- In a Nutshell
- Task List
- Solutions, Projects and Stuff
- Solution And Project Properties
- Add an Icon
- 1 Set the Application Icon Property
- 2 Build the Application
- 3 Set the Window Property
- Did it Work?
- One More Time...
- Take Control
- Arranging Windows
- More Than Editing...
- List Members
- Parameter Information
- Road Maps
- Review
Task List
A craftsman is master of his tools. As a programmer, your primary tool is Visual Studio, and in this chapter we’ll begin the process of mastery by examining its user interface in detail.
Solutions, Projects & Stuff
It’s convenient to think of application development like writing an essay or book: You do some research, prepare an outline, and then produce a final document. Unfortunately, the development process isn’t that neat. (Neither is writing, of course, at least not the way I do it.) Most development projects don’t even have a single output that’s equivalent to that essay. So we’ll start this chapter by looking at the way Visual Studio uses Solutions, Projects and Solution Items to manage all the bits and pieces that you’ll actually be working with.
Take Control
I bet you’ve changed your Windows desktop. If you’re like most people, you’ve added widgets to the sidebar, created some shortcuts, and rearranged the Start menu. All those little changes just make life a little easier by putting the tools you use all the time close to hand. Visual Studio does a pretty good job of arranging the user interface to accommodate general programming, but you’ll benefit from making the same sorts of customizations to its workspace as you made to the Windows desktop, so the next thing we’ll do is learn how to do just that.
Get Some Help
In the last chapter we saw an example of Intellisense when we were able to pick the Messagebox.Show command from a drop-down list. In this chapter, we’ll look at Intellisense in more detail, along with some of the special error-checking capabilities that the Visual Studio Editor provides.