Visual Studio – How to create a Project?

Microsoft Visual Studio is a powerful integrated development environment (IDE) useful to develop different types of applications. Microsoft Visual Studio is mostly useful to develop applications based on Microsoft Technologies.

This article explains the steps to create a simple project using Microsoft Visual Studio IDE.

This applies to:

• Visual Studio 2012

Step (1). Open Visual Studio application.

Step (2). Click on the File menu. It will display a pull-down menu. From the pull-down menu select New menu item. This will open a sub-menu.

Step (3). From the sub-menu select Project… menu item. Visual Studio will open a “New Project” dialog.

Visual Studio displays the list of available project types in the left pane.

• Recently used templates will be displayed under Recent item for faster navigation.
• Under Online item, it will display the available project types from the internet. When you select each project type, Visual Studio will search the available templates on the internet and display them in the right-side pane.
• Under Installed item, under Templates, Visual Studio will display the installed project types and it will display the associated templates when we select the project types.

Visual Studio uses project templates to create a new project. When you select the project type, the associated templates will be displayed in the middle pane.

The description of the selected template will be displayed in the right pane.

Step (4). Now, from the “New Project” dialog, expand the Installed item from the left pane; then expand the Templates item to display the list of installed project types.

Step (5). Select the project type from the list, that you want to create a project. Eg: Select Visual C# project type under Other Languages to create a C# project.

Step (6). Once you select the project type, Visual Studio displays the available templates in the right-side pane. Select the template depending on your project requirement. Eg: Select the Windows Forms Application template to create an application with a Windows Forms user interface.

Step (7). Provide the name of the project in the Name: field.

Step (8). Select the version of the .Net Framework you want to use from the .Net Framework combo box which is displayed at the top of the “New Project” dialog.

Step (9). Once you provide the necessary data, click on the OK button to create a project of the selected project type based on the selected project template.

Step (10). Visual Studio will create a project and display the form designer.

• The form designer is to design the Windows Forms user interface.
• You can select form elements from the Toolbox pane. If the Toolbox pane is not visible, click on the View menu and then select the Toolbox menu item. Or type Ctrl + Alt + X keyboard keys to display the Toolbox pane.
• Form’s properties will be displayed in the Properties pane. If the Properties pane is not visible, click on the VIEW menu and then select the Properties Window menu item. Or type the F4 key from the keyboard to display Properties pane.

Step (11). Now the project’s basic setup is done. Click on DEBUG menu and then select the Start Without Debugging menu item to run the project. Or type Ctrl + F5 keys from the keyboard to run the project.

The result is:

Without writing a single line of code, with the help of a project template, the simple Windows Form is ready. You can place controls on the Windows Form and add events to them to extend the functionality to create more interactive forms.