Step 11: Run Your Program and Try Other Features

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Your program is finished and ready to run. You can run your program and set the background color of the PictureBox. To learn more, try to improve the program by changing the color of the form, customizing the buttons and check box, and changing the properties of the form.

For a video version of this topic, see Tutorial 1: Create a Picture Viewer in Visual Basic - Video 5 or Tutorial 1: Create a Picture Viewer in C# - Video 5. These videos use an earlier version of Visual Studio, so there are slight differences in some menu commands and other user interface elements. However, the concepts and procedures work similarly in the current version of Visual Studio.

To run your program and set the background color

1. Choose F5, or on the menu bar, choose Debug, Start Debugging.

2. Before you open a picture, choose the Set the background color button. The Color dialog box opens.

   Color dialog box

3. Choose a color to set the PictureBox background color. Look closely at the backgroundButton_Click() method to understand how it works.

   Note

   You can load a picture from the Internet by pasting its URL into the Open File dialog box. Try to find an image with a transparent background, so your background color shows.

4. Choose the Clear the picture button to make sure it clears. Then, exit the program by choosing the Close button.

To try other features

• Change the color of the form and the buttons by using the BackColor property.

• Customize your buttons and check box using the Font and ForeColor properties.

• Change your form's FormBorderStyle and ControlBox properties.

• Use your form's AcceptButton and CancelButton properties so that buttons are automatically chosen when the user chooses the ENTER or ESC key. Make the program open the Open File dialog box when the user chooses ENTER and close the box when the user chooses ESC.

To continue or review

• To learn more about programming in Visual Studio, see Programming Concepts.

• To learn more about Visual Basic, see Developing Applications with Visual Basic.

• To learn more about Visual C#, see Introduction to the C# Language and the .NET Framework.

• To go to the next tutorial, see Tutorial 2: Create a Timed Math Quiz.

• To return to the previous tutorial step, see Step 10: Write Code for Additional Buttons and a Check Box.