Contents

1.1. Introduction...........................................................................................................................2

1.2. The Start Page.......................................................................................................................3

1.3. The Menu System.................................................................................................................4

1.4. Toolbars................................................................................................................................5

1.5. Graphical Designers..............................................................................................................6

1.6. Code Designers.....................................................................................................................7

1.7. The Solution Explorer...........................................................................................................7

1.8. The Properties Window........................................................................................................8

1.9. The Output Window.............................................................................................................8

1.10. Advantages of using Visual Studio IDE:..........................................................................9

1.11. Conclusion......................................................................................................................10

References......................................................................................................................................11

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1.1. Introduction
Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It can
be used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms
applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native codes together with
managed code for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone, Windows
CE, .NET Framework, .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. Below we see the
integrated development environment (IDE) in Visual Studio:

Figure 1.1: The Visual studio Integrated Development Environment

There are so many independent windows in the IDE that it's easy to misplace or rearrange them
inadvertently. The IDE windows are docking windows, which means you can use the mouse to
move windows around as you like; when the windows are near an edge, they'll "dock"-adhere-to
that edge, so you can reconfigure the IDE windows as you like. If you move IDE windows
inadvertently, don't panic; just use the mouse to move them back.

Tip You also can restore the default window layout by selecting the Tools Options item, then
selecting the General item in the Environment folder, and clicking the Reset Window
Layout button. That's really good to know, because sooner or later, Visual studio will
dock some window you didn't want to dock, such as the Edit Replace window, to the

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 IDE, rearranging all your other windows, and it can take a long time to try to fix that
manually.

Also note that the windows in the IDE come with an X button at upper left, which means you can
close them. I don't know about you, but I sometimes click these when I don't mean to, and a
window I wanted disappears. It's easy to panic: The toolbox is gone! I'll have to reinstall
everything! In fact, all you have to do is to find that window in the View menu again (such as
View Toolbox) to make it reappear. (Note that some windows are hidden in the View Other
Windows menu item, which opens a submenu of additional windows-there are simply too many
windows to fit them all into one menu without needing to use a submenu.)

There's so much packed into the IDE that Microsoft has started to make windows share space,
and you can keep them separate using tabs such as those you can see above the form at the center
of Figure 1.19. If you click the Form1.vb[Design] tab, you see the form itself as it'll appear when
the program runs; if you click the Form1.vb tab, you'll see the form's code, and if you click the
Start Page tab, you'll see the Start page, which lets you select from among recent solutions to
open. Also note at lower right that the Properties window and the Dynamic Help window-a new
VB .NET feature-are sharing the same space, and you can select between them using tabs.

1.2. The Start Page

We've already seen the Start page, which is what you see when you first start Visual studio, and
which appears outlined in Figure 1.2. You can use the Start page to select from recent projects;
by default, the Get Started item is selected in the Start page at upper left. You can also create a
new project here by clicking the New Project button.

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 Figure 1.2: The Visual Studio IDE Start page.

The Start page has other useful aspects as well: for example, because you use the same IDE for
all Visual Studio languages, it'll also search through all those languages when you search the
help files. To make it search only pertinent help files.

1.3. The Menu System

After you've started Visual Studio and have seen the Start page, you often turn to the menu
system to proceed, as when you want to create a new project and use the File|New|Project menu
item to bring up the New Project dialog box (you can do the same thing by clicking the New
Project button in the Start page).

The IDE menu system is very involved, with many items to choose from-and you don't even see
it all at once. The menu system changes as you make selections in the rest of the IDE-for
example, the Project menu will display 16 items if you first select a project in the Solution
Explorer, but only 4 items if you have selected a solution, not a project. In fact, there are even
more dramatic changes; for example, try clicking a form under design and you'll see a Data menu
in the menu bar, used to generate datasets. If you then select not the form but the form's code,

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however (for example, double-click the form to open the code window), the Data menu
disappears.

Figure 1.3: The Menu System.

There are hundreds of menu items here, and many useful ones that will quickly become
favorites, such as File|New|Project that you use to create a new project, or the most recently used
(MRU) list of files and projects that you can access from the Recent Files or Recent Projects
items near the bottom of the File menu.

1.4. Toolbars
The toolbars feature is another handy aspect of the IDE. These appear near the top of the IDE, as
shown in Figure 1.4. There are plenty of toolbars to choose from, and sometimes VB .NET will
choose for you, as when it displays the Debug toolbar when you've launched a program with the
Start item in the Debug menu.

Figure 1.4: Visual Studio IDE toolbars.

