Coding

Now let's look at how to write code in Visual Studio. 0:00 Here in the Editor window I have a number of files open. 0:03 I can rearrange these tabs by dragging them around. 0:06 Program.cs is where I want to spend most of my time right now so 0:10 I always want to be able to find it, even if I open a bunch of other files. 0:13 That happens a lot when I'm tracking down a bug or exploring code. 0:17 So you can pin any of these tabs by right-clicking the pin button here. 0:21 This moves the tab to the far left side and keeps it there. 0:26 I don't need these other files right now. 0:30 I can close all except the ones I'm interested in by right-clicking 0:31 on the tab I want and clicking Close All But This. 0:35 Notice here that there is also an option to close all but the tabs I've pinned. 0:39 If you ever want to know where the file you are working on is located 0:44 in the file explorer, you can mouse over it, this shows you the full path. 0:47 You can also right-click on the tab and 0:52 click Copy Full Path which copies the path of the file to the Windows clipboard. 0:54 Or you can click Open Containing Folder, which opens the file explorer and 0:59 selects the file. 1:04 All these things are very handy when working with files. 1:06 Okay, now that I've cleaned up my workspace a little, 1:11 let's take a look at some of the features of the text editor. 1:13 One of the first things you notice is the coloring. 1:17 Of course, the colors you use will be different if you're using a different 1:20 color theme. 1:23 The colored text is what is called syntax highlighting. 1:24 Comments are in green, language keywords are blue, type names 1:27 that are not keywords are in light blue, and strings, like this one, are in red. 1:33 Here you'll notice that these using namespace statements are grayed out. 1:39 That's because there isn't any code in this file using those namespaces. 1:43 Visual Studio is telling us that we can remove these lines. 1:47 The colored line on the left shows which lines have been changed since the last 1:51 time the file was saved. 1:55 If I save the file, everything will turn green. 1:56 There's also a lot of information here in the scroll bar. 1:59 This solid blue line shows where in the file the cursor is located at the moment. 2:03 Here we see a green square. 2:07 This shows where we have compiler warnings in the code. 2:09 They correspond to where we see green squiggles under the text here. 2:13 Mousing over the green squiggles shows a tool tip with the warning. 2:17 This one is telling us that the variable greeting is assigned but not used. 2:21 Warnings are important to pay attention to because they often mean 2:26 there's something we've forgotten to do and there's potentially a bug in the code. 2:29 Errors show up in red. 2:34 These are things that will stop the code from building all together. 2:36 If I delete this closing parenthesis, 2:39 you will see a red squiggly line where the parenthesis once was. 2:42 We also see a little red square show up here in the tool bar. 2:45 This feature is constantly making us aware of compiler errors, and warnings, 2:49 saves us a lot of time when it comes time to compile and run the code. 2:53 In fact, I find that I encounter compiler errors when building my 2:57 code a lot less often now. 3:01 Visual Studio tries to reduce typing required to write code. 3:03 It has a number of ways to do this, for instance, 3:07 if you start typing a list of keywords or other suggestions will appear. 3:09 It selects the one you are most likely to use. 3:14 With the symbol selected, 3:16 just hit Tab to have Visual Studio finish typing it for you. 3:17 As I keep typing, I get to where I want to write a string literal. 3:21 Notice when I type the first double quote, 3:25 it automatically adds the ending double quote. 3:27 I can keep typing my string. 3:29 When I get to the end of the string, I can hit Tab, and 3:34 it moves the cursor to the end of the line, so I can type the semicolon. 3:36 I'll show some more of these auto complete features while I write another 3:40 method here. 3:43 I'll type S, T, A, Tab, 3:46 Space, S, T, Tab, the name of the method. 3:51 And open parenthesis. 3:57 See the closing parenthesis was added automatically? 3:59 S, T, Tab, and then a variable name, and Tab again to get to the end of the line. 4:03 Return, and then an open curly brace. 4:09 See the closing curly brace was automatically added? 4:12 Hit Return again and the second curly brace is moved down two lines, and 4:15 the cursor is indented. 4:19 As you can see, typing in Visual Studio's 4:22 text editor is very different than typing in a regular word processing program. 4:24 It uses its knowledge of the symbols in your program, conventions used in C#, 4:29 and the C# syntax and grammar to help you speed up your coding. 4:34 For some coders, this may take a bit to get used to. 4:38 After a while, it become second nature and you don't even think a lot about it. 4:41 This allows you to spend your time thinking about the problem you're trying 4:45 to solve and less about things like spelling syntax and what things are named. 4:48 Another way Visual Studio tries to help you 4:52 while typing is a feature called IntelliSense. 4:55 IntelliSense helps you when you type a dot at the end of a valid expression. 4:58 It determines what the type of the expression to the left of the dot is and 5:03 then shows you a list of methods, properties and 5:07 fields that you can call from the scope you are in. 5:09 As you start typing, 5:13 it highlights the symbol that you are most likely looking for. 5:14 You can also use the up and down arrow keys to select the name. 5:17 When you hit Tab, period, Space or any other character that makes sense in that 5:21 context, it types the rest of the name for you. 5:25 If you don't want it to type what is selected, 5:28 just hit the Escape key on your keyboard. 5:30 There are lots of other ways Visual Studio helps with typing code 5:33 including the use of snippets and code generators 5:36 which are more advanced than we need to cover here in this workshop. 5:39 And of course, if you don't like some of these code typing features, 5:43 you can always turn them off. 5:45 However, I encourage you to experiment with them for 5:47 a while before you make that decision. 5:50