Developing Visual C# Applications Using VS.Net

Although, using Microsoft's products is not all that difficult, VS.Net is slightly different. The following pages demonstrate how to use VS.Net and create GUI, Visual C# applications.

You are looking at the first screen, the Start Page of VS.Net.

To Create a New Project,

Select File > New > Project

Select Visual C# projects > C# Windows Application

from the New Project dialog box, as shown below. Press Ok.

Working with a new VC# project

Now, you are ready to start working on your first VC# project. A window, as shown above, will open. The Form Window has been identified for you, which contains the Form object.

A form is the visual interface object of your application. It allows your application to communicate, get input and give output to the user.

The form object has a set of properties, which can be obtained from the Properties window, as shown in the above figure, encircled with a red mark on the right side of the screen. Each control that you will be using, in VC#, will have some set properties. Properties can be understood as attributes of the object, which can be used to modify the appearance, behaviour of the object.

To add GUI objects like a label, textbox etc. click on the Toolbox to the left as shown below.

To change a property, select the property name in the Properties window. For instance, if you want to change the caption being displayed in the label, select the Name property from the Properties window. To obtain the properties of the particular object, select the object first and then right-click and select properties as shown in the above figure. To change the Caption property of a label, follow the steps shown in the below figure

After adding a control on to the form, you need to place code behind the object. Double ^?clicking on the object will take you automatically to the code-behind window. The following figure shows the code window for the form object – form1.This window enables you to write C# code for the events that may be for the application, when the user is first displayed this form. The many events can be, for example,

- User can click on the form
- User can click on a control on the form
- User can move the mouse
- User can right-click on the form's body

Each object has a set of properties and methods, which can be obtained through the instance of the object. The VS.Net code editor, the white portion in the above figure, provides the ease of a drop-down menu, which contains the complete list of members supported by the object. So, programming in the GUI mode is simpler than anything. You don't have to consult books or list of members anymore, while working on VS.Net !