
2
|
Chapter 1, Master Projects and Solutions
#1 Manage Projects and Solutions
HACK
solution or project structure. In this hack, you will learn how to work with
and configure solutions and projects.
This hack applies to all versions of Visual Studio, but the dia-
logs and screens will vary slightly between versions. The
screenshots in this hack are all taken from Visual Studio .NET
2003 unless noted otherwise.
Solutions
Solutions are Visual Studio’s highest level of organization. They collect any
number of projects together under one manageable structure. Solutions
store information about the contained projects, including project dependen-
cies and build order, and can also contain miscellaneous solution items.
Solution files have a few limitations. Only a single solution can be opened in
an instance of Visual Studio at a time, and solution files cannot contain
other solution files. Projects, however, can be members of multiple solu-
tions. This allows you to create a number of solutions for different purposes
that make use of the same projects. (An example of this is business entities
or interfaces that you need to share across client and server solutions.)
Solutions are the best way to keep projects under source con-
trol. If you add the solution to source control, every devel-
oper on the project can use the same solution and is
guaranteed to use the same project and file structure.
Creating a solution. ...