Want to see what is new in VB5?

Most of the information below is from the book "Doing Objects in Microsoft Visual Basic 5" by Deborah Kurata (Ziff-Davis Press). All chapter references in this excerpt are from that book.

Known Bugs/Issues

There have been some reported bugs and issues with VB5. Click here for a list of them.

If you find other bugs or issues with VB5, let us know and we will post them. Click here to email us.

Major New Features: Speed and the Web

Visual Basic 5 provides several major new features:

• Native compilation. A Visual Basic application can be compiled to native code for faster execution. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for the details.
• Display speed. Improvements to the internal control handling provide faster display of Visual Basic screens.
• Creating ActiveX controls. You can now create your own ActiveX controls with Visual Basic. You can create a control and use it in any application that supports ActiveX controls, such as VB4, VB5, and Web pages. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information.
• Creating ActiveX documents. Visual Basic forms can be converted into ActiveX documents and displayed in an Internet browser window, so you can leverage your Visual Basic experience in the development of Internet or intranet applications. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information.
• New Internet controls. Internet Transfer, WebBrowser, and WinSock controls are provided for easy browsing, transferring files, and exchanging data with Web sites.
• Web-based deployment. The Setup Wizard now has features to support Web-based deployment of your components. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for the details.

New Object-Oriented Features: More Reasons to Go OO

Many new Visual Basic 5 features are specifically for the design and development of object-oriented applications:

• Multiple interfaces. You can define multiple interfaces for classes in your applications. Using multiple interfaces allows you to group the properties and methods of a class into functional units, reuse interfaces in other classes, and easily add functionality to a class after the class has been deployed. Chapter 12, "Interfaces, Polymorphism, and Inheritance," lists the benefits of multiple interfaces and describes how to create and use them.
• Improved polymorphism. To leverage polymorphism in VB4, you have to give up early binding. With VB5 you can use interfaces to attain early binding when using polymorphism. Chapter 12, "Interfaces, Polymorphism, and Inheritance," defines polymorphism and explains why and how you would use it.
• Raising events. Visual Basic forms and controls raise events and you can develop event procedures to respond to those events. With VB5, classes you create can raise their own events. Any class with a reference to an object from the class can then respond to the event. This feature allows an easier communication mechanism between components in an application, especially for asynchronous processing. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for more information on raising and responding to events.
• Global constants. You can now encapsulate public constants for a class within a class module using an enumeration. This approach is great for listing the error numbers raised by the class and for magic numbers required for modifying properties or calling methods in the class. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for more information on declaring and using an enumeration.
• Improved Object Browser. The biggest improvements to the Object Browser are the searching capabilities and the modeless window. Additional improvements make this an excellent tool for working with your objects and the objects from other applications. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for more information on using the Object Browser.
• Improved debugging of classes. If you have your Error Trapping set to Break in Class Module or Break on All Errors and generate an error, you can now press Alt+F8 to step into the error handler or Alt+F5 to continue. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for more information.
• *Better variable watching. You can drag an object variable directly from the Code window to the Watches window. The object and all of its properties will then appear in the Watches window. All object variables that are in scope at any particular time when running your application will automatically appear in the Locals window with their property values.
• Class documentation. You can develop documentation for a class using the new Procedure Attributes dialog box. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for more information on this dialog box.
• Default property or method. You can now identify a property or method of a class to be the default property or method. The default is the property or method assumed if you use the object variable with no property or method. For example, the Text property is the default property for text boxes, so you can use txtName instead of txtName.Text. Setting a default is particularly useful for the Item method in a collection class. See Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," for an example of setting a default method.
• For Each…Next syntax for collection classes. If you create a private collection and expose it with a collection class in VB4, you can no longer use the For Each…Next syntax on the private collection. VB5 exposes the enumerator object to provide this feature. Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," provides the details of this process.
• Enhanced Property procedures. Property procedures now allow variable arguments and typed optional arguments. This improves the performance and flexibility of Property procedures. See Chapter 14, "Doing Database Objects," for an example.
• Global objects. You can convert your function library or library of common routines into a class in an ActiveX component and define the class to be global. This feature allows developers to use the library of functions without declaring an object variable or creating an object. See Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," for more information on global objects.
• Friend methods. Classes in your ActiveX component can now communicate privately without exposing the classes to other applications. You can make this happen by using the Friend keyword to declare the procedure instead of using Public or Private. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information. Friend methods also provide a mechanism to pass user-defined types (UDTs) between classes. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," for more information and an example of passing a UDT to a class.

