Hour 2. Navigating Visual C 2005

Hour 2. Navigating Visual C# 2005

What You'll Learn in This Hour:

• Navigating Visual C#

• Using the Visual Studio .NET Start Page to open and create projects

• Showing, hiding, docking, and floating design windows

• Customizing menus and toolbars

• Adding controls to a form using the toolbox

• Viewing and changing object attributes using the Properties window

• Working with the many files that make up a project

• How to get help

The key to expanding your knowledge of Visual C# is to become as comfortable as possibleas quickly as possiblewith the Visual C# design environment. Just as a carpenter doesn't think much about hammering a nail into a piece of wood, performing actions such as saving projects, creating new forms, and setting object properties should become second nature to you. The more comfortable you are with Visual C#'s tools, the more you can focus your energies on what you're creating with the tools.

In this hour, you'll learn how to customize your design environment by moving, docking, floating, hiding, and showing design windows, as well as how to customize menus and toolbars. You'll even create a new toolbar from scratch. After you've gotten acquainted with the environment, I'll teach you about projects and the files that they're made of (taking you beyond what was briefly discussed in Hour 1, "Jumping In with Both Feet: A Visual C# 2005 Programming Tour"), and I'll introduce you to the design windows with which you'll work most frequently. Finally, I'll show you how to get help when you're stuck.