Visual Studio

INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL STUDIO

What is Visual Studio?

Visual Studio is the compiler for building powerful software, designing and developing websites. As the name implies “Visual Studio”, it comprises of different programming languages such as visual C++, Visual C#, Visual Basic, Visual F#, etc.

Since Visual Studio is a software, which means it has to be installed on your personal computer (PC). When opening Visual Studio for the first time after you might have installed it to your PC, there will be a form asking you to choose the programming language you will be using often. Select Visual C-sharp (C#) because it is the programming we are going to concentrate on in this platform.

Components of Visual Studio

Visual Studio is made up of three (3) components, they are;

·         Console Applications;

·         Window-Base Applications; and

·         Web-Base Applications

CONSOLE APPLICATIONS

The console application of Visual C-sharp(C#) is of command prompt (displays in the form of black board), just like FORTRAN and other procedural languages. When you run an application in console application of visual C-sharp, the result shows in blackboard. But it is a pity that most modern complex applications do not use this means.
This is the interface where console application result is displayed.
 Definition:

A console application is a computer program designed to be used via a text-only computer interface, such as a text terminal, the command line interface of some operating systems (Unix, DOS, etc.) or the text-based interface included with most Graphical User Interface (GUI) operating systems, such as the Win32 console in Microsoft Windows, the Terminal in Mac OS X, and xterm in Unix. A user typically interacts with a console application using only a keyboard and display screen, as opposed to GUI applications, which normally require the use of a mouse or other pointing device. Many console applications such as command line interpreters are command line tools, but numerous text-based user interface (TUI) programs also exist.

As the speed and ease-of-use of GUIs applications have improved over time, the use of console applications has greatly diminished, but not disappeared. Some users simply prefer console based applications, while some organizations still rely on existing console applications to handle key data processing tasks.

The generation of console applications is kept as a feature of modern programming environments such as Visual Studio and the .NET Framework on Microsoft Windows because it greatly simplifies the learning process of a new programming language by removing the complexity of a graphical user interface.

For data processing tasks and computer administration, these programming environments represent the next level of operating system or data processing control after scripting. If an application is only going to be run by the original programmer and/or a few colleagues, there may be no need for a pretty graphical user interface, leaving the application leaner, faster and easier to maintain. Click here to read more

WINDOW-BASE APPLICATIONS

The window-base application of visual C-sharp (C#) uses the modern form of application to display to the user. Windows Forms provides a cross-platform way to design graphical user interfaces. However Windows Forms is mainly a wrapper around the Windows API, and some of the methods allow direct access to Win32 callbacks, which are not available in non-Windows platforms. The softwares you installed on your personal computer (PC) are developed using window-base application of visual c-sharp (C#).

Today, users demand software with rich graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that allow them to click buttons, select items from menus and much more. However, the vast majority of software programs used in industry are Windows applications with GUIs.

Windows Forms (WinForms) is the name given to the graphical application programming interface (API) included as a part of Microsoft .NET Framework, providing access to native Microsoft Windows interface elements by wrapping the extant Windows API in managed code. While it is seen as a replacement for the earlier and more complex C++ based Microsoft Foundation Class Library, it does not offer a paradigm comparable to Model–View–Controller. Some after-market and third party libraries have been created to provide this functionality

The environment of window application.

WEB-BASE APPLICATION

The web-base application of visual c-sharp (C#) uses your computer browser to display to the users. It is used to create webpages for websites. After developing any website, it will have to be hosted for everyone to make use of it. The web base application of visual studio make use of ASP.NET for development. We will look more into this later. Like I said before, the web base application of visual studio makes use your system browser. meaning if the browser in your system is not functioning you work with this.







This is how your application will look in a browser.