Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 The Basics - Pennsylvania State University

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 : The Basics This is meant to be a quick tutorial to help understand some of the basics of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (from here on just “Visual Studio”). VISUAL STUDIO IS AN IDE Visual Studio is a tool that aids in the development of software systems. It is what is known as an Integrated Development Environment, IDE. There are a variety of IDEs used in industry that support various languages, operating systems, and hardware. For developing systems intended to run on Windows or that want to take advantage of other Microsoft technologies, Visual Studio is the standard. An IDE is not necessary to create software. For years systems were developed using a simple text editor1 and some set of build tools such as a compiler, linker, and debugger2. Since C/C is a mid‐level language and the source code is compiled to object code specific to an OS and underlying hardware, the platform, compilers and linkers are platform specific. The simplest IDEs are GUIs that provide a text editor and are layered on top of the compiler and linker. They can typically display multiple files at a time and compilation/linking is a matter of a button click. As compilers and linkers can be configured via command line parameters, IDEs provide dialogs for the user to specify such parameters in a friendlier way. Modern IDEs offer far more power. In addition to simple editing, compiling, and linking, relationships between and contents of files and libraries can be viewed and manipulated visually. Some IDE, Visual Studio being one, enable the modeling of GUIs for which it generates source code. Further, large software applications often require the use of multiple languages and components distributed across multiple machines in varied locations and IDEs can help manage that complexity. One of the most powerful features today’s IDEs offer is a robust debugging environment. They provide various ways to interact with an executable by starting and stopping the execution as well as observing and modifying its state at pretty much any point. CASE Tools A class of IDEs is Computer Aided Software Engineering tools. These tools enable the design of a system to be defined visually. These tools typically offer a way to synchronize the design artifacts with the implementation artifacts: 1 One of early text editors for Unix was vi. It is a bit challenging to use at first but once mastered it is incredibly efficient. vi is still in use today though it’s competitor, Emacs, gained much popularity for Unix‐based systems and today is probably the most common. 2 For years, and in wide use still, the standard tool set was developed and provided by GNU (gnu.org) and collectively called GNU Compiler Collection (gcc.gnu.org).

Forward Engineering: The design captured in the CASE tool can generate source code files – generally at least creating the files, establishing dependencies between them, and creating class/function stubs. Reverse Engineering: The source code is analyzed and visualizations are generated. Roundtrip Engineering: Performing both forward and reverse engineering. Visual Studio is not a case tool but it can be integrated with CASE tools. For example, Microsoft Visio (Enterprise Architects edition) enables roundtrip engineering. [I personally don’t think Visio does a good job but the functionality is there. I mention it only because it’s a tool many have used for other types of diagramming.] STARTING VISUAL STUDIO IDEs such as Visual Studio can be a little overwhelming as they are intended to support professional application development and hence have many features. There is a overhead to getting started which means it’s not as simple as writing a little code and the compile and run it. Taking the time to learn to use to the tool to create simple programs will pay dividends in the end. As your skills evolve and your systems become more complicated the more advanced features will become useful. Before you can do anything you will need to start the application: Start Programs MS Visual Studio 2010 MS Visual Studio 2010 If you’re using a Vista or Windows 7 interface, you may have to search for the application as you normally would. If you are starting Visual Studio for the first time, you will be presented with a dialog asking you to choose your default environment. Select “Visual C Development Settings”. (If you have chosen otherwise previously, that’s fine.) Visual Studio will then take a little while to configure itself and display. When it finally is ready, you should see something like what is in Figure 1 : What Visual Studio 2010 looks like when it starts. The window is divided into a collection of views. The tool can be reconfigured to organize the views in a way that is useful to you. At first leave the tool in its default setting until you become more familiar with it. You can see all possible views by inspecting the options in the “View” menu. However, the views we are most interested in are Solutions Explorer. This is the space on the left side of the window (you can see its name in the title bar of the subwindow). A solution is a collection of projects. A project contains source files and configuration information relating to a system or subsystem. At the bottom of the Solution Explorer column you will tabs for Class View, Property Manager, and Team Explorer. We won’t

