2.3 Menu Bar and Toolbar

Commands for managing the IDE and for developing, maintaining and executing apps are contained in menus, which are located on the menu bar of the IDE (Fig. 2.5). The set of menus displayed depends on what you’re currently doing in the IDE.

Fig. 2.5 Visual Studio menu bar.

Menus contain groups of related commands called menu items that, when selected, cause the IDE to perform specific actions—for example, open a window, save a file, print a file and execute an app. For example, selecting File > New > Project… tells the IDE to display the New Project dialog. The menus depicted in Fig. 2.5 are summarized in Fig. 2.6.

Fig. 2.6 Summary of Visual Studio menus that are displayed when a Form is in Design view.

Menu Contains commands for
File Opening, closing, adding and saving projects, as well as printing project data and exiting Visual Studio.
Edit Editing apps, such as cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, delete, find and select.
View Displaying IDE windows (for example, Solution Explorer, Toolbox, Properties window) and for adding toolbars to the IDE.
Project Managing projects and their files.
Build Turning your app into an executable program.
Debug Compiling, debugging (that is, identifying and correcting problems in apps) and running apps.
Team Connecting to a Team Foundation Server—used by development teams that typically have multiple people working on the same app.
Format Arranging and modifying a Form’s controls. The Format menu appears only when a GUI component is selected in Design view.
Tools Accessing additional IDE tools and options for customizing the IDE.
Test Performing various types of automated testing on your app.
Analyze Locating and reporting violations of the .NET Framework Design Guidelines (https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms229042).
Window Hiding, opening, closing and displaying IDE windows.
Help Accessing the IDE’s help features.

You can access many common menu commands from the toolbar (Fig. 2.7), which contains icons that graphically represent commands. By default, the standard toolbar is displayed when you run Visual Studio for the first time—it contains icons for the most commonly used commands, such as opening a file, saving files and running apps (Fig. 2.7). The icons that appear on the standard toolbar may vary, depending on the version of Visual Studio you’re using. Some commands are initially disabled (grayed out or unavailable to use). These commands are enabled by Visual Studio only when you can use them. For example, Visual Studio enables the command for saving a file once you begin editing a file.

Fig. 2.7 Standard Visual Studio toolbar.

You can customize which toolbars are displayed by selecting View > Toolbars then selecting a toolbar from the list in Fig. 2.8. Each toolbar you select is displayed with the other toolbars at the top of the Visual Studio window. You move a toolbar by dragging its handle

at the left side of the toolbar. To execute a command via the toolbar, click its icon.

Fig. 2.8 List of toolbars that can be added to the top of the IDE.

It can be difficult to remember what each toolbar icon represents. Hovering the mouse pointer over an icon highlights it and, after a brief pause, displays a description of the icon called a tool tip (Fig. 2.9)—these tips help you become familiar with the IDE’s features and serve as useful reminders for each toolbar icon’s functionality.

Fig. 2.9 Tool tip for the New Project button.

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