Lab: Getting Started with Visual Studio .NET

Lab: Getting Started with Visual Studio .NET

In this lab, you will familiarize yourself with the Visual Studio .NET programming environment, sign up for Web application hosting, and view the ASP.NET QuickStart Tutorials. These exercises establish a foundation for the specific programming skills you will learn in later chapters.

Estimated lesson time: 30 minutes

Exercise 1: Customize the Visual Studio .NET Environment

In this exercise, you will customize the window display in Visual Studio .NET to maximize the design area. You will also change your Visual Studio .NET settings to display Help in a separate, external window and specify a language filter within Help. When complete, the Visual Studio .NET environment will appear as shown in Figure 1-33.

Figure 1-33. The customized Visual Studio .NET environment

When you start Visual Studio .NET for the first time, the default window layout displays the Server Explorer and Toolbox windows as tabs on the left side of the screen and the Solution Explorer and Properties windows on the right side of the screen.

To maximize the screen space for editing Web documents and code

• From the Window menu, choose Auto Hide All.

  Or

• Click Auto Hide in the upper right corner of the Solution Explorer and the Properties windows. The Auto Hide button looks like a pushpin.

When the Auto Hide feature is on, the window disappears when the mouse pointer moves off it. The window reappears when the mouse pointer moves over the window s tab at the edge of the screen.

Another Visual Studio .NET default setting is to display Help within a Visual Studio .NET Document window. Help itself has quite a few windows, so this window-within-window display can become crowded.

To display Help in its own window

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options. Visual Studio .NET displays the Options dialog box.

2. In the Options dialog box, click Help under the Environment folder. Visual Studio .NET displays the Help options, as shown in Figure 1-34.

   

   Figure 1-34. Setting Help options

3. Click the External Help option, and then click OK. Visual Studio displays a message stating that the changes will not take effect until the environment is restarted.

If you experiment with the Visual Studio .NET window layout and don t like the results, you can restore the default window settings.

To restore the default window settings

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options. Visual Studio .NET displays the Options dialog box.

2. In the Options dialog box, under the Environment folder, select General.

3. Click the Reset Window Layout button. Visual Studio .NET displays a warning asking you to confirm that you want to reset the window layout to the default.

4. Click OK to clear the warning, and then click OK again to close the Options dialog box. Visual Studio .NET restores the default window layout.

Exercise 2: Set Up a Web Hosting Account

In this exercise, you will set up a Web hosting account that will allow you to deploy Web applications for public testing and evaluation over the Internet. You don t have to have a Web hosting account to complete the lessons in this book, because you can run and debug Web applications locally on your workstation. However, having a Web hosting account enables you to test how your Web application handles multiple simultaneous users, and it also allows you to share your programming achievements with others, which is just plain fun.

To set up Web hosting

1. Choose a hosting service provider.

2. Register with the service.

3. Sign on to the service and upload your application.

4. To display the Web Hosting pane in Visual Studio .NET, select the Start Page Document window, click Web Hosting, and then click the Hosting Services tab. The Web Hosting pane appears, as shown in Figure 1-35.

   

   Figure 1-35. ASP.NET Web application hosting services

The following sections describe the steps for setting up a Web hosting account in greater detail.

Exercise 3: Choose a Service Provider

The Web Hosting pane lists a number of Web hosting service providers that support ASP.NET Web applications. Each of these providers offers a different combination of free and fee-based services. To evaluate which hosting service is right for you, visit the hosting service Web sites by clicking on their links on the Visual Studio Start Page. In addition to cost, you should consider the following:

• Level of support

  Does the hosting service provide a users forum or other area where your questions can be answered? If it does, check it out to see what other users are saying.

• Ability to migrate

  Will you be able to easily move applications from a testing stage to full deployment? Does the hosting service provide the storage and performance you will need?

• Database support

  Most services provide SQL database hosting, but each service charges differently for this feature.

To register with a service provider

1. In the Web Hosting pane, click the Sign Up With link for the service provider you have chosen. Visual Studio .NET displays the service provider s registration procedure in a Document window, as shown in Figure 1-36.

   

   Figure 1-36. ProTier Welcome page

2. Follow the service provider s instructions, which usually involve providing name, address, and e-mail information. When the information is complete, the service provider will e-mail you a user name and password to provide access to your new account.

NOTE
Register with the service to create your own account. The exact procedure varies for each service provider, but they all follow these basic steps.

The service providers shown in the Web Hosting pane all provide One-Click Hosting, which means that you can upload your completed Web applications directly from the Visual Studio .NET Web Hosting pane.

To upload an application to the hosting service

1. From the Visual Studio .NET Web Hosting pane, click the Upload Directly To Your Account link for the service provider you signed up for. Visual Studio .NET displays the service s logon page in a Document window, as shown in Figure 1-37.

   

   Figure 1-37. ProTier logon page

2. On the logon page, enter the user name and password provided for your account. (Usually this is sent to you in e-mail after you sign up for the account.) After you sign on, the service provider displays an upload page in a Document window, as shown in Figure 1-38.

   

   Figure 1-38. ProTier upload page

3. From the list on the left, select the folder containing the application to upload. From the list on the right, select a folder on the server to upload the application to. Click Upload to upload the project to the hosting service.

After you ve uploaded an application, you and others can view it by navigating to its location on the Internet. The Web hosting service providers don t require users to sign on to view applications, just to upload them.

Exercise 4: Explore the ASP.NET QuickStart Tutorials

In this exercise, you will install the .NET SDK Samples QuickStart Tutorials and view the QuickStart Tutorials for ASP.NET. The QuickStart Tutorials contain a host of information about the different aspects of the .NET Framework and are one of the best resources for learning how to program using ASP.NET.

To install and view the QuickStart Tutorial for ASP.NET

1. From the Windows Start menu, point to All Programs, Microsoft .NET Framework SDK, and choose Samples And QuickStart Tutorials. Windows displays the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK QuickStarts, Tutorials And Samples install page, as shown in Figure 1-39.

   

   Figure 1-39. The Microsoft .NET Framework SDK QuickStarts, Tutorials And Samples install page

2. Click the Step 1 Install The .NET Framework Samples Database link to install and configure the SQL database used by the QuickStart samples.

3. Click the Step 2 Set Up The QuickStarts hyperlink to install and configure the Web sites used by the QuickStart samples.

4. The next time you access the Microsoft .NET Framework QuickStart Tutorials from the Start menu, Internet Explorer skips the install page and takes you directly to the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK QuickStarts, Tutorials And Samples page, as shown in Figure 1-40.

   

   Figure 1-40. The .NET Framework QuickStart Tutorials page

5. Click the ASP.NET QuickStarts link to view the tutorial page, as shown in Figure 1-41.

   

   Figure 1-41. The ASP.NET QuickStart Tutorials page

The ASP.NET QuickStart Tutorials demonstrate how to perform various ASP.NET programming tasks in Visual Basic .NET, Visual C#, and JScript. Most of the samples in the QuickStart Tutorials place server code within script blocks, rather than using code-behind files as is done in this book. In general, it is preferable to use code-behind files because it separates the user interface from the program logic.