第 18 页

EndGlobalSection

GlobalSection(SolutionProperties) = preSolution

HideSolutionNode = FALSE

EndGlobalSection

EndGlobal

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In this example, the solution consists of a single project, FirstProject, and a Global section outlining

settings that apply to the solution. For instance, the solution itself will be visible in the Solution

Explorer because the HideSolutionNode setting is FALSE. If you were to change this value to TRUE,

the solution name would not be displayed in Visual Studio.

As long as a solution consists of projects that do not target the .NET Framework

version 4.0, you can open the solution with Visual Studio 2008 by performing a

quick edit to the .sln file. Simply replace the first two lines of the file with the

following, and the solution will open with no errors:

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00

# Visual Studio 2008

solution ProPerties

You can reach the solution Properties dialog by right-clicking the Solution node in the Solution

Explorer and selecting Properties. This dialog contains two nodes to partition Common and

Configuration properties, as shown in Figure 6-2.

fiGure 6-2

The following sections describe the Common and Configuration properties nodes in more detail.

common Properties

You have three options when defining the Startup Project for an application, and they’re somewhat

self-explanatory. Selecting Current Selection starts the project that has current focus in the Solution

Explorer. Single Startup ensures that the same project starts up each time. This is the default

selection, because most applications have only a single startup project. The last option, Multiple

solution Properties .

93

Startup Projects, allows for multiple projects to be started in a particular order. This can be useful

if you have a client/server application specified in a single solution and you want them both to be

running. When running multiple projects, it is also relevant to control the order in which they

start up. Use the up and down arrows next to the project list to control the order in which projects

are started.

The Project Dependencies section is used to indicate other projects on which a specific project

is dependent. For the most part, Visual Studio will manage this for you as you add and remove

project references for a given project. However, sometimes you may want to create dependencies

between projects to ensure that they are built in the correct order. Visual Studio uses its list of

dependencies to determine the order in which projects should be built. This window prevents you

from inadvertently adding circular references and from removing necessary project dependencies.

In the Debug Source Files section, you can provide a list of directories through which Visual Studio

can search for source files when debugging. This is the default list that is searched before the Find

Source dialog is displayed. You can also list source files that Visual Studio should not try to locate.

If you click Cancel when prompted to locate a source file, the file will be added to this list.

The Code Analysis Settings section is available only in the Visual Studio Team Suite editions. This

allows you to select the static code analysis rule set that will be run for each project. Code Analysis

is discussed in more detail later in the chapter.

configuration Properties

Both projects and solutions have build configurations associated with them that determine

which items are built and how. It can be somewhat confusing because there is actually no

correlation between a project configuration, which determines how things are built, and a

solution configuration, which determines which projects are built, other than they might have the

same name. A new solution will define both Debug and Release (solution) configurations, which

correspond to building all projects within the solution in Debug or Release (project) configurations.

For example, a new solution configuration called Test can be created, which consists of two projects:

MyClassLibrary and MyClassLibraryTest. When you build your application in Test configuration,

you want MyClassLibrary to be built in Release mode so you’re testing as close to what you would

release as possible. However, to be able to step through your test code, you want to build the test

project in Debug mode.

When you build in Release mode, you don’t want the Test solution to be built or deployed with

your application. In this case, you can specify in the Test solution configuration that you want

the MyClassLibrary project to be built in Release mode, and that the MyClassLibraryTest project

should not be built.

You can switch between configurations easily via the Configuration drop-down

on the standard toolbar. However, it is not as easy to switch between platforms,

because the Platform drop-down is not on any of the toolbars. To make this

available, select View . Toolbars . Customize. From the Build category on the

Commands, the Solution Platforms item can be dragged onto a toolbar.

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You will notice that when the Configuration Properties node is selected from the Solution

Properties dialog as shown in Figure 6-2, the Configuration and Platform drop-down boxes are

enabled. The Configuration drop-down contains each of the available solution configurations

(Debug and Release by default), Active, and All. Similarly, the Platform drop-down contains each

of the available platforms. Whenever these drop-downs appear and are enabled, you can specify

the settings on that page on a per-configuration and/or per-platform basis. You can also use the

Configuration Manager button to add additional solution configurations and/or platforms.

When adding additional solution configurations, there is an option (checked by default) to create

corresponding project configurations for existing projects (projects will be set to build with

this configuration by default for this new solution configuration), and an option to base the new

configuration on an existing configuration. If the Create Project Configurations option is checked

and the new configuration is based on an existing configuration, the new project configurations

will copy the project configurations specified for the existing configuration.

The options available for creating new platform configurations are limited by the types of CPU

available: Itanium, x86, and x64. Again, the new platform configuration can be based on existing

configurations, and the option to create project platform configurations is also available.

The other thing you can specify in the solution configuration file is the type of CPU for which you

are building. This is particularly relevant if you want to deploy to 64-bit architecture machines.

You can reach all these solution settings directly from the right-click context menu from the

Solution node in the Solution Explorer window. Whereas the Set Startup Projects menu item opens

the solution configuration window, the Configuration

Manager, Project Dependencies, and Project Build Order

items open the Configuration Manager and Project

Dependencies window. The Project Dependencies and

Project Build Order menu items will be visible only if you

have more than one project in your solution.

