Chapter II.2. Browsing Visual Studio

In This Chapter

With Visual Studio 2008, you have access to hundreds of commands, tools, and designers. The Visual Studio Code Editor and Object Browser put the Microsoft .NET Framework's thousands of methods at your fingertips. You have everything you need to build powerful, world-class Windows applications and Web sites — if only you knew where to begin.

Making Your Way around Visual Studio

When you first open Visual Studio 2008, you see a screenthat reflects a Visual Studio 2008 installation that uses the general development settings.

Note these feature:

  • Start page — This page is your dashboard for navigating Visual Studio 2008 and connecting to resources in the .NET community. The start page includes these features:

    • Recent Projects — A list of recently opened projects in Visual Studio 2008; also includes links to open and create new projects and Web sites

    • Getting Started — A list of links to resources to help you get started using Visual Studio 2008

    • Visual Studio Headlines — A list of news relevant to Visual Studio 2008

    • MSDN News — A list of headlines from MSDN, the Microsoft Developer Network

  • Solution Explorer — This task pane on the right side of the screen lists open solutions and the projects they contain.

  • Class View — This tab on the task pane in the lower-right corner of the screen displays a tree view of classes contained in the open solution.

  • Server Explorer — This task pane on the left side of the screen provides a tree view of the servers you're ...

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