A notepad is enough to design software, but programmers usually use different development environments because writing code becomes much more accessible. A notepad doesn't tell you where there are typos in the code or what method calls are available in a specific part of the code, etc. IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a set of software tools for software development. The most famous IDE is Microsoft Visual Studio, and we will tell you about it.

What is this program?

Microsoft Visual Studio for Windows, being a typical IDE, is a text editor with syntax highlighting and various features for programmers. There are several versions of Visual Studio: Community, Enterprise, and Professional. They differ in some of the provided capabilities, but regardless of the performance, you can write programs in any of them. The community version is often enough for novice programmers to learn programming languages.

Interface

The program has a user-friendly interface (all Microsoft programs are famous for it) where each element is located in its place and performs a particular function. On the start page, you can do the following: open existing projects, folders, etc., run the last opened project the user was working with, and create a new project. A project is a minimum unit of compilation.

Working with projects

Microsoft Visual Studio for Windows allows you to create different projects to specify the type of the future application at the beginning. As a rule, novice programmers create a Console App to get acquainted with their chosen programming language. The project creation interface consists of the following elements:

• The name of the future project;

• Its location in the file system;

• The name of the solution the project will be included (sometimes the program consists of several subroutines, and solutions allow you to combine several projects);

• The .Net Framework version;

• The menu for creating a separate directory for storing solution documents.

In turn, the project description includes the following elements:

• Properties: stores various information about the project (who owns it, what version of the project, etc.);

• References: a list of connected libraries, platforms, and other elements;

• App.config or Web.config for Web applications: a configuration file;

• Project files (e.g. a Program.cs file): double-click a project file to open it.

Opened panels can be fixed and hidden.

Compilation modes

Microsoft Visual Studio for Windows supports two compilation modes: Debug and Release. When compiling a program in Debug mode, a .exe file is created without some elements necessary to launch it. It borrows them from Visual Studio. Projects compiled in this mode can be run only on computers with Visual Studio installed. The second mode also creates a startup file but doesn't depend on Visual Studio. You need to install additional compilation settings if you have several projects in your solution. However, you can do it in the standard settings of the program without downloading and installing anything additional.