Getting Started with the Basics

Broadly speaking, a Visual Studio editor is a text editor (think word processor) that enables you to write specific output efficiently (Visual Basic code, Hypertext Markup Language [HTML], XAML, and so on). A designer, in contrast, is a visual editor that enables you to work directly with visual concepts instead of text. Many document types are supported by both designers and editors: you can build a form, for instance, by using the drag-and-drop convenience of the Windows Forms Designer or by handcrafting the code within a text editor; or you can build an XML file using the same mechanisms.

The Visual Studio text editor provides the core text-editing functionality for all the editors. This functionality is then inherited and added upon to create editors specific for a given document type. Thus, you have a code editor for source code files, an XML editor for markup, a Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) editor for style sheets, and so on.

Likewise, designers manifest themselves in ways specific to their roles. The HTML designer is part text editor and part graphical tool, and the Windows and web forms designers are superb what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) form builders.