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4:08We'll go over launching Visual Studio for the first time. You'll also learn many ways to organize your workspace.
The first time Visual Studio starts,
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it will ask if you want to sign
in using your Microsoft account.
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You can only use Visual Studio for
30 days before you have to sign in,
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in order to continue using it,
so I suggest signing in now.
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Odds are, you already have a Microsoft
account, if you've ever signed into
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a Microsoft product, such as Skype,
Bing, MSN, or Xbox Live.
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You can also create a new
account by clicking here.
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Here we can do a little configuration.
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You'll notice that just about everything
in Visual Studio can be customized.
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Microsoft noticed that the way web
developers configure Visual Studio is
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often different than say, the way
C++ developers or C# developers do.
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So they made prepackaged collections of
settings that you can apply to the IDE,
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to make it behave the way that
each group of developers expects.
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Frankly, I don't know how
Microsoft could make such
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general assumptions about
groups of developers.
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Maybe they sent out a large survey.
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I must have missed it.
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Selecting one of these doesn't
prohibit you from doing development
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using the others.
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Personally, I prefer to keep things
agnostic and customized as I see fit.
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So I'm going to select General here.
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You can always apply these
other configurations later.
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Next, you can select one
of three color schemes.
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You can easily change this later.
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In general, dark themes are often
used in dimly lit rooms or
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caves where coders avoid bright lights.
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For this workshop,
I'll select the traditional blue theme.
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With that out of the way,
we can now click on Start Visual Studio.
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All right, and now we're in Visual Studio.
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Let me show you around.
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When running Visual Studio for
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the first time, your screen
should look something like this.
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The large area here is the main workspace.
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It's where you'll be writing code,
designing UIs and so on.
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Right now the workspace consists of
a single tab containing the Start Page.
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This is where Microsoft posts
news about its development tools.
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It also has some links here for creating
and opening projects for your convenience.
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These actions are also available
from the File menu here.
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If you scroll down to the bottom of
this page, there are some options for
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when you want this page to be displayed.
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The main workspace is
surrounded by smaller panes.
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Different panes may be shown depending on
the type of development being done and
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your personal preferences.
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Panes are a really convenient way for
organizing your work area.
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You can arrange these panes around
the screen in many different ways.
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You can move them by clicking
on their title bar and
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dragging them to one of
the little yellow boxes.
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The blue area shows where
the panel will be moved to.
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You can even drag them out
of the main window, and
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use them as a stand-alone window.
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This is very handy when
you have multiple screens.
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The buttons in the title bar of each
pane help with pane arrangement.
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This toggle button that looks like a push
pin, allows you to pin a pane open,
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so that it stays open
when you click out of it.
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Each panel area can be
a tabbed area as well.
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First, pin open the pane you
want to turn into a tabbed area.
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Then grab another pane, and
move it into the center of that pane.
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See?
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The pane ends up as a tab here.
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You can close a pane by clicking the X.
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Most window panes can be opened
by going to the View menu and
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clicking on the name of the pane.
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The upside down triangle button is
a drop-down showing even more options.
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There are way too many ways to
arrange panes for me to show here.
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So, go ahead and experiment on your own.
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You can always reset everything
back to its original state by
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clicking on the Window menu and
selecting Reset Window Layout.
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