第 7 页

One node is particularly noticeable, because the font is

boldfaced. This indicates that this project is the startup

project — in other words, the project that is launched when

you select Debug . Start Debugging or press F5. To change the

startup project, right-click the project you want to nominate and select Set as StartUp Project. It is

also possible to nominate multiple projects as startup projects via the Solution Properties dialog,

which you can reach by selecting Properties from the right-click menu of the Solution node.

fiGure 2-1

With certain environment settings (see “Let’s Get Started” in Chapter 1), the

Solution node is not visible when only a single project exists. The problem with

this is that it becomes difficult to access the Solution Properties window. To get

the Solution node to appear you can either add another project to the solution or

check the Always Show Solution item from the Projects and Solutions node in

the Options dialog, accessible via Tools . Options.

The toolbar across the top of the Solution Explorer enables you to

customize the way the contents of the window appear to you, as well

as giving you shortcuts to the different views for individual items. For

example, the first button, Show All Files, expands the solution listing

to display the additional files and folders, shown in Figure 2-2. You

can see that the My Project node is actually made up of multiple files,

which hold settings, resources, and information about the assembly.

In this expanded view you can see all the files and folders contained

under the project structure. Unfortunately, if the file system changes,

the Solution Explorer does not automatically update to reflect these

changes. The second button, Refresh, can be used to make sure you

are seeing the correct list of files and folders.

The Solution Explorer toolbar is contextually aware, with different buttons displayed depending

on what type of node is selected. This is shown in Figure 2-2, where a folder not contained in the

project (as indicated by the faded icon color) is selected and the remaining buttons from Figure

2-1 are not visible. In short, these buttons when visible can be used to view code (in this case, the

Window1.xaml.cs file) or open the designer, which displays both the design and xaml views of

the Window1.xaml file. Figure 2-2 also shows the Class Diagram button.

fiGure 2-2

The solution explorer .

17

If you don’t already have a class diagram in your project, clicking the View Class

Diagram button will insert one and automatically add all the classes. For a

project with a lot of classes, this can be quite time consuming and will result in a

large and unwieldy class diagram. It is generally a better idea to manually add

one or more class diagrams, which gives you total control.

common tasks

In addition to providing a convenient way to manage projects and items, the Solution Explorer has

a dynamic context menu that gives you quick access to some of the most common tasks, such as

building the solution or individual projects, accessing the build configuration manager, and opening

files. Figure 2-3 shows how the context menu varies depending on which item is selected in the

Solution Explorer.

fiGure 2-3

The first items in the left-hand and center menus relate to building either the entire solution or the

selected project. In most cases, selecting Build is the most efficient option, because it only builds

projects that have changed. However, in some cases you may need to force a Rebuild, which builds

all dependent projects regardless of their states. If you just want to remove all the additional files

that are created during the build process, you can invoke Clean. This option can be useful if you

want to package your solution in order to e-mail it to someone — you wouldn’t want to include all

the temporary or output files that are created by the build.

18 .

chaPter 2 The SoluTion explorer, Toolbox, And properTieS

For most items in the Solution Explorer, the first section of the context menu is similar to the right-

hand menu in Figure 2-3: the default Open and Open With items allow you to determine how the

item will be opened. This is of particular use when you are working with XML resource files. Visual

Studio 2010 opens this file type using the built-in resource editor, but this prevents you from making

certain changes and doesn’t support all data types you might want to include (Chapter 38 goes into

how you can use your own data types in resource files), Using the Open With menu item, you can

use the XML Editor instead.

The context menu for the Solution, Project, and Folder nodes contains the Open

Folder in Windows Explorer item. This enables you to open Windows Explorer

quickly to the location of the selected item, saving you the hassle of having to

navigate to where your solution is located and then fi nd the appropriate subfolder.

adding Projects and items

The most common activities carried out in the Solution Explorer are the addition, removal, and

renaming of projects and items. To add a new project to an existing solution, you select Add . New

Project from the context menu off the Solution node. This invokes the dialog in Figure 2-4, which

has undergone a few minor changes since previous versions of Visual Studio. Project templates can

now be sorted and searched. The pane on the right side displays information about the selected

project, such as the type of project and its description (Chapter 15 covers creating your own Project

and Item templates, including setting these properties).

fiGure 2-4

In the Installed Templates hierarchy on the left of the Add New Project dialog, the templates are

primarily arranged by language and then by technology. The templates include Office project types,

enabling you to build both application- and document-level add-ins for most of the Office products.

Though the Office add-ins still make use of Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO), this is built

The solution explorer .

19

into Visual Studio 2010 instead of being an additional installer. You’ll see in Chapter 19 how you

can use these project types to build add-ins for the core Office applications. There are also tabs

for Recent Templates and Online Templates. The Online Templates can be sorted and searched in

the same way as your Installed Templates, although the sort criteria has been extended to include

creation date, ratings, and downloaded frequency.

The other thing you will notice in this dialog is the ability to select different framework versions. If

you have existing projects that you don’t want to have to migrate forward to the new version of the

.NET Framework, you can still immediately take advantage of the new features, such as improved

IntelliSense. The alternative would have been to have both Visual Studio 2010 and a previous

version installed in order to build projects for earlier framework versions. The framework selection

is also included in the search criteria, limiting the list of available project templates to those that are

compatible with the selected .NET Framework version.

