To efficiently manage the items that are required by your development effort, such as references, data connections, folders, and files, Visual Studio .NET provides two containers: solutions and projects. An interface for viewing and managing these containers and their associated items, Solution Explorer, is provided as part of the integrated development environment (IDE).
Containers: Solutions and Projects
Solutions and projects contain items that represent the references, data connections, folders, and files that you need to create your application. A solution container can contain multiple projects and a project container typically contains multiple items. Using these containers, you can take advantage of the integrated development environment in the following ways:
- Manage settings for your solution as a whole or for individual projects
- Use Solution Explorer to handle the details of file management while you focus on items that make up your development effort
- Add items that are useful to multiple projects in the solution or to the solution without referencing the item in each project
- Work on miscellaneous files that are independent from solutions or projects
Items: Files, References, Data Connections
Items can be files and other parts of your project such as references, data connections, or folders. In Solution Explorer, items can be organized in the following ways:
- As project items, which are items that comprise your project, such as forms, source files, and classes within a project in Solution Explorer. The organization and display depends on the project template you select as well as any modifications you make.
- As solution items for files that are applicable to your solution as a whole in the Solution Items folder of Solution Explorer.
- As miscellaneous files for actual files that are not associated with either a project or a solution and can be displayed in a Miscellaneous File folder.
For more detailed information or to learn to use Solution Explorer, see the following topics:
See Also
Managing Solutions, Projects, and Files | Solution Explorer | Upgrading Existing Code | What's New in Visual Studio .NET