How to Begin C# Programming with Microsoft Visual Studio.NET

How to Develop Console Application using C# in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Jun Ni 

Jan. 20, 2004 

How to Begin C# Programming with 

Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 

Jun Ni, Ph.D.M.E. 

Department of Computer Science 

The University of Iowa 

(jun-ni@uiowa.edu) 

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (MVS.NET) is a convenient integrated development 

environment (IDE),. It allows people to create, compile, run, and debug programs. It 

supports different programming languages, including C#, C, C++, etc. In this quick guide, 

we focus on how to use .NET to develop C# program. 

1. Getting Started 

After you open MVS.NET, it usually starts with a window similar to the one shown 

following. 

Figure 1. MVS.NET Start Window


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The appearance of the Start Page or Window may be different, but very similar, 

depending upon the initial or customer system setting. 

Each job of development should be performed within a project. You can either open an 

existing project or create a new project. 

1.1. Create New Project 

If you are working on an existing project which already allocated on your computer, you 

can skip this step. If you want to create a new project, you can 

Figure 2. Menu to create new project 

Or you can use Ctrl-Shift+N or click New Project Icon, shown in Figure 3. You can 

also click New Project Button in Projects Tab to create new project, shown in Figure 4.


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Figure 3. Icon in toolbar to create new project. 

Figure 4. New Project Button in Projects Tab to create new project. 

After you select one of these options, a New Project Window prompts out, which is 

shown in Figure 5.


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Figure 5. New Project Window which allows user to select project type. 

From the window, you can see there are many options, that allow users to create different 

types of project, such as Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C/C++, and others. 

At this moment, we will select Console Application Template. The Console 

Application Template enhanced by Console Application Icon can be found by sliding 

down the Sliding Bar of Templates, as shown in Figure 6.


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Figure 6. Select Console Application Template to define the type of new project for 

console application. 

Now you can name your project. You can also save your project file into your preferred 

directory by click Browse… button, shown in Figure 7. 

Figure 7. Project Location Window to specify the directory in which the project file is 

saved. 

.


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Now MVS.NET gives you a new window with the project name you specified, shown in 

Figure 8. 

Figure 8. Programming File Edit Window which allows users to edit or develop code. 

Now you can edit your program. First, let's delete " namespace FirstProject" (as 

default, it is given as the project name) and its scope curly brackets {}. You can leave it 

alone. I will explain it late. 

Let's modify the default one as a simple C# code. Type the code listed on Page 4 of the 

text book.


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// Hello world in C# 

// by Jun Ni 

using System; 

class Hello 

{ 

public static void Main() 

{ 

Console.WriteLine("Hello, world!"); 

} 

} 

Also delete "[STATthread]", which is indented to indicate when the execution starts. 

You can also delete "string[] args" within the parenthesis within the Main(), if one 

does't want to pass arguments to the code (as we will explain late), as well as other 

unnecessary comments. Now the code looks like 

Figure 9. Simplest "hello" code defines a "FirstHello" class. 

1.2 Compile and Load Functions 

If there are no syntax errors, you can compile and load functions on the edited program. 

There are two major options which you can select. They are Build Project and Build 

Solution options. In the current study, it doesn't matter. Basically Build Project performs 

the compilation and loading over all the files associated with the current project, while


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Build Solution performs the compilation and loading on not only the files associated 

with the current project, but also other projects even with the file using. The Build menu 

gives 

Figure 10. Build menu. 

Either Build Solution or Build FirstProject submenus (the name of current project) 

gives the following successful result, shown in Figure 11. 

Figure 11. Success of building current project.


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1.3 Run or Execute Program 

Now you can run (execute) your code using Debug menu. There are four ways to run 

your code. The basic way is to run your code without debugging. 

1.3.1 Go to Debug Menu and select Start Without Debugging (Ctrl+F5) (shown in 

Figure 1.2) to enable an execution window (Figure 13). 

