Application Page, Project Designer (Visual Basic)

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Use the Application page of the Project Designer to specify a project's application settings and properties.

To access the Application page, choose a project node (not the Solution node) in Solution Explorer. Then choose Project > Properties on the menu bar. When the Project Designer appears, select the Application tab.

Note

Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in this article. You may be using a different edition of Visual Studio or different environment settings. For more information, see Personalize the IDE.

General application settings

The following options enable you to configure general settings for an application.

Assembly name

Specifies the name of the output file that will contain the assembly manifest. If you change this property, the Output Name property also changes.

You can also specify the name of the output file from a command prompt by using the /out (Visual Basic) compiler switch.

For information about how to access this property programmatically, see AssemblyName.

Root namespace

Specifies the base namespace for all files in the project. For example, if you set the Root Namespace to Project1 and you have a Class1 outside of any namespace in your code, its namespace would be Project1.Class1. If you have a Class2 in a namespace Order in code, its namespace would be Project1.Order.Class2.

If you clear the Root Namespace, you can specify the namespace structure of your project in code.

Note

If you use the Global keyword in a Namespace Statement, you can define a namespace out of the root namespace of your project. If you clear the Root Namespace, Global becomes the top-level namespace, which removes the need for the Global keyword in a Namespace statement. For more information, see "Global Keyword in Namespace Statements" in Namespaces in Visual Basic.

For information about how to create namespaces in your code, see Namespace Statement.

For more information about the root namespace property, see /rootnamespace.

For information about how to access this property programmatically, see RootNamespace.

Target framework (all configurations)

Specifies the version of .NET that the application targets. This option can have different values depending on which versions of .NET are installed on your computer.

For .NET Framework projects, the default value matches the target framework that you specified when you created the project.

Note

The prerequisite packages that are listed in the Prerequisites Dialog Box are set automatically when you open the dialog box for the first time. If you subsequently change the project's target framework, you must specify the prerequisites manually to match the new target framework.

For more information, see Framework targeting overview.

Application type

Specifies the type of application to build. The values are different depending on the project type. For example, for a Windows Forms App project, you can specify Windows Forms Application, Class Library, Console Application, Windows Service, or Web Control Library.

For a web application project, you must specify Class Library.

For more information about the Application type property, see /target (Visual Basic). For information about how to access that property programmatically, see OutputType.

Auto-generate binding redirects

Binding redirects are added to your project if your app or its components reference more than one version of the same assembly. If you want to manually define binding redirects in the project file, deselect Auto-generate binding redirects.

For more information about redirection, see Redirecting assembly versions.

Startup form / Startup object / Startup URI

Specifies the application's startup form or entry point.

If Enable application framework is selected (the default), this list is titled Startup form and shows only forms because the application framework supports only startup forms, not objects.

If the project is a WPF Browser Application, this list is titled Startup URI, and the default is Page1.xaml. The Startup URI list enables you to specify the user interface resource (a XAML element) that the application displays when the application starts. For more information, see StartupUri.

If Enable application framework is cleared, this list becomes Startup object and shows both forms and classes or modules with a Sub Main.

Startup object defines the entry point to be called when the application loads. Generally this is set to either the main form in your application or to the Sub Main procedure that should run when the application starts. Because class libraries do not have an entry point, their only option for this property is (None). For more information, see /main. To access this property programmatically, see StartupObject.

Icon

Sets the .ico file that you want to use as your program icon. Select <Browse...> to browse for an existing graphic. See /win32icon (or /win32icon (C# Compiler Options)) for more information. To access this property programmatically, see ApplicationIcon.

Assembly Information

Click this button to display the Assembly Information Dialog Box.

Enable application framework

Specifies whether a project will use the application framework. The setting of this option affects the options available in Startup form/Startup object.

If this check box is selected, your application uses the standard Sub Main. Selecting this check box enables the features in the Windows application framework properties section, and also requires you to select a startup form.

If this check box is cleared, your application uses the custom Sub Main that you specified in Startup form. In this case you can specify either a startup object (a custom Sub Main in a method or a class) or a form. Also, the options in the Windows application framework properties section become unavailable.

View Windows Settings

Click this button to generate and open the app.manifest file. Visual Studio uses this file to generate manifest data for the application. Then set the UAC requested execution level by modifying the <requestedExecutionLevel> tag in app.manifest as follows:

<requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" />

ClickOnce works with a level of asInvoker or in virtualized mode (no manifest generation). To specify virtualized mode, remove the entire tag from app.manifest.

For more information about manifest generation, see ClickOnce Deployment on Windows Vista.

Windows application framework properties

The following settings are available in the Windows application framework properties section. These options are available only if the Enable application framework check box is selected.

Tip

The section following this one describes Windows application framework properties settings specific to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) apps.

Enable XP visual styles

Enables or disables the Windows XP visual styles, also known as Windows XP Themes. Windows XP visual styles enable, for example, controls with rounded corners and dynamic colors. The default is enabled.

Make single instance application

Select this check box to prevent users from running multiple instances of the application. The default setting for this check box is cleared, which allows multiple instances of the application to be run. For more information, see the StartupNextInstance event.

Save My.Settings on Shutdown

Select this check box to specify that the application's My.Settings settings are saved when users shut down their computers. The default setting is enabled. If this option is disabled, you can save application settings manually by calling My.Settings.Save.

Authentication mode

Select Windows (the default) to specify the use of Windows authentication to identify the currently logged-on user. You can retrieve this information at run time by using the My.User object. Select Application-defined if you will provide your own code to authenticate users instead of using the default Windows authentication methods.

Shutdown mode

Select When startup form closes (the default) to specify that the application exit when the form set as the startup form closes, even if other forms are open. Select When last form closes to specify that the application exit when the last form is closed or when My.Application.Exit or the End statement is called explicitly.

Select On explicit shutdown to specify that the application exit when you explicitly call Shutdown.

Select On last window close to specify that the application exit when the last window closes or when you explicitly call Shutdown. This is the default setting.

Select On main window close to specify that the application exit when the main window closes or when you explicitly call Shutdown.

Splash screen

Select the form that you want to use as a splash screen. You must have previously created a splash screen by using a form or a template. The default is (None).

View Application Events

Click this button to display an events code file in which you can write events for the application framework events Startup, Shutdown, UnhandledException, StartupNextInstance and NetworkAvailabilityChanged. You can also override certain application framework methods. For example, you can change the display behavior of the splash screen by overriding OnInitialize.

Windows application framework properties for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) apps

The following settings are available in the Windows application framework properties section when the project is a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) app. These options are available only if the Enable application framework check box is selected. The options listed in this table are available only for WPF or WPF browser applications. They are not available for WPF User Control or Custom Control libraries.

Shutdown mode

This property is applicable only to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications.

Select On explicit shutdown to specify that the application exit when you explicitly call Shutdown.

Select On last window close to specify that the application exit when the last window closes or when you explicitly call Shutdown. This is the default setting.

Select On main window close to specify that the application exit when the main window closes or when you explicitly call Shutdown.

For more information about using this setting, see Shutdown

Edit XAML

This button opens the application definition file (Application.xaml) in the XAML editor. When you click this button, Application.xaml opens at the application definition node. You might have to edit this file to perform certain tasks, such as defining resources. If the application definition file does not exist, the Project Designer creates one.

View Application Events

This button opens the Application class file (Application.xaml.vb) in a code editor. If the file does not exist, the Project Designer creates one with the appropriate class name and namespace.

The Application object raises events when certain application state changes occur (for example, on application startup or shutdown). For a full list of the events that this class exposes, see Application. These events are handled in the user code section of the Application partial class.