ActiveX Features: OLE Gets Active

There are a few other new ActiveX features in addition to those already mentioned:

• OLE renamed. Many of the OLE features from VB4 are renamed to ActiveX in VB5. The OLE servers you created in VB4 are now ActiveX servers. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information.
  n Improved Version Compatibility. Testing ActiveX components is easier with the new project compatibility option. Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," describes the new Version Compatibility settings.
• Modeless dialog boxes in an ActiveX DLL. ActiveX DLLs no longer have the modal dialog box restriction identified for VB4. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information.
• Multithreading. ActiveX components support multithreading. Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," defines how the different types of components provide multithreading.

New IDE Features: Cool Tools Rule!

The Visual Basic 5 integrated development environment (IDE) provides many new productivity features and tools. These features and tools by themselves are enough of a reason to move to VB5!

• Wizards. Wizards are provided in VB5 to maximize your productivity. The VB Application Wizard can complete the entire framework for your application, as shown in Chapter 6, "User-Interface Design." The VB Class Builder utility helps you to create your entire object model and then automatically generates the code for that object model. This process is outlined in Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques." *You can even have the Class Builder utility add debug code to your classes.
  Other Wizards build database maintenance screens, create ActiveX control property pages, convert VB forms to ActiveX documents, and much more.
• Templates. You can create any form, module, class module, or any other type of project component and copy it to a defined template directory. The project component will then appear in the Add dialog box, which makes it very easy to add the component to any project. See Chapter 7, "Implementation-Centered Design," for more information.
• Add Related Documents. You can add documentation or other support files directly into the project as related documents. You can also edit these files from within the IDE. This makes it easy to keep track of all of the associated documentation and support files required for a project. Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class," provides additional information on using this feature to document your classes.
• Auto List Members. Visual Basic knows the available properties and methods for every object. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could just provide you with the list of valid properties and methods and let you select one? With VB5 it does. This is such a timesaving feature it is hard to imagine living without it.
• Auto Quick Info. This feature lists the syntax for a statement or function after you enter the statement or function name. This helps you enter the correct set of parameters. For parameters that require a constant, such as the Buttons parameter on the MessageBox, the constants are listed for your selection.
• *Auto Completion. Use Ctrl + Space to automatically complete any entered key word. For example, type "msg" and then Ctrl + Space and "msgbox" will be automatically completed for you.
• Drag and drop of code. You can drag and drop code anywhere within the IDE.
• Block and Unblock Comments. Using this feature you can select a section of code and add or remove comment markers from each line in the selection.
• Bookmarks. You can set bookmarks in the code and return to the bookmark location. Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," describes how to use bookmarks and explains how to add a shortcut key for bookmarks into the IDE.
• MDI or SDI style interface. Do you hate seeing your other windows through the VB IDE or do you love the way you can see your application with VB on top of it? With VB5 you can select a multiple-document interface (MDI) style or a single-document interface (SDI) style for the IDE.
• Dockable windows. Any of the windows within the IDE can be docked to create your desired layout and Visual Basic will remember that layout.
• Project workspace files. When closing a project, Visual Basic will store the location and size of all open project windows, thereby saving your project workspace. When you reopen the project, the project workspace will be restored and all windows will be displayed in their last location and size.
• Multiple Projects. You can define multiple projects in a project group. You can then open the group and all of the projects in the group will be opened in the IDE. This is especially useful for debugging ActiveX components. See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information.
• Improved Project window. With the new Project window, you can display all components of all projects in a project group, sort components by type, and access any project component, including additional files such as documentation or support files.
• Multiple tabs on the toolbox. You can add tabs to your toolbox so you can logically divide your toolbox into sets of tools. This is very helpful if you use a lot of third-party products or have developed many of your own controls.
• Form Designer window. The Form Designer window is a new window frame around your form. It separates the form displayed to the user from the window you use to create the form. Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," provides more information on the Form Designer window.
• New Form Layout Window. The new Form Layout window allows you to visually identify at design time the desired position for a form at run time. In prior versions of Visual Basic, the form would appear in the location defined when you edited the form, so if you moved the form in the IDE, the form would appear in a new location at run time. The Form Layout window allows you to place the form anywhere inside or outside the screen region independent of the location of the Form Designer window at design time. The Form Layout window comes with resolution guides to help you size or place windows for 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 resolutions. See Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together" for more information on using the Form Layout window.
• Improved Properties window. The Properties window now has two tabs. The Alphabetical tab lists the properties in alphabetical order, as in prior versions of Visual Basic. The Categorized tab lists the properties by category. Using the categories is very helpful for setting groups of properties, such as the position properties. Chapter 14, "Doing Database Objects," describes how this feature makes it easier to set properties for bound controls.The Properties window also provides a description of the currently selected property at the bottom of the window. You can toggle display of this description by right-clicking on the Properties window and toggling the Description option.
• Update Menu properties. The menu options now appear in the Properties window so the menu properties can be changed without using the Menu Editor. See Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," for more information on this feature.
• *Update Project properties. The project name now appears in the Properties window. Simply select the project from the Project window and enter the project name into the Properties window. You still need to go to the Project Properties to set the description and other project information.
• Separate Project options. The project options are now separated from the editing and environment options, making it easier to make appropriate option selections. See Chapter 10, "Building Your First Class", for a look at the new Project Options and Options dialog boxes.
• Customizable Toolbar and Menu commands. You can now customize your toolbar and menu commands. Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," explains how.
• Instant Watch. When in break mode, you can view the value of any variable or expression by simply moving the cursor over the selection. See Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," for more information.
• Improved Immediate window. With Visual Basic 5, you can call routines, execute code, or create objects from classes without first running and pausing the project. Simply type the statements into the Immediate window. See Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," for an example.
• *Drag and drop of execution marker. When in break mode, the line to be executed next will appear highlighted with a column marker (yellow circle). You can drag the column marker to another location to define the next line of code to be executed.
• Assert. The Debug object has a new Assert method that checks the value of an expression and stops execution of the application at design time if that value is false. This allows you to verify the values of expressions when developing and debugging an application. See Chapter 11, "Building Classes: Additional Techniques," for an example of using Assert.

