Bad News and Good News
While most VB6 controls convert well, there are exceptions. For example, line and shape controls and commands do not convert very well, and the DB, OLE, and UpDown counter controls do not convert at all. I'll discuss these in more detail in my next article.

Form.Print doesn't exist in VB.NET, and there is no real workaround that I know of. This has got to be the one thing I miss most from VB6. This was also true when I used C++ 6.0 instead of VB6 to write user interfaces. The general solution is to get a bitmap of the form and print that. If you do the scaling right, this can work well, but in many cases, the result is a low quality print. This can be especially true of text. Items that the programmer draws, such as user draw items and general graphics, can be drawn on the printer canvas instead of the screen canvas. Scaled right, this tends to work well, but for controls and other items that draw themselves, creating and printing a bitmap is the only option.

Another feature missing from VB.NET is control arrays. However, there is a fix for this in the Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatablity.VB6 namespace. This little gem of a namespace has a number of classes that emulate missing VB6 features. Among other things, it contains a control array class for each of the major VB6 controls. The upgrade wizard uses these classes to seamlessly upgrade control arrays. This works really well.

Some of the other things in this namespace are classes for converting VB6 fonts to VB.NET Font objects, image format conversions, and loading resources. Also included are replacements for the VB6 Format, Equ, Imp, ValidateControls, WhatsThisMode, and SendsKeys functions. .NET uses different coordinates from VB6 for windows and graphics. This namespace includes functions to convert between the two. It also contains replacements for File and Dir listboxes, the EXEName and Hinstance functions in the VB6 App object, and some functions missing from the VB.NET Button control. The namespace also has a CopyArray function that allows assigning an array to a variant.

Timer Control
In VB6, setting an interval of 0 disables the timer. The new Timer control doesn't accept a value of 0 (it generates a runtime error) and can only be disabled by setting the Enable property to false. Code that doesn't use an interval of 0 to disable the timer will convert correctly. Code that switches between an interval of 0 (disabled) and a valid value can easily be corrected before converting. More complex code that uses both the Enable and the Interval properties in an "OR'ed" manner may be tricky to upgrade. One instance in which I dealt with this was a VB6 timer controlling a flashing error light. Any one of several subroutines could start the flashing by setting the enabled property to true, which was reset to false after user acknowledgement. The interval property was set to zero to globally disable the alarm. I rewrote the code to use an alarm object that handled all the logic. However, another option would be to write a new Timer class - derived from the .NET Timer class - that overrides the Enable and Interval properties and duplicates the behavior of the VB6 Timer.

Imports System
Namespace VB6Timer

   Public Class VB6Timera
        Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Timer
   Private MyInterval As Integer
   Private MyEnabled As Boolean

   Public Sub New()
    MyInterval = MyBase.Interval
      MyEnabled = MyBase.Enabled
        End Sub

   Public Overloads Overrides Property Enabled() As Boolean
  Get
   Return MyEnabled
    End Get
     Set(ByVal Value As Boolean)
            MyEnabled = Value
              If Not Value Then
                    MyBase.Enabled = False
   Else
    If Not (MyInterval = 0) Then  MyBase.Enabled = True
                    End If
                End If
            End Set
        End Property

        Public Shadows Property Interval() As Integer
 Get
  Return MyInterval
   End Get
     Set(ByVal Value As Integer)
             If Value = 0 Then
                    MyBase.Enabled = False
                Else
                    MyBase.Interval = Value
  If (MyInterval = 0) And (MyEnabled) Then
                        MyBase.Enabled = True
     End If
       End If
         MyInterval = Value
            End Set
        End Property

   Protected Overloads Overrides Sub Dispose
   (ByVal disposing As Boolean)
       MyBase.Dispose(disposing)
        End Sub
    End Class
End Namespace

To use this class, compile it under .NET and add a reference to it by browsing for it from the toolbox add component dialog. After the conversion, go to the formdesigner and remove the standard Timer, then add the VB6Timer from the toolbox to the form, and set its properties and name to match the old Timer control. This technique can be used in cases where there are minor differences between a VB6 control and its VB.NET replacement.

Looking Ahead
Over the next two articles, we will finish up general conversions - ADO, ASP, and VB.NET to C# and take a quick look at the VB.NET 2005 upgrade wizard.