Properties determine how controls appear on your form.  They set such things as colour, size, position, text, what the user can do with it etc.

Different controls will have different properties that you can set.

Setting Properties for a Form

Start Visual Basic and choose a standard exe project.

There should be a blank form on your screen.

Look at the properties window: (If it is not there, click View > Properties window )

Don't worry if most of the properties don't make sense to you.  Let's look at the ones we can understand.

 

BackColor is the background colour of the form - click and change it.  Show me how

Caption controls what appears in the title bar.  Try typing in a new caption.  Show me how

Height and Width control the size of the form (measured in twips: 1,440 twips = 1 inch) .  Click and resize your form and watch them change. (or you can type in new values and see your form change)

The Left and Top Properties controls how far your form is from the left and top edges of the screen.  You can change them by typing in new values or moving your form in the Form Layout Window.  Show me how

If you can't see the Form Layout window, click View > Form Layout Window 

 

Add a command button to your form.

Click once on the button on your form so that it is selected.

You can see its properties in the properties window.

Adjust the Appearance,  Caption, Font, Height, Width, Top, Left and Picture properties.  (Note: For the picture property, you can select an image file) 

If you want to change the background colour, you need to set the Backcolor and then the Style property to be 1- Graphical