Windows Programming guru Charles Petzold, in his classic book Programming Windows shows that to create the minimal "Hello World" program in "C" requires writing 80 lines of code!!! How many lines do you think it will take to write the same program in Power++?

Zero, Zilch, Zippo, Notta, None!!!

I love this program! (and alliteration)

Here's how: Power++ will start a new project for you when you run it, and you should see a blank form under the main window. If you don't, or if you want to start a new project yourself choose File / New from the menu. When you have a blank form on your screen choose the label control (the button that has the letter A on it), by clicking on it once on the tabbed toolbar (called the Component Palette). Now that the label control is selected, click somewhere on your form to place the control there, Right click the label and look for a choice on the popup menu called "Properties", choose this. What you should get is a tabbed page dialogue box. The second choice from the top on the "General" page is a property called "Text". Enter the following line in the text box below that word: "Hello World".

Now go to the menu choice called Run / Run and watch for your very own version of the classic Hello World program. After you quit your application, choose File / Save to save your project. the dialogue box that comes up will give the option to name your project and choose where you want to store your project. Tip: The default place to save your project is in the Power++ Projects directory. You can store the project in any folder you want, but it is best to pick one directory for the root of all your projects.

Your homework for this week: Play around with the properties of the label in the properties dialogue box, change the color of the label, the size and so on. Tip: If you are not sure exactly what one of these properties does, select it and hit your "F1" key, that will give you context sensitive / popup help for that property. Have fun exploring!!

That's about it for this first week. The information covered this week was taken from chapter 1 and 2 in the Power++ programmers guide so there is further info in there if you need it, or you can e-mail questions directly to me at: JStrande(at)compuserve.com.

Thanks, See you next week...