Introduction to the Project Designer

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A project's properties specify how a project is built and debugged, and which libraries it references, how and where it is published, and any security settings to use. Use the Project Designer to set the project's properties. To access an individual file's properties, use the Properties window.

The Project Designer provides a centralized location for managing project properties, settings, and resources. The Project Designer appears as a single window in the Visual Studio IDE, much the same as other designers, such as the Form or Class designers. It contains several pages that are accessed through tabs on the left-hand side.

Information entered into the Project Designer persists when you switch from one page to another, when you build the project, or when you close the designer. An Undo command is available on the Edit menu to roll back changes.

Using the Project Designer

To access the Project Designer and set project properties

  1. In Solution Explorer, select a project. You cannot access the Project Designer for a project that does not exist.

  2. On the Project menu, click projectname Properties.

  3. Select the property page to change or view by clicking its tab, or use CTRL+PAGE DOWN and CTRL+PAGE UP to move between the different pages.

  4. Set the properties.

The Project Designer has no OK or Cancel button. All property changes take immediate effect in the active project. However, the settings are committed to the project file only when you select one of the save options, or when you close the designer.

If a control is dimmed, it does not apply to the type of project that is active, or cannot be used in the project's current configuration.

If you have a multiple-project solution, you can use more than one instance of the Project Designer at a time.

Note

Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.

Pages in the Project Designer

The pages and options available in the Project Designer vary by project type and by language. The available pages are listed in the following table.

Page

Description

Application page

Contains settings that describe the application and its behavior, such as application type, startup object, and assembly information. For more information, see the following topics:

Build page

Contains build instructions, including the configuration to build, conditional symbols, warning levels, and output information. Applies to Visual C# projects only. For more information, see the following topics:

Build Events page

Contains command-line instructions that the compiler performs before the build and after the build. You can also specify the conditions under which the post-build events are run. Applies to Visual C# projects only. For more information, see the following topics:

Compile page

Contains settings that control how an application is compiled. Applies to Visual Basic projects only. For more information, see the following topics:

Debug page

Contains settings that control how an application is debugged. For more information, see the following topics:

References page

Contains a list of components referenced by your project. This includes assemblies, COM components, project-to-project, and Web references. For more information, see the following topics:

Reference Paths page

Lists the directories to search for assemblies referenced by the project when the project is loaded. This setting is specific to the project, computer, and user. For more information, see the following topics:

Resources page

Allows you to manage resources for an application. This includes strings, images, icons, and other resources. For more information, see the following topics:

Services page

Allows you to enable and configure client application services. These services enable Windows-based applications to access Microsoft Ajax application services. For more information, see the following topics:

Settings page

Allows you to manage application settings such as dynamic properties and user preferences. For more information, see the following topics:

Signing page

Contains settings related to signing an assembly, such as key file name or key provider information. For more information, see the following topics:

Security page

Contains settings for security permissions; applies only to applications deployed by ClickOnce publishing. For more information, see the following topics:

Publish page

Contains settings for deploying your application by using ClickOnce technology. For more information, see the following topics:

Code Analysis page

Contains the code analysis tool that you can run on your code. The tool reports information about your assemblies, such as violations of the programming and design rules set forth in the Microsoft .NET Framework Design Guidelines. For more information, see the following topics:

See Also

Tasks

How to: Specify Build Events (C#)

How to: Set the Reference Path (C#)

Reference

Debug and Release Project Configurations

Concepts

Securing ClickOnce Applications

Publishing ClickOnce Applications

Code Analysis for Managed Code Overview

Projects, User Interface Elements

Other Resources

Managing Project Properties with the Project Designer

Managing Application Properties

Managing Compilation Properties

Managing Debugging Properties

Managing References

Managing Application Resources

Client Application Services

Managing Application Settings

Managing Assembly and Manifest Signing

Change History

Date

History

Reason

March 2011

Added information about accessing the Project Designer.

Customer feedback.