.net – How to find the main() entry point in a VB.Net winforms app

.netvb.netwinforms

When I create a WinForms app in C#, the output type is Windows Application and I get a program.cs with a static void Main() which I can use to handle command-line parameters, etc…

However, when I create an equivalent project for VB, the application type is Windows Forms Application and I'm forced to pick a startup form.

Is there an equivalent mechanism to run my own code before I decide which form to display in VB.Net? I'm assuming the same code exists but is auto-generated and hidden somewhere? If so, where?

Best Solution

In VB you'll need to create your sub main by hand as it were so what I generally do is create a new Module named Program.

Within that as a very basic setup you'll need to add the following code.

Public Sub Main()

    Application.EnableVisualStyles()
    Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(False)
    Application.Run(New Form1)

End Sub

Once you've done that go to the application tab of the project's settings and uncheck the 'Enable Application framework' setting and then from the drop down under Startup object select your new Sub Main procedure.

You can then put any start-up code that you want to run before your program opens its main form before the Application.Run line.

Hope that helps

Related Solutions

R – How to structure VB.NET Windows Forms applications

I had great success with this Passive Screen pattern.

In my opinion, the big problem of the traditional MVC architecture is that people stuff way too much into the form classes. This increases the amount of manual testing you have to do.

The more automated testing you can do after you compile, the more bugs you will catch at your desk. In a complex application, the side effects from even minor changes occur all too often.

The trick to solving this is making a controller assembly that the form assembly (or EXE) references. Every form has a corresponding class in the assembly. Clicking a button will call ThisForm.ThisButton(<args>) which will then fire objects lower in your framework. Each form implements an interface so that, if the controller class needs additional information from the form, it has a interface to retrieve it.

Then for your unit testing you simulate an operator performing complex operations by implementing dummy classes to fire events and feed information to the controller classes. The controller classes don't know any different as the dummy classes implement all the expected interfaces.

There is an important exception and that is for trivial dialogs. For dialogs that have a few check boxes I feel this organization is overkill. I use the command pattern a lot. So in the assembly where I define the Command objects, I put the SIMPLE dialog associated with that command. How simple a dialog has to be to get this treatment is up to you.

I like to structure my applications as follows.

Utility - This is an assembly that has stuff I use all the time - Math functions, file function, etc.
Objects - This has the specific objects I am using for this application.
UIFramework - This defines all form and controller interfaces.
Commands - This has all the Command objects that manipulate my application objects.
UI - Objects that implement the controller interfaces
EXE - Forms that implement the form interface and calls the controller objects.

C# – How to update the GUI from another thread

The simplest way is an anonymous method passed into Label.Invoke:

// Running on the worker thread
string newText = "abc";
form.Label.Invoke((MethodInvoker)delegate {
    // Running on the UI thread
    form.Label.Text = newText;
});
// Back on the worker thread

Notice that Invoke blocks execution until it completes--this is synchronous code. The question doesn't ask about asynchronous code, but there is lots of content on Stack Overflow about writing asynchronous code when you want to learn about it.

Best Solution

Related Solutions

R – How to structure VB.NET Windows Forms applications

C# – How to update the GUI from another thread

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