In this chapter, we introduced key features of the Visual Studio IDE. You visually designed a working Visual C# app without writing any code. Visual C# app development is a mixture of the two styles—visual app development allows you to develop GUIs easily and avoid tedious GUI programming and “conventional” programming (which we introduce in Chapter 3) allows you to specify the behavior of your apps.

You created a Visual C# Windows Forms app with one Form. You worked with the IDE’s Solution Explorer, Toolbox and Properties windows, which are essential to developing Visual C# apps. We also demonstrated context-sensitive help, which displays help topics related to selected controls or text.

You used visual app development to design an app’s GUI by adding a Label and a PictureBox control onto a Form. You used the Properties window to set a Form’s Text and BackColor properties. You learned that Label controls display text and that PictureBoxes display images. You displayed text in a Label and added an image to a PictureBox. You also worked with the Label’s AutoSize, TextAlign and Font properties and the PictureBox’s Image and SizeMode properties.

In the next chapter, we discuss “nonvisual,” or “conventional,” programming—you’ll create your first apps with C# code that you write, instead of having Visual Studio write the code. You’ll learn memory concepts and write code that displays information on the screen, receives inputs from the user at the keyboard, performs arithmetic operations and makes decisions.