This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Viewing, Moving, and Resizing Windows
The Visual Web Developer environment is made up of a bevy of windows that provide various tidbits of information. The window we’ve examined in most detail is the Solution Explorer, which lists the files and folders in the website. In the preceding hour, we saw two other windows: the Properties window, which listed the properties for the selected HTML element or Web control; and the Toolbox window, which listed the Web controls and HTML elements that could be dragged onto an ASP.NET page.
These are but three of the many windows available in Visual Web Developer. You can see a complete list of the available windows by going to the View menu.
Windows in Visual Web Developer each have a default position, size, and behavior. The position indicates where on the screen the window is placed and whether or not it is floating or docked. The Solution Explorer, for example, is in a docked position in the upper-right corner, by default; the Toolbox can be found in a docked position on the left. A docked window is one that’s attached to a margin of the editor; when a docked window is shown, the content it displaces is moved elsewhere on the screen. A floating window is not attached to any margin; it floats above all other windows and content in the editor, covering it up rather than displacing it.
Each window also has a size. You can move your mouse to the margin of the window and click and drag to increase or decrease the window’s width or height. Lastly, each window has a behavior: It’s either pinned or unpinned (the unpinned behavior is sometimes referred to as Auto-Hide behavior). A pinned window remains displayed regardless of whether your mouse is over the window. An unpinned window is displayed when you move your mouse over the window and disappears when your mouse leaves the window’s focus. You can toggle a window’s pinned status by clicking the pin icon in each window’s upper-right corner. Typically, I keep the Solution Explorer, Properties, and Toolbox windows pinned because they are commonly used; all other windows I’ll make unpinned so they do not encroach on my screen’s real estate.
In addition to being able to pin and unpin windows, you can also close a window. To remove a window from the screen, simply click the X icon in the upper-right corner of the window (it’s next to the pin icon).
If you do not like the position of a window, you can easily move it. Simply click on the top of the window and, holding down your mouse button, drag your mouse to the location you want the window to appear.