Mastering Visual Studio .NET

Preface

Just after they started building platforms that required development, Microsoft began building tools to perform that development. The authors of this book are personally familiar with edit, Programmer’s Workbench, windbg, QuickC, QuickBasic, Visual C++, Visual Basic, Visual Interdev, Visual J++, and the general-purpose, all-time favorite, Notepad.

We’ve come a long way. This book is meant to provide the information that you need to get the most out of Microsoft’s latest, and certainly greatest, integrated development environment (IDE): Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET). While the “.NET” portion of the name designates VS.NET’s role in providing a full-featured IDE for all forms of .NET development, all of the major functions that Microsoft has provided in past IDEs are also supplied.

Audience

This book is for absolutely anyone doing development in Windows at all. If you’re an MFC, C++, STL, ATL, COM, Win32, Visual Basic, C#, HTML, XML, ASP.NET, database, web application, web service, Windows Service, standalone client, or component programmer targeting Windows or the Windows variants (i.e., Windows CE or the PocketPC), VS.NET is calling your name, and this book was written for you.

This book is broken up into two major sections. The first section is about getting the most out of VS.NET as it comes out of the box, including the following topics:

• Solutions and projects

• Files and the various file editors

• Debugging

• Web projects

• Database projects

• Setup projects

The second section is about extending VS.NET, including the following:

• Integrating controls and components with VS.NET

• The VS.NET automation object model

• Macros and add-ins

• Custom wizards

• The Visual Studio Integration Program (VSIP)

We also provide a number of reference appendixes:

• Project types

• Project item types

• Keystroke shortcuts

• Source code control

• Solution and project file formats

• Text editor settings

Along the way, we go beyond what you’ll read in the documentation to include using VS.NET in ways that the authors and the community at large have found to be useful.

Conventions

We use the following font conventions in this book:

Italic is used for:

• Pathnames, filenames, and program names

• Internet addresses, such as domain names and URLs

• New terms where they are defined

Constant width is used for:

• Command lines and options that should be typed verbatim

• Names and keywords in programs, including method names, variable names, and class names

• XML element tags

Constant Width Bold is used for:

• Marked lines of output in examples

Constant Width Italic is used for:

• Items that should be replaced by actual values

How to Contact Us

We have tested and verified the information in this book to the best of our ability, but you may find that features have changed (or even that we have made mistakes!). Please let us know about any errors you find, as well as your suggestions for future editions, by writing to:

O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.

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Sebastopol, CA 95472

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To ask technical questions or comment on the book, send email to:

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We have a web site for the book, where we’ll list examples, errata, and any plans for future editions. You can access this page at:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mastvsnet/

For more information about this book and others, see the O’Reilly web site:

http://www.oreilly.com

Acknowledgments

All of the authors would like to thank the reviewers (Craig Andera, Peter Clark, Sam Gentile, Drew Marsh, Dan Moseley and his colleagues, Pierre Nallet, and Tomas Restrepo) and the editorial staff at O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. We’d also like to thank Microsoft for access to the Visual Studio Integration Package and for Visual Studio .NET itself, an amazing tool that made this book such a pleasure to write.

Ian Griffiths

I would like to thank Chris, Jon, and O’Reilly for getting me on board with the project and for their help and advice as the writing progressed. I would also like to thank everyone who gave up their free time to provide support and feedback, especially Glyn Griffiths and Matthew Adams. I would particularly like to thank Abigail Sawyer for her understanding and support during the rather intensive writing process.

http://staff.develop.com/igriffiths

Jon Flanders

I would like to thank Chris and O’Reilly (specifically John Osborne and Brian Jepson) for the opportunity to be involved in this book. I’d also like to thank Ian for being an excellent coauthor choice; without him, the book would not be the book that it is. I also want to thank Shannon Terra Ahern for giving me inspiration and input on this book and for being there while I was writing it.

[e-mail]

Chris Sells

First and foremost, as always, I’d like to thank my family for putting up with my odd work habits while contributing to this book. This book is dedicated to them. I’d also like to thank my coauthors, Ian and Jon, for putting their heart and soul into this book and for tolerating my endless comments and requests. Finally, I’d like to thank the readers who inspired this work in the first place. You make it all worthwhile.

http://www.sellsbrothers.com