Workflow with C# in Visual Studio

Question

I normally code with PHP, I am used to opening up my editor of choice and going away at it, coding classes,methods, etc. It is fairly easy as there is no GUI to worry about.

Last night I spent the whole night following a couple tutorials with C# in Visual Studio, it's turning out to be harder then I thought it would be. Once thing that I am not use to is, all the tutorials have you add a form object like a text box or button, then have you double clikc it to get to the code part, you then enter some code for that method. Then back to the form and re-peat

This seems very hard as you are never really working on "just the code" so 1 question is, is it always like that or just because i'm new and following tutorials?

Another question, when I see source code online to do certain functions, say I see a class I would like to try using, how can I use that class in the existing form class created by VS, do you somehow import other classes or do you add them right to the form code you are working on?

I'm sure that didn't make much sense but hopefully it does to someone, i'll try wording it better if not.

I should add that this was with WPF, also I feel like you have to learn 2 languages, the C# which has very similar syntax to PHP so that doesn't seem too difficult and the for GUI that's like a whole diff language

Answer 1

You can download the classes you are interested into. Then you go to the Solution Explorer panel and you add existing items. This will COPY the files to your project.

In order to use those classes you need to declare that you wan to use them. So, what you have to do is to say something like

using FooNamespace;

Then you are ready to use the classes. The name space is declared right before any class. You can go edit it.

Now about the forms. Each form is a Class and it consists of three files

• ClassForm.cs
• ClassForm.designer.cs
• ClassForm.resx

You ONLY need the first one. Right click and view code. You can go there and use it.

Answer 2

Many questions, Many answers

1. Difficulty and Repetition

you can add form objects via the designer or you can hit the source button (CTRL-PgDn). From there you can edit elements in asp and html just like any php IDE. I do most of the work in source. I am a real programmer so I can never do the drag and drop. With intelligence and time you learn the properties and what to do. to make complex pages you just have to know what you are doing. What I started with VS I had the same feelings as you, but i have gotten into the flow of it. As far as the code behind, you are just hooking methods up to the asp elements that get called by the built in code. You can add your own classes, functions, everything in the code behind or in separate files, just like c++, php, whatever.

Hope that helps, VS is really powerful and runs smooth when you learn where things are, been using it for years now and I'm still learning. Bottom line, never use drag and drop and just play with it.

Answer 3

unfortunately the .net world love drag-drop controls. so most tutorials are designed around this concept. drag a textbox on the to form. drag a button onto the form. double click button image to get the click handler.

it's not needed, it's just the approach for most people using visual studio. being that this is a WPF project everything can be done from code, or xaml markup. you don't need the WYSIWYG editor.

as for adding/referencing classes first you need to reference the assembly the class is located in. your core .net types (part of the BCL, base class library) are automatically included as references. then you add a using statement to the appropriate namespace. then you can instantiate the object.

Answer 4

There are ways to have a C# interactive window; see this question. Alternatively, you don't need to use a form, but you could also create a command-line application.

As for the second question, you can add a new class to your project and then use it in your form. There's really no additional step, except that if the namespaces are different, then it is easier if you import that namespace (via using).

Answer 5

Partly, yes, because you're new and using tutorials.

Partly, no, because you're working with forms, and you really don't want to hand-code those by hand.

If you just want to play with C#, and not concern yourself with forms and display, look for information on Console application. Instead of worrying about buttons and textboxes, your worst nightmare will be Console.WriteLine();

Here are some console-based C# tutorials:

1. C# Station tutorial
2. C# Yellow Book - it's a PDF. It's good.

Answer 6

Yes, it is exactly because you are following the video tutorials which are almost always tailored for beginners... Most of us making a living working in VS, developing WPF solutions do not even use the visual editor but instead work directly with XAML to build our UI and have very little or no code in the code behind files following the MVVM pattern.

To answer your second question, most of your classes that "do stuff" which is not directly intertwined with the UI should be in a separate class library (dll file) and should not even be referenced directly by your main UI project (in order to facilitate loose coupling) but instead accessed using some form of Dependency Injection, typically utilizing Interfaces.

The code that responds to user interaction should be in your ViewModel classess which are typically a data context for your views and these VM classes are typically using service agents which implement different Interfaces in order to use code stored in the class libraries mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Now, it is possible to just double click on a button and write all your code in that method created for you in the code behind file just like with Winforms, but just like in the Winforms world that leads to code that is hard to maintain, that is tightly coupled to your user interface and very difficult to test so try to resist that instant gratification and invest some time in learning the MVVM pattern, DI and OO design patterns which facilitate code reuse, decoupling and testability... Hope this helps...

Answer 7

It really depends on what you are trying to learn. I don't think I would start off with WPF if I was using C#. I would start off with a console application to get the basics of the language down, then move down to a simple WinForms application, and finally to WPF where you started.

But yes, your questions about how the editor works is correct. It's how that platform works.