When the Project Build Order item is selected, this opens

the Project Dependencies window and lists the build order,

as shown in Figure 6-3. This tab reveals the order in which

projects will be built, according to the dependencies. This

can be useful if you are maintaining references to project

binary assemblies rather than project references, and it

can be used to double-check that projects are being built

in the correct order.

fiGure 6-3

ProJect tyPes

Within Visual Studio, the projects for Visual Basic and C# are broadly classified into different

categories. With the exception of Web Site projects, which are discussed separately later in this

chapter, each project contains a project file (.vbproj or .csproj) that conforms to the MSBuild

schema. Selecting a project template creates a new project, of a specific project type, and populates

Project Types .

95

it with initial classes and settings. Following are some of the more common categories of projects as

they are grouped under Visual Studio:

.

Windows: The Windows project category is the broadest category and includes most of the

common project types that run on end-user operating systems. This includes the Windows

Forms executable projects, Console application projects, and Windows Presentation

Foundation (WPF) applications. These project types create an executable (.exe) assembly

that is executed directly by an end user. The Windows category also includes several types

of library assemblies that can easily be referenced by other projects. These include both

class libraries and control libraries for Windows Forms and WPF applications. A class

library reuses the familiar DLL extension. The Windows Service project type can also be

found in this category.

.

Web: The Web category includes the project types that run under ASP.NET. This includes

ASP.NET web applications, XML web services, and control libraries for use in web

applications and rich AJAX-enabled web applications.

.

Office: As its name suggests, the Office category creates managed code add-ins for

Microsoft Office products, such as Outlook, Word, or Excel. These project types use Visual

Studio Tools for Office (VSTO), and are capable of creating add-ins for most products in

both the Office 2003 and Office 2007 product suite.

.

SharePoint: Another self-describing category, this contains projects that target Windows

SharePoint Services, such as SharePoint Workflows or Team Sites.

.

Database: The Database category contains a project type for creating code that can be

used with SQL Server. This includes stored procedures, user-defined types and functions,

triggers, and custom aggregate functions.

.

Reporting: This category includes a project type that is ideal for quickly generating complex

reports against a data source.

.

Silverlight: This contains project types for creating Silverlight Applications or Class Library

projects.

.

Test: The Test category includes a project type for projects that contain tests using the

MSTest unit testing framework.

.

WCF: This contains a number of project types for creating applications that provide

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services.

.

Workflow: This contains a number of project types for sequential and state machine

workflow libraries and applications.

The New Project dialog box in Visual Studio 2010, shown in Figure 6-4, allows you to browse

and create any of these project types. The target .NET Framework version is listed in a drop-down

selector in the top right-hand corner of this dialog box. If a project type is not supported by the

selected .NET Framework version, such as a WPF application under .NET Framework 2.0, that

project type will not be displayed.

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fiGure 6-4

ProJect files forMat

The project files (.csproj, .vbproj, or .fsproj) are text files in an XML document format that

conforms to the MSBuild schema. The XML schema files for the latest version of MSBuild are

installed with the .NET Framework, by default in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\

v4.0.20506\MSBuild\Microsoft.Build.Core.xsd.

To view the project file in XML format, right-click the project and select Unload.

Then right-click the project again and select Edit < project name >. This will

display the project file in the XML editor, complete with IntelliSense.

The project file stores the build and configuration settings that have been specified for the project and

details about all the files that are included in the project. In some cases, a user-specific project file is

also created (.csproj.user or .vbproj.user), which stores user preferences such as startup and

debugging options. The .user file is also an XML file that conforms to the MSBuild schema.

ProJect ProPerties

You can reach the project properties by either right-clicking the Project node in Solution Explorer

and then selecting Properties, or by double-clicking My Project (Properties in C#) just under the

Project node. In contrast to solution properties, the project properties do not display in a modal

Project Properties .

97

dialog. Instead they appear as an additional tab alongside your code files. This was done in part

to make it easier to navigate between code files and project properties, but it also makes it possible

to open project properties of multiple projects at the same time. Figure 6-5 illustrates the project

settings for a Visual Basic Windows Forms project. This section walks you through the vertical tabs

on the project editor for both Visual Basic and C# projects.

fiGure 6-5

The project properties editor contains a series of vertical tabs that group the properties. As changes

are made to properties in the tabs, a star is added to the corresponding vertical tab. This functionality

is limited, however, because it does not indicate which fi elds within the tab have been modifi ed.

application

The Application tab, visible in Figure 6-5 for a Visual Basic Windows Forms project, enables

the developer to set the information about the assembly that will be created when the project

is compiled. These include attributes such as the output type (that is, Windows or Console

Application, Class Library, Windows Service, or a Web Control Library), application icon, and

startup object. The Application tab for C# applications, shown in Figure 6-6, has a different format,

and provides options such as the ability to select the target .NET Framework version.

To change the .NET Framework version on a Visual Basic project, use the

Advanced Compile Options on the Compile tab.

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fiGure 6-6