User`s guide

Using .NET with VEE 7
VEE User’s Guide 281
What is .NET?
Visual Studio .NET is Microsoft’s latest development
platform. Unlike previous products, such as Visual Studio 6,
.NET addresses the needs of both desktop programmers and
World Wide Web developers. The strength of .NET from a
VEE perspective is the free .NET Framework that is
distributed with VEE 7.0. In fact, this free runtime is
integral to several of VEE’s new features.
The key features and benefits of the .NET Framework for
VEE are the Framework Class Library (FCL) and the COM
interop technology. The Framework Class Library is of
particular value to VEE programmers. There are 100’s of
new properties and methods that are now available through
the Function&Object Browser. This new feature enables your
code to derive functionality such as File and Directory
management; simpler String managment; the simplified views
of the Operating System environment; the manipulation of
Web pages; access to Operating System processes; reading
the registry; and many, many more.
.NET also provides a native COM interop technology. This
means a COM component can be accessed as a .NET object
and a .NET object can be accessed as a COM component.
At the end of this chapter is a set of definitions for
Microsoft terminology that is used throughout this chapter.
Please refer to it as necessary.