The Solution Explorer
by Mike Snell, Lars Powers
Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Unleashed, Third Edition
- About This eBook
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents at a Glance
- Table of Contents
- About the Authors
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- We Want to Hear from You!
- Reader Services
- Introduction
- Part I: Introducing Visual Studio 2015
- Chapter 1. A Quick Tour of Visual Studio 2015
- Chapter 2. The Visual Studio IDE
- Chapter 3. The .NET Languages
- What’s New in C# 6.0 and VB 14
- Language Primer
- Language Features
- Infer a Variable’s Data Type Based on Assignment
- Create an Object and Initialize Its Values (Object Initializers)
- Define a Collection and Initialize Its Values
- Creating an Instance of a Nonexistent Class
- Add Methods to Existing Classes (Extension Methods)
- Add Business Logic to Generated Code (Partial Methods)
- Access and Query Data Using the .NET Languages
- Write Simple Unnamed Functions Within Your Code (Lambda Expressions)
- Splitting an Assembly Across Multiple Files
- Working with XML Directly Within Your Code (VB Only)
- Removing Unused Arguments from Event Handlers (VB Only)
- Creating an Automatically Implemented Property
- Dropping the Underscore in VB for Line Continuation
- Working with Dynamic Languages/Objects
- Covariance and Contravariance
- Asynchronous Programming
- The .NET Framework
- Summary
- Part II: An In-Depth Look at the IDE
- Chapter 4. Solutions and Projects
- Chapter 5. Browsers and Explorers
- Chapter 6. Introducing the Editors and Designers
- Part III: Working with the Visual Studio Tools
- Chapter 7. Working with Visual Studio’s Productivity Aids
- Chapter 8. Testing Code
- Chapter 9. Refactoring Code
- Chapter 10. Debugging Code
- Chapter 11. Deploying Code
- Chapter 12. Developing Applications in the Cloud with Windows Azure
- Chapter 13. Working with Databases
- Part IV: Extending Visual Studio
- Part V: Building Web Applications
- Chapter 17. Building Modern Websites with ASP.NET 5
- Chapter 18. Using JavaScript and Client-Side Frameworks
- Chapter 19. Building and Consuming Services with Web API and WCF
- Part VI: Building Windows Client Apps
- Chapter 20. Building Windows Forms Applications
- Chapter 21. Building WPF Applications
- Chapter 22. Developing Office Business Applications
- Part VII: Creating Mobile Apps
- Chapter 23. Developing Windows Store Applications
- Chapter 24. Creating Windows Phone Applications
- Chapter 25. Writing Cross-Platform Mobile Applications with Apache Cordova
- Index
- Code Snippets
The Solution Explorer
The Solution Explorer enables you to group and manage the many files that make up your application. A solution simply contains multiple projects (applications or assemblies). A project groups files related to its type. For instance, you can create a website, Windows Forms application, class library, console application, and more. The files inside the project containers represent your code in terms of web pages, forms, class files, XML, and other related items.
Figure 2.22 shows the Solution Explorer undocked from the IDE. The solution contains two applications (called projects). There is a Windows Forms application (OrderEntry) and a web application (WebSample).
You use the Solution Explorer to navigate the many items in your projects. You can access an item by first selecting it and then double-clicking it. Solution Explorer opens the given designer or editor associated with the type of file you request. For example, opening a file with the extension .cs opens the C# code editor. You can also add a new item (class, image, form) to your application from here by right-clicking a project or folder and selecting the Add menu. Finally, you can use the Solution Explorer during source control scenarios to check items in and out of source control. The Solution Explorer is covered in depth in Chapter 4.
Tip
You can select an item in the Solution Explorer (single-click) to view its contents without actually opening the file for edit (double-click). In this scenario, Visual Studio shows you the file, and you are able to browse its contents. However, if you select another file, the previous file does not remain open, and you are not responsible for closing it. Note that you can leave it open in the IDE by pressing the Keep Open tiny icon at the right of the filename.
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