Creating a New Project

When you start creating a new project, I would assume that you have installed the MS Visual Studio Team System 2008 in your computer. I don't need to bother explaining the installation process here, okay? Once it is installed, you can just click it to load. If it is your first time to run it, it will prompt you which programming language you are to use..so in my case, I selected Visual C#. Once it loads, you go directly to File -> New -> Project. Once selected, it will load the following screen.


On the left side, you can see the different project types under Visual C#. In my case, I did select the Windows (for a desktop application) and then Windows Forms Application (since I will be using a form). Under the Name Textbox, I entered DesktopProject as the name of my Project. The Location can be changed if you want to. You can just forget the Solution Name for now because it automatically copies the Project Name and then press OK.

It will then display our DesktopProject (see topmost label). This is the main application window for our development (see below).



As shown above, you can see on your left the Toolbox where all windows controls can be found. Just explore it and see if you are familiar with them. The Form1 is your main form. This is the first windows form that will be displayed if you run the program. You can change the sequence if you want... (no need to bother for now). On the right side, you can see the Solution Explorer where it displays the Project Solution including the files needed for the program. The Form1.cs is the program source code of your main form. Under the Solution Explorer, you have the Properties window that is inherent with the Windows Control that you have selected.

Everything that you want to change with the Windows Control like the Form, Textbox, Labels, etc. can be customized here. For our form, you can change the Font, Font Color, Label, Icon if you want to have one, Back and Background Color, and many others. You can just experiment it yourself. :)













I think, we need to go over the label of our form and change it to Desktop Management System. As you can see, I did changed it with the Properties window under Text and write the name of our system. Once you do that, it will automatically change the main form with that label. You can make your own name for your desktop project if you want to.


Well, so far..we have covered the very basics of creating a project. I have not encountered problems here because I am a bit exposed to other IDEs (not VB, okay?) or Integrated Development Environments. Next time, I will be dealing with creating GUIs for our Forms. :)

Project Kick-Off!

It has been a long time since I want to learn MS Visual Studio. I had been pretty much occupied with JAVA for years that I did not spend time learning technologies from Microsoft. :) I am a bit fond of using open-source technologies because it's free and their are communities that supports it.

Well, too much introduction..Let me start off with the project. Actually, the project is a desktop application and it was given to me by a friend who wants to automate his small business. What it does is: it keeps a record of all its clients and their transactions. In addition to that, I would think that the major focus of the application is the reports that will be generated to keep track of sales and client's transactions either per week, or per month basis. It will also generate a report of all clients' details and their individual transactions.

Well, the project is simple and it can be implemented easily by those "gurus" in about a week or earlier than that. Well, this project is not for them anyway..hehehe. In this case, I will be documenting what I did and the things that I have learned along the way. If the project will be completed, well..I still don't know when 'cause I'm learning from scratch and using only the web as my resource.. it will surely help those who have problems and questions they encountered (like me) while learning to develop Microsoft Visual Studio using C#. Well, I hope.. :)

Let the journey begins...