Now let's look at how to write code in Visual Studio.

Here in the Editor window I have a number of files open.

I can rearrange these tabs by dragging them around.

Program.cs is where I want to spend most of my time right now so

I always want to be able to find it, even if I open a bunch of other files.

That happens a lot when I'm tracking down a bug or exploring code.

So you can pin any of these tabs by right-clicking the pin button here.

This moves the tab to the far left side and keeps it there.

I don't need these other files right now.

I can close all except the ones I'm interested in by right-clicking

on the tab I want and clicking Close All But This.

Notice here that there is also an option to close all but the tabs I've pinned.

If you ever want to know where the file you are working on is located

in the file explorer, you can mouse over it, this shows you the full path.

You can also right-click on the tab and

click Copy Full Path which copies the path of the file to the Windows clipboard.

Or you can click Open Containing Folder, which opens the file explorer and

selects the file.

All these things are very handy when working with files.

Okay, now that I've cleaned up my workspace a little,

let's take a look at some of the features of the text editor.

One of the first things you notice is the coloring.

Of course, the colors you use will be different if you're using a different

color theme.

The colored text is what is called syntax highlighting.

Comments are in green, language keywords are blue, type names

that are not keywords are in light blue, and strings, like this one, are in red.

Here you'll notice that these using namespace statements are grayed out.

That's because there isn't any code in this file using those namespaces.

Visual Studio is telling us that we can remove these lines.

The colored line on the left shows which lines have been changed since the last

time the file was saved.

If I save the file, everything will turn green.

There's also a lot of information here in the scroll bar.

This solid blue line shows where in the file the cursor is located at the moment.

Here we see a green square.

This shows where we have compiler warnings in the code.

They correspond to where we see green squiggles under the text here.

Mousing over the green squiggles shows a tool tip with the warning.

This one is telling us that the variable greeting is assigned but not used.

Warnings are important to pay attention to because they often mean

there's something we've forgotten to do and there's potentially a bug in the code.

Errors show up in red.

These are things that will stop the code from building all together.

If I delete this closing parenthesis,

you will see a red squiggly line where the parenthesis once was.

We also see a little red square show up here in the tool bar.

This feature is constantly making us aware of compiler errors, and warnings,

saves us a lot of time when it comes time to compile and run the code.

In fact, I find that I encounter compiler errors when building my

code a lot less often now.

Visual Studio tries to reduce typing required to write code.

It has a number of ways to do this, for instance,

if you start typing a list of keywords or other suggestions will appear.

It selects the one you are most likely to use.

With the symbol selected,

just hit Tab to have Visual Studio finish typing it for you.

As I keep typing, I get to where I want to write a string literal.

Notice when I type the first double quote,

it automatically adds the ending double quote.

I can keep typing my string.

When I get to the end of the string, I can hit Tab, and

it moves the cursor to the end of the line, so I can type the semicolon.

I'll show some more of these auto complete features while I write another

method here.

I'll type S, T, A, Tab,

Space, S, T, Tab, the name of the method.

And open parenthesis.

See the closing parenthesis was added automatically?

S, T, Tab, and then a variable name, and Tab again to get to the end of the line.

Return, and then an open curly brace.

See the closing curly brace was automatically added?

Hit Return again and the second curly brace is moved down two lines, and

the cursor is indented.

As you can see, typing in Visual Studio's

text editor is very different than typing in a regular word processing program.

It uses its knowledge of the symbols in your program, conventions used in C#,

and the C# syntax and grammar to help you speed up your coding.

For some coders, this may take a bit to get used to.

After a while, it become second nature and you don't even think a lot about it.

This allows you to spend your time thinking about the problem you're trying

to solve and less about things like spelling syntax and what things are named.

Another way Visual Studio tries to help you

while typing is a feature called IntelliSense.

IntelliSense helps you when you type a dot at the end of a valid expression.

It determines what the type of the expression to the left of the dot is and

then shows you a list of methods, properties and

fields that you can call from the scope you are in.

As you start typing,

it highlights the symbol that you are most likely looking for.

You can also use the up and down arrow keys to select the name.

When you hit Tab, period, Space or any other character that makes sense in that

context, it types the rest of the name for you.

If you don't want it to type what is selected,

just hit the Escape key on your keyboard.

There are lots of other ways Visual Studio helps with typing code

including the use of snippets and code generators

which are more advanced than we need to cover here in this workshop.

And of course, if you don't like some of these code typing features,

you can always turn them off.

However, I encourage you to experiment with them for

a while before you make that decision.