Microsoft® Small BasicGraduating to the Microsoft Visual Basic®

development environment

Estimated time to complete this lesson: 1 hour

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

Download a free version of Visual Basic.

Export Small Basic programs to Visual Basic.

Run your programs from Visual Basic.

Graduating to Visual Basic

Introduction to Visual Basic

This lesson introduces you to a new and more powerful programming environment that is called Visual Basic.

Now that you’re a master of Small Basic, let’s see what else is out there for you to continue your fun with programming.

Downloading and Installing Visual Basic

Just like Small Basic, you can get Visual Basic Express Edition for free.

You can download the most recent version from the following page:http://www.microsoft.com/express/Windows

The installation should take about 10-15 minutes.

Exporting programs from Small Basic

After you write a program in Small Basic, you can easily export that code to run from Visual Basic.

If you click Graduate on the toolbar, Small Basic will launch a wizard that will walk you through the export process.

The wizard will translate your Small Basic program into Visual Basic and then automatically launch the Visual Basic environment for you.

The Graduate Wizard

Specify where you want to save your new Visual Basic program, and then click Continue.

Running the program from Visual Basic

After you export your program, a new programming environment appears.

Your new environment should resemble this window.

If you click Play on the toolbar, your program should run just the same way as it ran from Small Basic.

Visual Basic is a very powerful language and environment that you can use to further your programming fun.

Learning more about Visual Basic

You can find lots of resources on the Internet for learning about Visual Basic.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/ is a good place to start to learn about Visual Basic.

Let’s Summarize…

Congratulations! Now you know how to:

Download and install Visual Basic.

Export your Small Basic program to Visual Basic.

Run the exported program from Visual Basic.