Visual Basic® 2010 Programmer's Reference

Chapter 14. Program and Module Structure

A Visual Basic solution contains one or more related projects. A project contains files related to some topic. Usually, a project produces some kind compiled output (such as an executable program, class library, control library, and so forth). The project includes all the files related to the output, including source code files, resource files, documentation files, and whatever other kinds of files you decide to add to it.

This chapter describes the basic structure of a Visual Basic project. It explains the functions of some of the most common files and tells how you can use them to manage your applications.

This chapter also explains the basic structure of source code files. It explains regions, namespaces, and modules. It describes some simple typographic features provided by Visual Basic such as comments, line continuation, and line labels. These features do not execute programming commands themselves, but they are an important part of how you can structure your code.

HIDDEN FILES

Figure 14-1 shows the Solution Explorer window for a solution that contains two projects. The solution named MySolution contains two projects named WindowsApplication1 and WindowsApplication2. Each project contains a My Project item that represents the project's properties, various files containing project configuration settings, and a form named Form1.

In WindowsApplication2, the Show All Files button has been clicked (the second button from the left with the box ...