Sams Teach Yourself C# in 24 Hours

By James Foxall and Wendy Haro-Chun

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Audience and Organization
  • Conventions Used in This Book
  • Onward and Upward!
  • Part I. The Visual Studio Environment
  • Hour 1. A C# Programming Tour
    • Starting C#
    • Creating a New Project
    • Understanding the C# Environment
    • Changing the Characteristics of Objects
    • Naming Objects
    • Setting the Text Property of the Form
    • Giving the Form an Icon
    • Changing the Size of the Form
    • Adding Controls to a Form
    • Designing an Interface
    • Adding an Invisible Control to a Form
    • Coding an Interface
    • Running a Project
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 2. Navigating C#
  • Hour 3. Understanding Objects and Collections
  • Hour 4. Understanding Events
  • Part II. Building a User Interface
  • Hour 5. Building FormsPart I
  • Hour 6. Building FormsPart II
  • Hour 7. Working with the Traditional Controls
  • Hour 8. Advanced Controls
  • Hour 9. Adding Menus and Toolbars to Forms
  • Hour 10. Drawing and Printing
  • Part III. Making Things HappenProgramming!
  • Hour 11. Creating and Calling Methods
  • Hour 12. Using Constants, Data Types, Variables, and Arrays
  • Hour 13. Performing Arithmetic, String Manipulation, and Date/Time Adjustments
  • Hour 14. Making Decisions in C# Code
  • Hour 15. Looping for Efficiency
  • Hour 16. Debugging Your Code
  • Hour 17. Designing Objects Using Classes
  • Hour 18. Interacting with Users
  • Part IV. Working with Data
  • Hour 19. Performing File Operations
  • Hour 20. Controlling Other Applications Using Automation
  • Hour 21. Working with a Database
  • Part V. Deploying Solutions and Beyond
  • Hour 22. Deploying a Solution
  • Hour 23. Introduction to Web Development
  • Hour 24. The 10,000-Foot View
  • Appendix A. Answers to Quizzes/Exercises

Naming Objects

The property you should set first for any new object is the Name property. Press F4 to display the Properties window (if it's not already visible), and notice the Name given to your default form (the first property listed in the Properties window)—Form1. When you first create an object, C# gives the object a unique, generic name based on the object's type. Although these names are functional, they aren't very descriptive. For instance, C# named your form Form1, but it's common to have dozens of forms in a project, and it would be extremely difficult to manage a complicated project if all forms were distinguishable only by a number (Form2, Form3, and so forth).

To better manage your forms, you should give each one a descriptive name. C# gives you the chance to name new forms as they're created. Because C# created this default form for you, you didn't get a chance to name it, so you must change both the filename and name of the form. Change the name of the form now by clicking the Name property and changing the text from Form1 to fclsViewer. Notice that this did not change the filename of the form as it is displayed in the Solution Explorer window. Change the filename now by right-clicking Form1.cs in the Solution Explorer window, choosing Rename from the context menu, and changing the text from Form1.cs to fclsViewer.cs. In future examples, I won't have you change the filename each time because you'll have enough steps to accomplish as it is. I do recommend, however, that you always change your filenames to something meaningful in your 'real' projects.

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