Book III 5 in Visual C#.NET

Printer Code 39 Extended in Visual C#.NET Book III 5

Aside from the math, note the decision making If the score being drawn is the score in the label, fill in the hole with a red peg If it s the last score drawn, fill in the hole with a black peg Otherwise, well, just draw a circle It s tough to fathom, but this is exactly how large-scale games are written Admittedly, big graphics engines make many more If-Then decisions, but the premise is the same Also, large games use bitmap images sometimes, rather than drawing all the time For the cribbage scoring application, for example, you could use a bitmap image of a peg rather than fill an ellipse with a black or red brush!

1: Getting Started with Visual Studio 481 2: Using the Interface 495 3: Customizing Visual Studio 517 4: Transforming Text Templates 533

Surveying the available versions Installing Visual Studio Understanding projects and solutions Exploring the different types of projects

uch that you most likely have discovered about C# can be run using a command prompt and csexe Fact is, that s a less-than-wonderful way to program It s unforgiving and slow, and it s hard to remember the specifics of the language An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a program that provides a platform for development It helps make development easier Programmers who are used to starting with a blank screen and a command line often dismiss an IDE as a slow, bogged-down waste of time However, I have never failed to see any of those coders change their tune after working in Visual Studio It s quick, easy to use, agile, and smart It s true that you don t have to use an IDE to program, but if you re going to use one, it should be Visual Studio It was purposely built to write C# code, and it s made to construct Windows programs (Sales pitch over Microsoft, I ll take my 20 bucks now) Seriously, ever since I did a deep dive to write Effective Visual Studio NET, I have been a fan of Visual Studio It truly makes writing software easier It doesn t replace knowing the language or understanding object-oriented programming or the NET Framework, but it sure makes life a little smoother This chapter introduces you to the various versions of Visual Studio and discusses the C# projects available to you

Visual Studio has lots of different versions (a metric ton of them a bushel and a peck, even)

The reason is its famous licensing problem If they just sold the whole package for what it was worth, only the Fortune 50 could afford it, and they would cut out about 99 percent of their audience If they make a lot of different versions, and try to incorporate the features that different groups of people use, they can capture nearly 100 percent of the audience This book focuses on the Professional Edition, as I mention in the introduction However, much of the sample code works in any version though the step lists are different In this chapter I run down the features and benefits of all the major editions At the end of the section, a grid shows the major features and what each edition includes

Express is the free version of Visual Studio Yes, I said free, as in without cost Express is made for hobbyists, but many professional programmers I know use it as their home edition, for small personal projects, or for working on open source projects Although Express is significantly less functional than the Professional Edition, nearly every code sample in this book can be compiled in Express It has the power of the NET Framework, which is also free, and gives you a significant means of learning C# Express edition is not designed for making production software It lacks several project types and many of the tools for team development Nonetheless, it runs C# as well as anything else remember that C# is just a language Express has a number of different subeditions They split the main technologies of NET into parts You can t build packaged software for sale using these editions, but you sure can learn with it The different subeditions are described in this list: Visual C# Express: This edition provides much of the power of C# in a free package Most of the project types are available, including WPF, Windows Forms, Web Forms, and service applications The only kicker you can t deploy You can t deploy for production anyway, without breaking the license agreement