Figure 12. Debug Menu 

Figure 13. Console application result window. Enter any key to close the result window.


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If user selects Start submenu (F5), it puts up the Execution Window only while the 

program is actually running. It will disappear once the program completes, so user can 

not check the results statically displayed on the window. In order to check the execute 

status, you need to set a breakpoint. 

Now we can close the project by clicking the Close Solution submenu in File Menu 

shown in Figure 14. 

Figure 14. Close solution (project). 

1.4 Open Existing Project 

If you have existing project which already developed and your would like to load to the 

current MVS.NET, you can select Project… Menu Item in Open submenu of File Menu.


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Figure 1.5 Open existing project. 

It prompts Open Project Window which allows users to find the existing project file, 

named as Project Name with extension .csproj. For example, we can search the location 

of our FirstProject saved and find the project file called FirstProject.csproj, shown in 

Figure 16. 

Figure 16. Open the existing project file.


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Now you have the project with a C# file called Class1.cs associated with the project. It 

should be noted that the file name of the C# may be different from the class defined in the 

file. In this case, we define a class called FirstHello. This is different from Java, in which 

the file name has to be identical to the name of class. 

1.5 View Opened Project (solution) using Solution Explorer 

After you open an existing project (solution) you can view the contents of the project by 

click View Menu and Solution Explorer (Ctrl_Alt-L), shown in Figure 17. The Solution 

Explorer gives display the contents of the current project (solution) opened, shown in 

Figure 18. It allows user to delete loaded C# file within the project and display the 

updated new C# file. 

Figure 17. Access the Solution Explorer.


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Figure 18. Solution Explorer. 

For example, you can add new C# code by selecting Add New Item… 

(Ctrl+Shift+A)(shown in Figure 19), which gives a new window (Figure 20). 

Figure 19. Add New Item Submenu.


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Figure 20. Add New Item Window which has many options of item types. 

Let's select TextFile and save the file name as FirstHello.cs, which will be saved and 

added into the current project, shown in Solution Explorer Window. 

Alternatively, you can use File Menu and New to create a new C# file, shown in Figure 

21. It gives a new window. 

Figure 21. Create a new C# file under File Menu and then New Submenu.


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Figure 22. New File window. 

Click Open Button, it give you a subwindow within the MVS.NET, shown in Figure 22. 

This allows user to type and edit a new C# file and then save it with extension name .cs, 

shown in Figure 23 and Figure 24. It should be noted that the file is not necessarily saved 

into the project folder. It can be saved into any directory and late add to the project as we 

will discuss.


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Figure 23. new edit window allows user to type C# code and save it as a new C# file. 

Figure 24. Save new C# file using Save As.. Submenu.


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Figure 24. Locate the directory and save the new file as C# file. 

1.6 Update C# File Within the Current Opened Project. 

Once you have existing C# file, you can update or replace the current one within the 

project. First, you need to delete one you want to be replaced. Say, useHello.cs. You can 

highlight it and press Delete key or use menu function to delete the file as shown in 

Figure 25.


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Figure 25, Delete file in the project. 

It gives you a chance to confirm,, shown in Figure 26. 

Figure 26. Confirmation of Delete C# file from the opend project. 

Now you can add the existing C# file to the currently opened project by monitoring 

through the Solution Explorer. You can click Project Menu and then Add Existing 

Item.. Submenu, shown in Figure 27. The option gives a new window to find the existing 

C# file, shown in Figure 28. 

Figure 27. Add Existing Item… Submenu.


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Figure 28. Load existing C# file into the opened project. 

Now the Solution Explorer contains the newly added C3 file called UseHello2.cs, shown 

in Figure 29. 

Figure 29. Solution Explorer displays the newly added C# file. 

It is time to compile and run the project.


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1.7 Close Project 

After you accomplish your task, you need to save all and close the solution or project. 

Figure 30. Close Solution or just Close.

How to Begin C# Programming with Microsoft Visual Studio.NET

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