, EDIT OR UPDATE A DATABASE


Before we start the coding for these new buttons, it's important to understand that the DataSet is disconnected from the database. What this means is that if you're adding a new record, you're not adding it to the database: you're adding it to the DataSet! Similarly, if you're updating or Deleting, you doing it to the DataSet, and NOT to the database. After you have made all of your changes, you THEN commit these changes to the database. You do this by issuing a separate command. But we'll see how it all works.
You'll need to add a few more buttons to your form - five of them. Change the Name properties of the new Buttons to the following:

btnAddNew
btnCommit
btnUpdate
btnDelete
btnClear

Change the Text properties of the buttons to Add New Record, Commit Changes, Update Record, Delete Record, and Clear/Cancel. Your form might look something like this:


We'll start with the Update Record button

Updating a Record

To reference a particular column (item) in a row of the DataSet, the code is this:

ds.Tables("AddressBook").Rows(2).Item(1)

That will return whatever is at Item 1 on Row 2.
As well as returning a value, you can also set a value. You do it like this:

ds.Tables("AddressBook").Rows(2).Item(1) = "Jane"

Now Item 1 Row 2 will contain the text "Jane". This won't, however, effect the database! The changes will just get made to the DataSet. To illustrate this, add the following code to your btnUpdate:

          ds.Tables("AddressBook").Rows(inc).Item(1) = txtFirstName.Text
          ds.Tables("AddressBook").Rows(inc).Item(2) = txtSurname.Text

          MsgBox("Data updated")

Run your programme, and click the Next Record button to move to the first record. "John" should be displayed in your first textbox, and "Smith" in the second textbox. Click inside the textboxes and change "John" to "Joan" and "Smith" to "Smithy". (Without the quotes). Now click your Update Record button.

Move to the next record by clicking your Next Record button, and then move back to the first record. You should see that the first record is now "Joan Smithy".
 
Close down your programme, then run it again. Click the Next Record button to move to the first record. It will still be "John Smith". The data you updated has been lost! So here, again, is why:

"Changes are made to the DataSet, and NOT to the Database"

To update the database, you need some extra code. Amend your code to this (the new lines are in bold, red text):

               Dim cb As New OleDb.OleDbCommandBuilder(da)
               ds.Tables("AddressBook").Rows(inc).Item(1) = txtFirstName.Text
               ds.Tables("AddressBook").Rows(inc).Item(2) = txtSurname.Text
               da.Update(ds, "AddressBook")
               MsgBox("Data updated")

The first new line is this:

Dim cb As New OleDb.OleDbCommandBuilder(da)

To update the database itself, you need something called a Command Builder. The Command Builder will build a SQL string for you. In between round brackets, you type the name of your Data Adapter, da in our case. The command builder is then stored in a variable, which we have called cb.
The second new line is where the action is:

da.Update(ds, "AddressBook")

The da variable is holding our Data Adapter. One of the methods of the Data Adapter is Update. In between the round brackets, you need the name of your DataSet (ds, for us). The "AddressBook" part is optional. It's what we've called our DataSet, and is here to avoid any confusion.


But the Data Adapter will then contact the database. Because we have a Command Builder, the Data Adapter can then update your database with the values from the DataSet.

Without the Command Builder, though, the Data Adapter can't do it's job. Try this. Comment out the Command Builder line (put a single quote before the "D" of Dim). Run your programme again, and then try and update a record. You'll get this error message:

InvalidOperationException error

The error is because you haven't got a command builder - a Valid Update Command.
Delete the comment from your Command Builder line and the error message goes away.
You should now be able to make changes to the database itself (as long as the Access database isn't Read Only).
Try it out. Run your programme, and change one of the records. Click the Update button. Then close the programme down, and load it up again. You should see your new changes displayed in the textboxes.



More tutorials like this at http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk