Visual Studio Hacks

1

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Master Projects and Solutions

Hacks 1–5

The majority of the time you spend working with Visual Studio will be spent

inside of a project or a solution. You might edit the odd file that is not

attached to a project or solution, but most files you work with will be in the

context of a project or solution.

Projects can be used for many purposes, but primarily they are used to orga-

nize source code that will be compiled into a library or application.

Solutions collect a number of projects together under a single structure. The

metaphor of solution works because it collects all the projects that make up

your business solution. You may have five projects that make up various

parts of your overall business solution. For example, you might have a data

access project, business layer project, service interface layer project, presen-

tation layer project, and web controls project. The solution groups all of

these projects together and allows you to quickly move between projects

and manage references between them.

The hacks in this chapter show you how to create and manage projects and

solutions, manage assembly references, and dissect the formats of project

and solution files. If you’re not already familiar with how to work with

projects and solutions, this chapter will better prepare you to get the most

out of the other hacks in this book.

HACK

#1

Manage Projects and Solutions Hack #1

Visual ...