The Solution Explorer

The Solution Explorer allows you to group and manage the many files that make up your application. A solution simply contains multiple applications. An application can be a website, Windows application, class library, or console application. The files inside these containers represent your code in terms of forms and class files.

The Solution Explorer is the place where you typically start when adding a new item (class, image, form) to your application. It is also used to access these items. Double-clicking an item in the Solution Explorer opens the given designer or editor associated with the type of file you request. For example, opening a file with the extension .cs opens the C# code editor. Finally, you also use the Solution Explorer during source control scenarios to check items in and out of the source database.

Figure 2.17 shows the Solution Explorer undocked from the IDE. Note that a single solution is open (that is the limit), and the solution contains two applications (called projects). One is a website; the other is a Windows form application. The Solution Explorer is covered in depth in Chapter 5, "Browsers and Explorers."

Figure 2.17. The Visual Studio 2005 Solution Explorer.