When you open your existing solutions or projects in Visual Studio 2010, they

will still go through the upgrade wizard (see Chapter 44 for more information)

but will essentially make only minor changes to the solution and project fi les.

Unfortunately, these minor changes, which involve the inclusion of additional

properties, will break your existing build process if you are using a previous

version of MSBuild. For this reason, you will still need to migrate your entire

development team across to using Visual Studio 2010.

One of the worst and most poorly understood features in Visual Studio is the concept of a Web Site

project. This is distinct from a Web Application project, which can be added via the aforementioned

Add New Project dialog. To add a Web Site project you need to select Add . Web Site from the

context menu off the Solution node. This displays a dialog similar to the one shown in Figure 2-5,

where you can select the type of web project to be created. In most cases, this simply determines the

type of default item that is to be created in the project.

fiGure 2-5

20 . chaPter 2 The SoluTion explorer, Toolbox, And properTieS

Once you have a project or two, you will need to start adding items. You do this via the Add context

menu item off the project node in the Solution Explorer. The fi rst submenu, New Item, launches the

Add New Item dialog, as seen in Figure 2 - 6.

fiGure 2 - 6

It is important to note that the types of web projects listed in Figure 2 - 5 are the

same as the types listed under the Web node in the Add New Project dialog.

However, understand that they will not generate the same results, because signifi cant

differences exist between Web Site projects (created via the Add New Web Site

dialog) and Web Application projects (created via the Add New Project dialog).

The differences between these project types are covered in detail in Chapter 20.

Like the New Project and New Web Site dialogs, the Add New Item dialog has also had a facelift.

In addition to listing only those item templates that are relevant to the project you have selected,

this dialog enables you to search the installed templates, as well as go online to look for templates

generated by third parties.

Returning to the Add context menu, you will notice a number of predefi ned shortcuts such as User

Control and Class. These do little more than bypass the stage of locating the appropriate template

within the Add New Item dialog. The Add New Item dialog is still displayed, because you need to

assign a name to the item being created.

It is important to make the distinction that you are adding items rather than fi les

to the project. Though a lot of the templates contain only a single fi le, some, like

the Window or User Control, will add multiple fi les to your project.

The solution explorer .

21

adding references

Each new software development technology that is released promises better reuse, but few are able

to actually deliver on this promise. One way that Visual Studio 2010 supports reusable components

is via the references for a project. If you expand out any project you will observe a number of .NET

Framework libraries, such as System and System.Core, that need to be referenced by a project in

order to be built. Essentially, a reference enables the compiler to resolve type, property, field, and

method names back to the assembly where they are defined. If you want to reuse a class from a

third-party library, or even your own .NET assembly, you need to add a reference to it via the Add

Reference context menu item on the project node of the Solution Explorer.

When you launch the Add Reference dialog, shown

in Figure 2-7, Visual Studio 2010 interrogates

the local computer, the Global Assembly Cache,

and your solution in order to present a list of

known libraries that can be referenced. This

includes both .NET and COM references that

are separated into different lists, as well as

projects and recently used references. In previous

versions of Visual Studio this dialog was

notoriously slow to load. If the component you

need to reference isn’t present in the appropriate

list, you can choose the Browse tab, which

enables you to locate the file containing the

component directly in the file system. By initially

loading the list of projects within your solution

and presenting that as the default tab, then lazy

loading the content for the remaining tabs, this

dialog now displays almost instantly.

As in other project-based development environments going back as far as the first versions of VB, you

can add references to projects contained in your solution, rather than adding the compiled binary

components. The advantage to this model is that it’s easier to debug into the referenced component

and helps ensure you are running the latest version of all components, but for large solutions this

may become unwieldy.

fiGure 2-7

When you have a solution with a large number of projects (large can be relevant

to your computer but typically anything over 20), you may want to consider

having multiple solutions that reference subsets of the projects. This will continue

to give you a nice debugging experience throughout the entire application while

improving Visual Studio performance during both loading and building of the

solution. Alternatively, you may want to create different build configurations

(see Chapter 45) to build a subset of the projects.

22 .

chaPter 2 The SoluTion explorer, Toolbox, And properTieS

adding service references

The other type of reference that the Solution Explorer caters to is service references. In previous

versions of Visual Studio this was referred to as web references, but with the advent of the Windows

Communication Foundation (WCF) there is now a more generic Add Service Reference menu item.

This invokes the Add Service Reference dialog, which you can see in Figure 2-8. In this example the

drop-down feature of the Discover button has

been used to look for Services in Solution.

Unfortunately, this dialog is another case

of Microsoft not understanding the usage

pattern properly. Though the dialog itself

is resizable, the status response message

area is not, making it hard to read any

errors generated. Luckily, if any errors are

thrown while Visual Studio 2010 attempts

to access the service information, it provides

a hyperlink that opens the Add Service

Reference Error dialog. This generally

gives you enough information to resolve

the problem.

In the lower left-hand corner of Figure 2-8 is an Advanced button. The Service Reference Settings

dialog that this launches enables you to customize which types are defined as part of the service

reference. By default, all local system types are assumed to match those being published by the

service. If this is not the case, you may want to adjust the values in the Data Type area of this dialog.