Other New Features: An Assortment of Enhancements

Here are some other new features that are important to mention:

• ODBCDirect. You can now access the RDO libraries through the DAO object model using ODBCDirect. See Chapter 8, "Data Design," and Chapter 14, "Doing Database Objects," for more information.
• Access to the NT event log. VB5 added several properties and methods to the App object to log application events to a log file or directly to the NT event log. Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," provides a sample Error class that logs events to the NT event log.
• AddressOf. Visual Basic can now pass a function pointer to an API call. See Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," for more information.
• Typed optional arguments. In VB4 optional arguments had to be Variants, but with VB5 they can be any data type. Using the specific data type for optional arguments can improve performance because typed arguments are faster to access than Variants. *NOTE: If you use data types other than Variant, you cannot use the IsMissing syntax. IsMissing is a type of Variant and will not work on strings, integers, or other data types.
• OLE Drag and Drop. When this feature is implemented in your application, the users can drag and drop text between controls and between controls and other applications such as Microsoft Word. See Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," for more information on this feature.
• ToolTipText property. A new ToolTipText property on many of the controls displays a tooltip. See Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," for an example.
• New form properties. The new StartUpPosition property defines the startup location of a form at run time. There is also a new Moveable property that locks a window in place and prevents the user from moving it. Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together," provides more information on these properties.
• Defining a window owner. A new parameter on the Show method for a form allows you to specify an owner form to establish a parent/child relationship between the owner form and the form being shown. This feature is described in Chapter 15, "Putting the Pieces Together."
• DCOM. In addition to Remote Automation provided in VB4, you can now remote your components using the distributed component object model (DCOM). See Chapter 13, "Building ActiveX Components," for more information.

There are several additional new Enterprise Edition features such as tools for debugging Transact-SQL and a built-in Repository. See Craig Goren’s book, "The Visual Basic 5 Enterprise", for information on the new Enterprise Edition features.

*These are new things I found or heard about since the original posting of this page.