Professional Visual Studio® 2008

54.2. Application Designer

The Application Diagrams will be used to configure and connect applications to each other. To create one, you can select File New Project, and in the Distributed System Diagram choose Application Diagram. This will create a new solution with the Application Diagram. If you are starting with an existing solution, you can right-click it and choose Add New Distributed System Diagram. This will look for projects you have in your solution and add them to the Application Diagram if those projects are compatible with the application types available.

From the Toolbox you have three categories. The first one, General Designer, is available for all the diagrams and includes the connection tool and comments. The Applications category includes application prototypes that will map to projects in your solution. You have eight types of applications. The Endpoints represent connection points between applications, and these are specific for the different prototypes — for example, you can use only a Web Content and .NET Web Service Endpoint in applications mapping to web sites or web applications.

You can extend the Application Designer to include custom application prototypes. Please see "Extending Distributed System Designers" on MSDN.

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