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Projects and Solutions
6:38Learn how to use the Solution Explorer to work with the files and folders in your projects and solutions.
All right, we've now created a console
application that both builds and runs.
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To run it, just click the green
start button here on the toolbar.
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The program was compiled, ran,
and closed without errors.
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Most projects in Visual Studio
will work from the very start.
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I found that it's nice to
start in a working environment
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with some simple code that runs.
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That's what project
templates are all about.
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Let's take a closer look at what Visual
Studio did when it created our project.
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We can check this out by looking
at the Solution Explorer.
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If you don't see
the Solution Explorer pane,
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you can bring it back up by clicking
on View > Solution Explorer.
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Right now we're dealing
with a console app.
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Most solutions in Visual Studio share this
basic structure in the Solution Explorer.
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At the highest level there's the solution,
below that there are one or more projects.
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Within each project there's an area for
properties, the list of assemblies or
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libraries that your project uses
are listed under References.
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Below that, there's a list of code files,
programmed at CS, which is already shown
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in the editor here is the C# code
file that contains the code for
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the console app.
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App.config is a special file that
provides the runtime configuration for
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the console app.
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Notice what happens when I click
once on the App.config file.
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It's displayed in the editor, but
its tab is on the right side of the pane.
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If I click AssemblyInfo.cs, the tab is
replaced with the contents of that file.
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This is a preview, so
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whatever is selected in Solution Explorer
shows up as a tab here.
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Unless that is,
if it is already opened as a tab.
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I can't tell you how much this
preview feature helps keeps the editor
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pane cleaned up.
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You can open the file as a normal
tab by double-clicking on it
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in the Solution Explorer or by clicking
on this button in the Preview tab.
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One thing you'll notice about
Visual Studio is there's usually
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many ways to perform the same action.
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Between the toolbars, menus,
context menus, keyboard shortcuts,
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search facilities, buttons or links and
panes, and other cues that may pop up,
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there's often at least four or
five different ways to do everything.
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For the most part,
I'm just going to show you one way.
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Part of making an ID your own is
picking the methods that work best for
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you after you try them out.
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I'll also include a list of shortcuts
in the teacher's notes that you
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might find handy.
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Now back to the Solution Explorer.
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As you create more and
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more files you'll probably want to
start organizing them in folders.
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You can create a folder by
right-clicking on the project name,
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clicking on Add in the context menu that
pops up and then clicking New Folder.
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The new folder appears in
the Solution Explorer under that project.
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You can give it a name by typing
over the highlighted text.
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This is also how you add
files to your project.
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You can add files to the top level
of the project or inside the folder.
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Just right-click on the folder or project
name, mouse over Add, then click New Item.
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You can pick the type of file you
want to add from a list of templates.
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This is very similar to how we created
a new project from an existing template.
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The file templates are organized
into categories on the left side of
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the dialog window.
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I'm going to add another class to
the project, so I'll select Class.
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Then I'll give it the name
InputHandler.cs, and click add.
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The new file is added to the project and
opened in the editor window.
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Notice that the file already has
some boiler plate code in it.
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This comes from the file template.
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It named the class InputHandler
after the name of the file.
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Also notice that it put the class in
the Treehouse.SimpleConsoleApp.Helpers
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namespace.
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By convention Visual Studio
assumes that code in a folder
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should be in its own namespace.
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You can also add existing
files to the project.
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I've placed a file in my Documents folder
that I want to add to this project.
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To add it, I right-click on the project or
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folder that I want to add the file to,
then click Add > Existing Item.
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This opens an open file dialog,
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which I can use to navigate
to where my file is located.
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By default, because this is a C# project,
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that filter down here is
only set to show C# files.
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If you don't see the file you're
looking for, change this to All Files.
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Now, I can select my file, and click Add.
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A copy of the file is made and
placed inside the project.
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To get a better idea of what's
happening behind the scenes
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you can always look at
the Windows File Explorer.
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And easy way to get there is to
right-click on the solution name and
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click Open Folder in File Explorer.
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This opens the file explorer and shows us
the folder that contains the solution.
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I'm going to have Windows show
us the file name extensions.
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There, that's better.
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This file here with the .sln
extension is the solution file.
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This is the file that you click on to
open the solution in Visual Studio.
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Treehouse.SimpleConsoleApp contains
the project.
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This contains the actual files
that make up the project.
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Here's the Program.cs file.
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Here's the App.config file.
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Here's the folder we created and the C#
file that we created in that folder.
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This file with the .csproj extension
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is the project file that contains all the
settings for how to build this project.
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We also see the file I
copied into the project.
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Because Visual Studio is a project-based
IDE as opposed to a file system-based IDE,
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it expects that you'll be creating,
moving, and deleting files and
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folders only from within Visual Studio.
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It won't automatically pick up changes
that happen outside of Visual Studio.
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For example, if I delete this file
here in the file explorer, and then
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go back into Visual Studio, you'll notice
that it still has the file on the project.
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To get Visual Studio to
recognize this change,
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we need to delete the file from here.
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It's the same with moving and
adding files.
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You can make changes in the file explorer,
but you then need to come back here and
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tell the ID about those changes.
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In general, it's best to do
everything from within Visual Studio
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as much as possible.
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