use these but, of course, you can switch between the tabs. This is worth noting in the event you don’t see the Solution Explorer in that column. Start Page. When you first start Visual Studio you will see this homepage. It has a variety of shortcuts and resources. I occasionally use the “Recent Projects” list but for the most part I close it right away. You can accomplish everything you need via the application menus. You can close the Start Page view by clicking on the ‘x’ in the upper right corner. Code Definition Window. You will find this view useful as the semester progresses. As you evolve your code and compile it, this window will show you function definitions. In the short term, it’s going to look very cryptic – and even once you’re rather proficient with C/C it will at times look cryptic – but you will come to find it useful. For now, if you like, you can close it by clicking the ‘x’ in the upper right corner. Output. The results of your compilation and linking will appear here. This is where you will see the errors you need to correct. You will often find errors highlighted in the source as well. Some errors will be subtle and you will have to read through the build output (which can be a bit tricky). The space where the Start Page view is located is called the Tabbed Document area. Any view can be placed or removed from this view. See Section on docking.

Figure 1 : What Visual Studio 2010 looks like when it starts. VIEW MANAGEMENT There are a variety of display options for views. Inevitably you will modify the layout of Visual Studio in an unintentional way. The most fundamental thing to know is how to restore order. To return to the original configuration as is displayed when you first start the application: Window Reset Window Layout Hiding and Unhiding Views Views can be opened and closed. Simply, Hide o Click on the ‘x’ in the view’s title bar o Click on the black triangle and select “Hide” o Right click on the view’s title bar and select “Hide”

Unhide o Select “View [the view you want to see]” As an example, suppose we start with the default layout as in Figure 1. To close the Start Page view, click on the ‘x’. This will result in what is depicted in Figure 2. Figure 2 : Visual Studio appearance after the Start Page view is closed. Auto Hiding Views can be configured to auto hide. This means they are minimized when not actively engaged. This is probably the most useful feature. It enables you to quickly access views you need but gets them out of the way when you don’t need them. To auto hide a view: Press the vertical push pin next to the ‘x’. o Note that the pin will appear horizontal when you show the view later. o Click on the black triangle and select “Auto Hide”

o Right click on the view’s title bar and select “Auto Hide” Try this: With the default view, as in Figure 1, press the pushpin of the Solution Explorer View. The view will collapse and small buttons will appear on the left‐hand side. Further, the Start Page and Code Definition views will expand to fill the window. You can see this in Figure 3. Figure 3 : The Solution Explorer View is auto hidden on the left side of the window. To access the Solution Explorer again, just hover the mouse over the Solution Explorer button and it will reappear as in Figure 4. (Note: I couldn’t capture the mouse in the image but it is hovering over the button.) While the mouse is in the Solution Explorer area, the view remains visible. As soon as the mouse leaves the area it will disappear. To “un auto hide”, you can Select View [The view you want to “un auto hide”]

With the view visible, press the now horizontal push pin to the right of the ‘x’ Dock the view (see below) Figure 4 : To view the Solution Explorer, hover the mouse over the Solution Explorer button. (Note: The mouse isn't visible.) Floating Each view can float. This means the view is detached from the application window and acts (somewhat) as a window on its own. To float a view: Double‐click on the view’s title bar; or Click on the black triangle and select “Float” Right click on the view’s title bar and select “Float” Floating is a bit anti‐Windows (more of a Unix‐X/Motif thing, really) but it can be useful. It’s recommended that you avoid floating views until you get the hang of the tool.

To un‐float a view, Dock the view (see below) Try this: With the default view, as in Figure 1, double click the Solution Explorer view’s title bar. The view will detach from the Visual Studio window and “float” on the desktop as in Figure 5. Notice that the Visual Studio is always one layer down than the floating view. Figure 5 : The Solution Explorer view is floating outside the Visual Studio window. Note: While I was preparing this document and playing around with layout, I was able to get the Solution Explorer view to float as above. However, I also encountered a situation where trying to float the Solution Explorer resulted in the Start Page floating. This isn’t what should happen and I was able to return things to normal. Unless you plan on floating views regularly, don’t worry if this happens to you. Just restore the default layout and you’ll be good to go.