Sams Teach Yourself .Net in 21 Days

By Jason Beres

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • About the Technical Editor
  • Acknowledgments
  • We Want to Hear from You
  • Introduction
  • Week 1: At a Glance
  • Day 1. Introduction to the Microsoft .NET Framework
  • Day 2. Introduction to Visual Studio .NET
    • Introducing the Start Page
    • Using Dynamic Help
    • The New Projects Dialog
    • Exploring the Visual Studio .NET IDE
    • Using the Project Menu
    • Using the Build Menu
    • Managing Code Windows and Designers
    • Getting the Right Toolbars
    • Customizing Your Environment
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Quiz
    • Exercises
  • Day 3. Writing Windows Forms Applications
  • Day 4. Deploying Windows Forms Applications
  • Day 5. Writing ASP.NET Applications
  • Day 6. Deploying ASP.NET Applications
  • Day 7. Exceptions, Debugging, and Tracing
  • Week 1. In Review
  • Week 2: At a Glance
  • Day 8. Core Language Concepts in Visual Basic .NET and C#
  • Day 9. Using Namespaces in .NET
  • Day 10. Accessing Data with ADO.NET
  • Day 11. Understanding Visual Database Tools
  • Day 12. Accessing XML in .NET
  • Day 13. XML Web Services in .NET
  • Day 14. Components and .NET
  • Week 2. In Review
  • Week 3: At a Glance
  • Day 15. Writing International Applications
  • Day 16. Using Macros in Visual Studio .NET
  • Day 17. Automating Visual Studio .NET
  • Day 18. Using Crystal Reports
  • Day 19. Understanding Microsoft Application Center Test
  • Day 20. Using Visual SourceSafe
  • Day 21. Object Role Modeling with Visio
  • Week 3. In Review

The New Projects Dialog

From the Getting Started page on the Start Page, click the New Project button. The New Project dialog pops up, as shown in Figure 2.9.

Figure 2.9 The New Project dialog box.

The New Project dialog lists all the possible project types that Visual Studio .NET can create. All the different project types are predefined templates that include different classes, namespaces, and designers to make working with the specific project type easier. As you go through the next 20 days, you'll learn how to use the key project templates that are offered.

You should also notice the project types are broken down by language and language-agnostic types. The types of projects that you can create in Visual Basic and C# are identical. There are no special project differences between them, except for the default language settings. Project types for C++ are specific to the C++ Active Template Library tools that come with .NET.

When you create a project, you can specify the name and location of the project source files. The default directory for all created projects is the Visual Studio Projects folder in your My Documents folder.

For Web-based projects, the actual source files are created in the Inetpub\wwwroot directory of your local Web server, and the project solution file is saved in the Visual Studio Projects folder in a folder named after the project name. For all non-Web projects, all the project source files are created in a new folder using the name you enter in the Name box of the Visual Studio Project folder in My Documents. From the New Project dialog, you can change the default path of any new projects being created by clicking the Browse button and navigating to a folder on your local machine.

To get started working with the IDE, change the name of the project to ExploringVSNET as Figure 2.10 demonstrates and click the OK button.

Figure 2.10 Creating the ExploringVSNET project.

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