Working with Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 Integrated Development Environment

The Visual Studio product family shares a single integrated development environment (IDE). The IDE is composed of several elements: the Menu toolbar, Standard toolbar, various tool windows docked or auto-hidden on the left, bottom, and right sides, as well as the editor space. The tool windows, menus, and toolbars available at any given time depend on the type of project or file you are working in.

Depending on the settings you have applied, and any subsequent customizations you have made, the placement of tool windows and other elements in the IDE differs. You can change settings using the Import and Export Settings Wizard.

You can easily move and dock windows using the visual guide diamond or temporarily hide windows using Auto-Hide.

Editors and Designers

The editor and designers you use depend on the type of file or document you are authoring. The Text editor is the basic word processor of the IDE, while the Code editor is the basic source code editor.

Other editors, such as the CSS editor, the HTML Designer, and the Web Page Designer, share many of the features found in the Code editor, along with enhancements specific to the type of code or markup supported.

Editors and designers often have two views: a graphical design view and the code behind view or source view. Design view allows you to specify the location of controls and other items on the user interface or Web page. You can easily drag a control from the Toolbox and place it on the design surface.

Source view displays the source code for the file or document. This view supports coding help such as IntelliSense, collapsible code sections, Refactoring, and code snippet insertion. Other features include word wrap, bookmarks, and displaying line numbers, to name a few.

Build and Debug Tools

Visual Studio provides a robust set of build and debugging tools. With build configurations, you can select the components you will build, exclude those you will not build, and determine how the projects selected will be built and on what platform. You can have build configurations for solutions as well as projects. When you build, you are beginning the debug process. Building your application helps you detect compile-time errors. These errors can include incorrect syntax, misspelled keywords, and type mismatches. The Output Window displays these types of errors.

The Error List Window displays errors, warnings, and other messages related to debugging.

Deployment Tools

Visual Studio provides two different deployment strategies: ClickOnce and Windows Installer. With ClickOnce deployment, you publish the application to a centralized location and the user installs or runs the application from that location. With Windows Installer deployment, you package the application in a setup.exe file and distribute that file to users; they run the setup.exe file to install the application. For a detailed comparison, see Choosing a Deployment Strategy.

ClickOnce allows you to quickly deploy applications using the Publish Wizard.

Windows Installer deployment provides greater flexibility for deploying applications. Various editors, such as the Custom Actions Editor and the User Interface Editor, allow you to customize the Windows Installer to meet your deployment needs. To create a basic setup file, you use the File System Editor to specify which items are deployed.

Getting Help

You can access Help by pressing F1 in the IDE, as well as through the table of contents, index, and full-text search. You can use locally installed Help or use MSDN online and other online sources for Help.