Programming Visual Basic 2005

Chapter 15. Visual Studio 2005

As you've seen in Parts I and II, Visual Studio 2005 is an invaluable tool in creating robust, elegant Windows and Web applications in a minimum amount of time.

Visual Studio 2005 is a large and complex program, so it is impossible in this chapter to explore all of its nooks and crannies. Instead we will lay the foundation for understanding and using Visual Studio 2005, and will point out some of the nastier traps you might run into along the way.

Start Page

When you open Visual Studio 2005 for the first time you'll be asked to configure the tool for the type of development you do most often. Setting a specific Development environment (e.g., Visual Basic 2005) applies a predefined collections of internal settings that maximize your productivity. If you are unsure, you can choose General Development Settings, or if you will be focusing on building web apps you might choose Web Development Settings, as shown in Figure 15-1. However, as a Visual Basic 2005 developer, you'll most likely want to select Visual Basic Development settings.

Figure 15-1. Setting up Visual Studio

Once you've made your choice, you'll be presented with the Start page that lets you open and create windows projects and web sites and provides up-to-date news on MSDN and related products, as shown in Figure 15-2.

Figure 15-2. Visual Studio opening page

Along the top of the application ...