How to Create a Joke Jukebox in Visual Basic 6.0

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Introduction

Designing apps in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 is pretty straight forward. Point this, click that, presto! place it on the form. But seriously, click on the desired component (control) located at the left toolbar of Visual Basic 6.0 , and draw it at an appropriate location on the form.

Components on the form align to rectangular grids, giving your apps a symmetric look.
This simple app demonstrates the ease of creating fun applications in Windows Forms.

Listbox

Fast forwarding a bit, we've created a Windows Form, placed listboxes, labels common dialogs on the form, to have all these controls respond to mouse clicks, we have to put some code into it.
So we double-click on any given control and place some code in that control's event method.

The List1_Click() Event

The List1_Click() event is called upon when the left button is pressed down while above this listBox. Once the index has changed, this method is called upon and it represents the user changing from one textfile containing jokes to another.

Private Sub List1_Click()
  Label1.Caption = ""
   JokeLineCount = 0
   List2.ListIndex = JokeLineCount
    List2.ListIndex = 0
    CurrentJokeFile = List1.ListIndex
   Label9.Caption = "TimeDelay  : " & TimeDelay
   LoadJokeFile
  DisplayRandomJoke
End Sub 

The GenerateRandomFile() Method

The GenerateRandomFile() method is called upon to load jokes from a textfile to a string array.

Private Sub GenerateRandomFile()
 ii = 0
 ResetLines
 DoneFile = True

 Do
   CurrentJokeFile = Int(MaxJokeFiles * Rnd)
   For ii = 0 To MaxJokeFiles
      If (CurrentJokeFile = DoneFiles(ii)) Then
        DoneFile = True
      End If

      If (CurrentJokeFile <> DoneFiles(ii)) Then
        DoneFile = False
      End If
   Next ii
  Loop Until (DoneFile = False)

  DoneFileCount = DoneFileCount + 1
  DoneFiles(DoneFileCount) = CurrentJokeFile

   Label11.Caption = "File :  " & CurrentJokeFile & _
          "  UnOpened: " & MaxJokeFiles - DoneFileCount
  If (MaxJokeFiles - DoneFileCount < 1) Then
   ResetFiles
   ResetLines
  End If

  LoadJokeFile
End Sub

The List2_Click() Event

The List2_Click() event is called upon when the left button is pressed down while above this listBox. Once the index has changed, this method is called upon and it represents the user changing from one line of joke to another.

Private Sub List2_Click()
  JokeLineCount = List2.ListIndex
  DisplayRandomJoke
  Label5.Caption = "Current Line   : " & JokeLineCount & "  of  _
		" & JokeFile(CurrentJokeFile).MaxLines
  Label10.Caption = "Line :  " & JokeLineCount & "  Unread: _
		" & JokeFile(CurrentJokeFile).MaxLines - DoneLineCount
  Label9.Caption = "TimeDelay  : " & TimeDelay
 ' UpdateStats
End Sub  

The DisplayRandomJoke() Method

The DisplayRandomJoke() method is called upon to display one line of joke from a string array on a label.

Private Sub DisplayRandomJoke()
TimerStart = Timer

  Label1.Caption = JokeLine(JokeLineCount).Line
   TimeDelay = DefaultTimeDelay + (Len(Label1.Caption) * DelayTreshHold)
    Label9.Caption = "TimeDelay  : " & TimeDelay
   Timer1.Interval = TimeDelay
  Timer2.Interval = TimeDelay

End Sub   

And that is how easy it is to create fun applications in Windows Forms.

Thanks for reading.