Creating a Project

For first time users, Visual Studio can be a little overwhelming. 0:00 There's a lot happening in the user interface, especially when compared to 0:04 work spaces, here at Treehouse or other text editors, like Sublime Text or Adam. 0:08 For now, we're going to just focus on the parts that we need and 0:13 ignore everything else. 0:17 Let's open Visual Studio and create our project. 0:19 To start the process, click on the File, New, Project menu item, in the top menu. 0:23 This opens up the New Project dialog. 0:31 Using the tree view on the left-hand side, 0:34 we can filter the available project templates by our language in platform. 0:36 We're interested in doing web development using C#, so let's select our language, 0:41 Visual C#, which was already selected, then our platform, Web. 0:46 Now we're seeing just the project templates that are specific 0:51 to the web platform. 0:54 The first and only item in the list, the ASP.Net Web Application project template, 0:56 is the one that we're looking for. 1:01 Go ahead and click it to select it. 1:03 Notice the panel on the right-hand side of the dialog for Application Insights. 1:06 Application Insights is a powerful application profiling tool, but in 1:11 the spirit of keeping things simple, make sure that this checkbox is not checked. 1:15 Let's take a closer look at this combo box, near the top of the dialog. 1:21 If we open this combo box, 1:25 we'll see a list of the .NET Framework versions that we currently have installed. 1:27 The .NET Framework is updated over time with new features and bug fixes, so 1:32 it's not unusual to have more than one version installed. 1:36 I'm gonna select the latest version in the list, which for me is 4.6.1. 1:39 Don't worry if your version is newer than mine, 1:46 as .NET is constantly updating for the better. 1:49 Next, let's go to the bottom of the dialog and 1:52 change our project name to something other than WebApplication1. 1:54 How about, MyFirstWebsite. 1:58 Let's go ahead and leave the default values for the Location and 2:05 Solution name fields, and make sure that the Create directory for 2:08 solution checkbox is checked, and the Add to source control checkbox is not checked. 2:13 While we're not using a version control system for this workshop, rest assured, 2:19 Visual Studio plays nicely with popular tools like Git or GitHub. 2:23 For information about this, see the teacher's notes. 2:28 Click the OK button to continue to the next step. 2:31 Now we're presented with the second step in the process, 2:35 the new ASP.NET Project dialog. 2:38 Within this dialog, we can view and 2:42 select the specific ASP.NET Project template that we want. 2:44 For now, let's focus in on the ASP.NET 4.6.1 template section, 2:48 and in particular, the third item in the list, the MVC Project template. 2:53 Future releases of ASP.NET might diverge significantly from the version that 3:00 I'm using here, so make sure that you're using one of the 4.x templates. 3:04 On the right-hand side of the dialog, we can specify the authentication options for 3:08 our project. 3:13 By default, Visual Studio will include support for individual user accounts. 3:15 That allows users to register and log in to our website. 3:20 Again, let's keep things simple and remove that option. 3:24 To do that, click the Change Authentication button, 3:27 and then select the No Authentication option, then click OK. 3:31 This will make it so 3:36 that anybody could visit our website if we were to publish it on a public server. 3:37 Lastly, make sure that the Host in the cloud checkbox, 3:42 listed underneath the Microsoft Azure section, is not selected. 3:45 While that deployment option would be helpful, 3:50 if we were planning on deploying our application to the cloud, 3:52 that's not something we're going to cover in this workshop. 3:55 If you're interested in deploying your website to the cloud or 3:58 a hosting provider, again, check the teacher's notes for a list of resources. 4:00 Now that we have all of our options set, go ahead and click the OK button. 4:05 Visual Studio will start to create our project, 4:10 displaying the status in the dialog, at the center of the screen. 4:13 Once the dialog has closed, we now have our project. 4:18 Seems like a lot of steps, doesn't it? 4:23 The first time that you create a new project, it can seem a little daunting, 4:26 but with a little practice, it will start to feel familiar in no time. 4:30 Let's take a short break. 4:34 When we return, we'll use Visual Studio to run our website so 4:36 that we can preview it in a browser. 4:39 See you in a bit. 4:41