Alignment Program Changing Properties at Design-Time and Run-Time Step 1

1. 
   Open a new VB Project
   
2. 
   Name the form frmAlignment
   
3. 
   Change the Size of your form to 500, 250
   
4. 
   Add 4 Buttons to the form, and place them in a straight line along the bottom of your form.
   
5. 
   Assign the following properties to the buttons:
   
   • 
     Button1 – Name: btnLeftAlign Text: Left
     
   • 
     Button2 – Name: btnCenterAlign Text: Center
     
   • 
     Button3 – Name: btnRightAlign Text: Right
     
   • 
     Button4 – Name: btnExit Text: Exit
     
6. 
   Add a Label to the form. Change the Name of the label to lblMessage. Change the AutoSize Property to False. Resize the label so that it is as wide as your form and a couple of lines deep. Change the Text Property so that the label shows nothing.
   

1. 
   Write the code for the click event on the btnLeftAlign button. Insert the lines of code shown below. These are the statements that will be executed when the program is running and the btnLeftAlign button is clicked.
   

Private Sub btnLeft_Click(ByVal … ) Handles btnLeft.Click

‘changes the labels message and alignment

lblMessage.Text = “This text is aligned on the left.”

lblMessage.TextAlign = ContentAlignment.TopLeft

End Sub
Tip  **Notice that after you type the . and the = options are listed. You can click on the one you want to select it instead of typing everything out!! **

2. 
   Insert the code into the click event procedures for the other command buttons, programming them to change the properties of lblMessage at run-time as necessary.
   

3. 
   Insert the code for the btnExit button. (application.exit)
   

When the program executes the first thing it does is load the form and all of its objects into memory. Often we want to program things that happen at this point – initial instructions that only happen at the beginning of the program. To do this, we can put statements in the Form_Load Event procedure.

'setting the initial properties of the label

lblMessage.Text = "Watch My Alignment Change!"

lblMessage.TextAlign = ContentAlignment.BottomCenter

4. 
   Run your program, and notice the initial message in the label.
   
5. 
   Add instructions in your Form_Load event that will initially set the font colour (ForeColor) the way you want.