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Because the IDE displays tool tips (those small yellow windows with explanatory text that
appear when you let the mouse rest over controls such as buttons in a toolbar), it's easy to get to
know what the buttons in the toolbars do. As mentioned, you can also customize the toolbars in
the IDE, selecting which toolbars to display or customizing which buttons appear in which
toolbars with the Tools|Customize menu item, or you can right-click a toolbar itself to get a
menu of the possible toolbars to display (the bottom item in this popup menu is Customize,
which lets you customize which buttons go where), or you can open the Toolbars submenu in the
View menu to do the same thing (as is often the case in VB, there's more than one way to do it).

1.5. Graphical Designers

When you're working on a project that has user interface elements-such as forms, VB .NET can
display what those elements will look like at run time, and, of course, that's what makes Visual
studio. For example, when you're looking at a Windows form, you're actually looking at
a Windows form designer, as you see in Figure 1.5, and you can manipulate the form, as well as
add controls to it and so on.

Figure 1.5: A Visual Studio application graphical designer.

There are several different types of graphical designers, including:

 Windows form designers

 Web form designers
 Component designers
 XML designers

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1.6. Code Designers
Unlike graphical designers, code designers let you edit the code for a component, and you can
see a code designer in Figure 1.6. You can use the tabs at the top center of the IDE to switch
between graphical designers (such as the tabs Form1.vb[Design], which displays a graphical
designer, and the Form1.vb tab, which displays the corresponding code designer). You can also
switch between graphical and code designers using the Designer and Code items in the View
menu, or you can use the top two buttons at left in the Solution Explorer.

Figure 1.6: A code designer.

1.7. The Solution Explorer

We've already discussed the Solution Explorer quite a bit; this window gives you an overview of
the solution you're working with, including all the projects in it, and the items in those projects.
(You can see the Solution Explorer in Figure 1.7.) This tool displays a hierarchy-with the
solution at the top of the hierarchy, the projects one step down in the hierarchy, and the items in
each project as the next step down.

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Figure 1.7: The Solution Explorer.

1.8. The Properties Window

The Properties window is another old favorite in Visual Studio, although now it shares its space
with the Dynamic Help window. The Properties window appears in Figure 1.8.

Figure 1.8: The Properties window.

1.9. The Output Window

If you look at the bottom of the IDE, you'll see two tabs for the Output and Breakpoints
windows. We'll look at the Breakpoints window when we discuss debugging, because it lets you
manage the breakpoints at which program execution halts when you're debugging your code. The

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Output window, which you see in Figure 1.9, on the other hand, gives you the results of building
and running programs, as you can also see in Figure 1.9.

Figure 1.9: The Output window.

1.10. Advantages of using Visual Studio IDE:

 A full-featured programming platform for several operating systems, the web, and the
cloud, Visual Studio IDE is available. Users can easily browse the UI so they can write
their code quickly and precisely.

 To help developers quickly identify potential errors in the code, Visual Studio offers a
robust debugging tool.

 Developers can host their application on the server with confidence because they have
eliminated anything that could lead to performance issues.

 No matter what programming language developers are using, users of Visual Studio can
get live coding support. For faster development, the Platform offers an autocomplete
option. The built-in intelligent system offers descriptions and tips for APIs.

 Through Visual Studio IDE you can easily collab with your teammates in a same project.
This IDE helps the developers to share, push and pull their code with their teammates.

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  Every user of Visual Studio has the ability to customize it. They have the option to add
features based on their needs. For example, they can download add-ons and install
extensions in their IDE. Even programmers can submit their own extensions.

1.11. Conclusion
Visual Studio is a widely-used integrated development environment (IDE) created by Microsoft.
It provides a comprehensive set of tools and features for developing software applications for
various platforms such as Windows, Android, iOS, and the web. One of the strengths of Visual
Studio is its versatility, as it supports a wide range of programming languages such as C#, Visual
Basic, F#, C++, Python, and more. It also includes a powerful debugger, a code editor with
IntelliSense, and many other features that help developers streamline their workflow. Visual
Studio is not just limited to code editing and debugging; it also provides tools for designing user
interfaces, building databases, and managing source control. This makes it a complete solution
for developers who want to create robust applications quickly and efficiently. Overall, Visual
Studio is a powerful and user-friendly IDE that can help developers create high-quality
applications for a variety of platforms. Its popularity among developers is a testament to its
usefulness and effectiveness.

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References
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/welcome-to-visual-studio

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/kx37x362.aspx

Microsoft Word - Introduction to Visual Studio and CSharp.docx (halvorsen.blog)

Introduction to Visual Studio - GeeksforGeeks

The Visual Basic Integrated Development Environment (yaldex.com)

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