How to navigate around the VS dotNET IDE
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To navigate around the VS.NET IDE
The Microsoft Development Environment Graphical User Interface
- Navigation Pane
- The Navigation Pane is the primary navigation tool for the MS.NET Development
Environment, providing navigation, filtering, and search capabilities for the
current project, solutions and installed help collections. The navigation window
consists of several separate tabbed windows: Solution Explorer, Contents, Index, and
Search.
- Solution Explorer Window
- Solution Explorer provides you with an organized hierarchical tree view of your
projects and their files showing the logical relationship of the solution to
projects and solution items. A solution shown in bold font indicates that the option
to run multiple projects when the debugger starts is enabled. A project shown in
bold font is selected as the Startup Project for running and debugging purposes.
Only buttons specific to the item selected in the list appear on the Solution
Explorer toolbar.
- Contents Window
- With the Contents window, you can browse a tree view display of the Help
collections installed on your system and navigate to specific topics in those
collections. Select a filter for narrowing the scope of topics included in the
Contents, Index, and Search windows. Only filters for the current Help collection
appear in the list and not all Help collections offer filters. Use the previous
topic and next topic arrow keys on the Web bar to move vertically through the TOC.
Use the Sync Contents button on the Web bar to open the Contents window and
highlight the currently displayed topic's location in the TOC.
- Index Window
- The Index Window displays the alphabetical list of keywords associated with topics
in the selected filtered Help collections. The filter reduces the documentation set
based on the categories and values selected for the filter. Select a filter for
narrowing the scope of topics included in the Contents, Index, and Search windows.
Only filters for the current Help collection appear in the list and not all Help
collections offer filters.
- Search Window
- The Search Window provides the facility for a filtered full-text search to locate
every occurrence of a word or phrase in the currently selected help collections.
Select a filter for narrowing the scope of topics included in the Contents, Index,
and Search windows. Only filters for the current Help collection appear in the list
and not all Help collections offer filters.
- Properties Window
- The Properties window is used to view and change the design-time properties and
events of selected objects that are located in editors and designers. The Properties
window displays different types of editing fields, depending on the needs of a
particular property. These edit fields include edit boxes, drop-down lists, and
links to custom editor dialog boxes.
- Dynamic Help Window
- Displays one or more Help topics and provides basic navigation between topics. The
Dynamic Help window provides links to information based on the portion of the
integrated development environment (IDE) that currently has focus. Typically, the
links that appear are related to the current task you are trying to accomplish or
the current portion of the IDE that you are using.
- Favorites Window
- The Favorites window displays the current logged in user's IE favorites list
consisting of links to topics that have been previously saved to their favorites
list.
- Results Window
- Displays the results of full-text or index searches, and allows you to sort these
results based on their rank, Help topic title, or the location of the Help file that
contains the information.
You can change the appearance and behavior of the Visual Studio integrated
development environment (IDE) in many ways. For customization techniques, see the VS.NET
IDE help.
See Also
Lotech Solutions' Tips, Tricks, and Procedures | What is XML Help | How to create an XML Help project
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