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"My" Objects of VB.NET
Introduction
The VB.NET Version 2.0 as well as C# version 2.0 contains many new
enhancements to the core language. One of the new cool feature added to VB.NET
is "My" objects. My objects is a set of objects that are implicitly available to
your application which provide short cut to many tasks otherwise seem tedious.
For example, to know details about the computer on which the application is
running such as name, memory, clock and network you have My.Computer object. No
need to look anywhere else. All the necessary information is available at a
single place! In all there are seven My objects and this article is going to
give you peek into some of them.
"My" Namespace
VB.NET 2.0 provides a namespace called "My" (Me, MyBase, MyClass and now
My...hmm...what next?). This namespacfe provides seven implecit objects to your
application. The following table lists all of them:
| Object |
Purpose |
| My.Computer |
Gives information about your computer such as its name, memory,
clock, network details and so on. |
| My.Application |
Gives information about the current application such as path,
assembly information (name, version etc.) and environmental variables |
| My.User |
Gives information about the current Windows user such as user name.
Also, allows to check if user belongs to a specific role. |
| My.Forms |
Gives reference to all the forms from a project. (I am sure VB6
developers are going to like this feature a lot) |
| My.WebServices |
Gives access to proxy classes of the web services being used |
| My.Settings |
Allows to read or store application configuration settings |
| My.Resources |
Allows to read resources used by the application. |
Example
As an example we are going to develop a Windows Forms application as shown in
the following figure:
Here, we are displaying information about the computer, application and the
user. We are also using an embedded resource. Displaying information about
computer, application and user is straightforward. In order to retrieve embedded
resource you must first add one to your application. In order to do so, double
click on the Resources folder in the Solution Explorer. The interface of the
resulting dialog is simple and you can easily embed image files using Add
Resource toolbar option. Once you add required image file, rename the embedded
resource as DotNetLogo. Finally, add the following lines of code to the
Form_Load event:
Label2.Text = My.Computer.Name
Label4.Text = My.Computer.Network.IsAvailable
Label6.Text = My.Computer.Screen.DeviceName
Label8.Text = My.Computer.Clock.LocalTime
Label10.Text = My.Computer.Screen.Bounds.Width &
" X " & My.Computer.Screen.Bounds.Height
Label15.Text = My.Application.Info.DirectoryPath
Label16.Text = My.Application.IsNetworkDeployed
Label17.Text = My.Application.Info.AssemblyName
Label18.Text = My.Application.Info.Version.Major & "."
& My.Application.Info.Version.Minor & "."
& My.Application.Info.Version.Build & "."
& My.Application.Info.Version.Revision
Label19.Text = "Welcome " & My.User.Name & "!"
PictureBox1.Image = My.Resources.DotNetLogo
The code simply uses My.Computer, My.Application, My.User and My.Resources
objects. That's it! Run the application and see the power of "My" objects in
action.
Bipin Joshi is an independent software consultant and trainer by profession specializing in Microsoft web development technologies. Having embraced the Yoga way of life he is also a meditation teacher and spiritual guide to his students. He is a prolific author and writes regularly about software development and yoga on his websites. He is programming, meditating, writing, and teaching for over 27 years. To know more about his ASP.NET online courses go
here. More details about his Ajapa Japa and Shambhavi Mudra online course are available
here.