Game Creation with XNA/Programming/Visual Studio

Visual Studio, created and providing by Microsoft, is an IDE for developers who want to evolve different applications based on Windows and the .NET platforms. It supports developers/programmer with a widespread accumulation of development programs for generating different kinds of applications e.g. Windows applications, ASP.NET applications or Web services. Professional programmers as well as free coders like to use Visual Studio for developing because the IDE supports many different programming languages: Visual Basic, C, C++, C++/CLI, C# and F#.

We are going to use Visual Studio throughout our exercise course, to create a small 3D game. To develop those games we apply Visual Studio including the XNA framework.

An instruction on how to install Visual Studio including XNA is covered on Setup.

Features
Visual Studio supports the developer with helpful features which are useful in every development step.

The Code Editor
Visual Studio allocates a useful code editor which supports the user during writing the source code by highlighting the syntax and suggesting code complements. The code editor tries to complete methods and functions. It is also useful when the developer wants to have quick access to his defined variables e.g. by entering the first letter, the code editor proposes all variables beginning with it.

Designers
Visual Studio offers different visual designer which help the coder during developing their applications:


 * Web designer/development
 * Visual Studio offers another editor for creating and designing web pages. The Web designer supports the user during the development of an ASP.NET application.


 * Windows Forms Designer
 * This designer can be used to add control devices to a form and code the specific functions behind it.


 * WPF Designer
 * The WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) Designer also behaves like the Forms Designer but is used to build WPF control devices and applications.


 * Class designer
 * The Class designer is a tool that makes it possible to model a class diagram of the developed application. The Class Designer models the connection and structure of it. It is not only used for classes but also for structures, delegates and interfaces.


 * Mapping designer
 * This designer maps the classes and the database schemas that seal the data.

Debugging
Visual Studio comes along with its own debugger. The debugger supports by securing that the application operates in a logical way and as you want it to operate. It makes it possible to stop on different code positions to check the building.

Expandability
The developer using Visual Studio has the chance to expand the functions of the standard Visual Studio.

Browser and Explorer

 * Object Browser
 * The Object Browser makes it possible to appraise the available symbols for use in Visual Studio. The Browser uses three panes: the Objects pane, the Members Pane and the Description pane.


 * Open Tabs Browser
 * The Open Tabs Browser displays also open tabs and switches between them.


 * Properties Editor
 * Used to see all available properties for all objects and other items. Furthermore it is used to edit them.


 * Solution Explorer
 * The Solution Explorer is used for the arrangement of item management tasks in a project/solution. It is possible to handle with items outside a project.


 * Data Explorer
 * The Data Explorer is used to administrate databases. The administration provides the creation and creation and modification of database tables.


 * Team Explorer
 * The Team Explorer accesses the Team Foundation Server and the revision control.


 * Server Explorer
 * The Server Explorer establish the connection to the server. It offers the task to edit the resources.


 * Text Generation Framework
 * The Text Generation Framework, also called t4, is a code generator which uses textfiles from templates.

Windows versions on which it runs⁴
¹ - Windows Phone 7 applications cannot be developed in Windows XP.

² - Windows 8 required to create and develop Windows Store apps.

³ - Even through Visual Studio 2012 and higher will not run on Windows Vista, the latest version of NET Framework works on Windows Vista however. This means that even through you cannot develop programs using Visual Studio 2012 in Windows Vista, you can run them on Windows Vista using the default configuration. However, to do this in Windows XP, the application must be specifically targeted to run that version.

⁴ - For server based versions of Windows, use the corresponding client Windows version for reference.

Supported default languages/tools(available by default)⁵
⁵ - Languages beginning from Visual Studio NET 2002 use the NET Framework as their language base.

⁶ - It is the NET Framework version of Visual J++. It can only target the NET Framework, not the Java Virtual Machines which others target.

⁷ - From this version, it follows its own development cycle.

⁸ - Full support was available only with Visual Studio 2005, including a full emulator.

⁹ - Windows Store apps can be developed only in Windows 8 and higher.

Authors

 * Cobra_w