Datasheet

In addition, Visual Studio 2005 maintains two separate layouts: design time and runtime. Menus, tool-

bars, and various windows have a default layout for when you are editing a project, whereas a different

setup is defined for when a project is being executed and debugged. You can modify each of these lay-

outs to suit your own style and Visual Studio 2005 will remember them.

Moving to the right-hand side of the screen shown in Figure 1-6, you can see two smaller windows

attached to the side of the main window. These are simply known in Visual Studio 2005 terminology as

windows, and they are used to house self-contained subsections of the tools found in the IDE. Each of

these windows can be resized, moved or removed, and even detached from the main IDE so they float

above the form.

By default, the windows shown in this screenshot are attached to the main form. This is known as dock-

ing. You can undock any window by clicking and dragging its title bar away from the edge to which it is

docked. More information on this, as well as customizing your toolbar layout and appearance, can be

found in Chapter 5.

In step 3 of the previous task you pinned the Toolbox tab open. You’ll see that each of these windows

(Solution Explorer, Properties, and so forth) also has the pin button at the top, which enables the win-

dow to automatically slide closed when docked to the side of the form. The default setup had the

Toolbox automatically hidden, and the other windows pinned open.

Figure 1-8 shows the first of the windows docked to the right-hand side of the IDE. This is the Solution

Explorer, where you can manage your current solution, looking at individual projects and their associ-

ated files. The Solution Explorer displayed in this example shows a solution containing a single project

called IntroProject, which has two files: My Project and Form1.vb. The My Project entry is actually a spe-

cial section of the project that contains the various settings and projectwide elements, such as compila-

tion and debug parameters.

The projects and files are presented in a hierarchical fashion similar to the folder list in Windows Explorer,

with different icons displayed for the various file types, to more easily identify what each entry is.

Figure 1-8

Chapter 1

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