Solution Explorer
From The Oxygene Language Wiki
This is an IDE topic
Feel free to add your notes to this topic below.
| Solution Explorer is the tool in the Visual Studio IDE intended to provide ability to user to manage projects and individual files inside projects. Solution Explorer window can be opened with View -> Solution Explorer menu command or with hot keys CTRL+W,S.
Solution StructureSolution structure in Solution Explorer is presented in tree-like structure similar to Windows Explorer folders structure. A solution consists of projects (the example solution shown on the image has two projects: Business_Processor and Business_ProcessorClient) and standalone solution items like virtual folders and individual files. When solution is built each project compiles to separate module, DLL or EXE. Different projects inside one solution can be based on different programming languges and frameworks supported by current Visual Studio installation. Contents of the project is dependent on the project kind. But almost any project has it's Properties and References. Other elements of the project are files explicitly or implicitly added by user.
Solution Explorer Common TasksThere are some tasks that can be performed with Solution Explorer. All commands to perform solution explorer tasks are available in the solution or particular project contect menu. To open solution context menu the user should right-click the root Solution Explorer item containing name of the solution. As well, right-clicking on any solution or project item brings context menu with commands available for selected item. All these commands are distibuted under Project, Build and Debug submenus of the IDE's main menu, so accessing them with context menu are more natural. Adding Solution ItemsUser can create new solution items or add existing items to the solution. Existing items being added to the solution can reside anywhere on local or network drives. Use Add submenu of the context menu to add solution item to the solution. Items that can be add to solution are:
| 
|
Removing Solution Items
Solution items can be removed or deleted with the context menu command Remove and Delete. Distinguish these two commands: Remove command excludes the item from the solution, Delete erases the item from the disk. Not all solution items support Delete command.
Building Solution
There are two commands to buid the solution:
- Build Solution. When this command is executed, Visual Studio compiles all projects changed since last successfull build and projects depending on them.
- Rebuild Solution. Unlike previous command, this command starts comilation for all project regardless to modification state. For large solutions with many projects complete build can last noticeable time so it is advised to use Rebuild Solution command only in desperate need.
Managing Projects
Managing project items is much similar to managing solution items. User can create, add, remove, delete project items with correcponding commands in the item's context menu. There are Build and Rebuild commands for projects as well.
There is Properties command for projects and project items. For project this command brings Project Options window, for project item - Property Browser window which content depends on the project item type.
Setting Startup Project
Startup project is a project to be executed by default with menu command Debug -> Start Debugging or F5 hot key. Any project can be set as startup with context menu command Set as StartUp Project. Though, selecting as startup only makes sense for projects compiled to EXE.
Starting Projects
Unlike Debug -> Start Debugging command, Solution Explorer allows to execute any number of executable projects with debugging. It can be useful, for example, when debugging both server and client applications. Project can be started with context menu command Debug -> Start New Instance.
Area: Oxygene IDE
IDE Glossary — Keywords — Types — FAQ — How To
