1. Introduction
2. Creating a Workspace
3. Exploring the Workspace
4. Entering and Running a Program
5. The Runtime Window (program console)
6. Saving Your Work to Floppy Disk and Deleting Your Project from the Computer
7. Returning to Work on a Previously Created Project
8. Creating a Second Project
9. Notes on Managing the Source Code Editing Window

Starting Developer Studio
From the Windows 95 Start menu, search for the item Microsoft Developer Studio:
This will bring up an interface such as is shown below in Figure A.

Creating a Workspace

To use the developer studio, you need to create a workspace. In this workspace, you will have a project and all the source code files (*.cpp and *.h files) for your program will be associated with this project.

• Click the "File" option in the upper left hand corner of the developer studio window. Select "New" from the popup menu. This will bring up the window shown in Figure B. Note that the "Projects" tab is selected indicating that the developer studio is expecting that you will be creating a new project (since you do not have one currently open). At other times (such as when adding a new source code file to a project) the other tabs will be selected.
• Select Win32 Console Application (Figure B). If you accidentally select the wrong project type, you will have to delete the project and start over with a new project.
• In the "Project name:" field, enter the name that you want to give to your project. This name is important because it is how you will later identify the files that make up your project. For this example, the project has been named "demo project".
• In the "Location:" field, indicate the folder in which you wish to have the project created. For this example, the project will be created as a subfolder of the folder "C:\tommy tiger". You can also use the browse button (indicated by "..." to the right of the "Location:" field) to look for your personal base directory. It is always a good idea to place your projects in a folder with a personal name so that you can easily locate your project later.
• Then press "OK" to complete the creation of your new workspace and project.

Exploring the Workspace

The workspace window consists of a divided screen with workspace information on the left-hand panel , a blank source file panel on the right, and an output panel on the bottom (Figure A). The source panel will hold the C++ program, and the output panel will hold error messages. Change to FileView in the Workspace panel (by clicking the "FileView" tab circled in Figure A). You can then expand the file listing (by clicking on the '+'s) to view all files associated with your project.

Creating and Inserting a Source File in the Project

• Click on File at the upper left corner of the window and select "New". This time, the New window will come up with the "Files" tab selected (see Figure C).
• Select C++ Source File.
• The name of your project will already appear in the Project box along with a check next to in the Add to project label. The name of your project folder will already appear in the Location box. You must enter the name of the C++ source file. In the example, the name "demo_code.cpp" is used.
• Click OK. The file demo_code.cpp is automatically added to the project. (As indicated in Figure D, below).
• The same process can also be used to create header files (*.h files) and text files for program input data.

Figure C

Entering and Running a Program

After creating the source file demo.cpp, the workspace has an empty window in the source file panel. Type your program code into the empty window (see Figure D).

To compile and run the program (Figure D).

• Save the source file using the "Save" icon on the tool bar (see Figure A).
• Build the project using the "Build" icon on the toolbar (see Figure A). This will cause the developer studio to attempt to compile and link all the source code files associated with the project. The results of the attempted compile and link will appear in the output window (see Figure D).
• If the program contains no syntax errors, you will see a message in the output window such as is shown in Figure D (0 errors and 0 warning) indicating your program has compiled and linked.
• If there are syntax errors, you will need use the editor to debug and correct your program. Use the scroll bar on the output window to back up and look at the error messages generated by the compiler. If you double click on an error message, an indicator will appear in your source code showing where the compiler detected the error.
• If there are no errors, run the program by clicking the "Execute" icon (exclamation point) on the tool bar.

Figure D

The Runtime Window (program console)

The runtime environment will create a window that can accept input from the user and display output (this is the program console, corresponding to cin and cout in the C++ program). For the example program, the console will look as shown in Figure E. If your program requires keyboard input, type it in as needed. When the program completes, the line "Press any key to continue" will appear in the console window. This message indicates that the program console will wait at the end of the program until you close the console by typing any key on the keyboard.

If you need to get a copy of the programs input and output (say to turn in with a homework assignment) do the following:

• Click the "Mark" icon in the runtime window and select the text that you which to copy dragging the mouse with the left mouse button pressed from the upper left hand corner of the console.
• Click the "Copy" icon to copy the marked text to the Windows copy/paste buffer.
• Close the runtime window by hitting the Enter key.
• You can now paste the copied text into any text editor.

Saving Your Work to Floppy Disk and Deleting Your Project from the Computer

When you are done working, you will want to save your work by copying it to a removable disk. You should also delete your project from the computer's hard drive to prevent others from accessing your work once you leave the computer. Exit from the Developer Studio by clicking the X in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Us the Window interface to open your project file (following the names you used when you first create the project.

Assuming that you will be using a 3 1/4 inch floppy disk, the files left in your project folder will likely be to large to fit on your disk. Fortunately, most of these files are not needed, as they will be automatically recreated the next time you build your project. Figure F shows the files left in Tommy Tiger's project folder after the above example. The files that need to be kept are:

any source code (*.cpp and *.h files), since these hold all the programmer's hard work, and

the files that describe the workspace and project (*.dsw and *.dsp files).

Now you can copy your project folder to your removable disk. Once that is done, delete the entire folder from the hard drive.

Returning to Work on a Previously Created Project

When you ant to return to work on a project that has already been created copy the folder that you have saved on your removable disk to the hard drive of the machine you will be working on. There are two ways to start working:

• Locate the project folder from the Windows interface. Double-click on the workspace file (*.dsw). This will launch the developer studio and instruct it to load your project and workspace.
• Start the developer studio from the Windows start menu. Chose "Open Workspace" from the "File" menu. This will bring up the window shown in Figure G. Locate your project directory, click on the workspace file (*.dsw) and the select open.

Figure G

Creating a Second Project

When you begin to work on multiple projects, you have a couple of options. You can reuse the same project and work space for all project by changing the source code files associated with the project, or you can create new projects for each job. At this point you will need to begin experimenting with the developer studio to learn various ways to manage your projects.

It is important to distinguish between a workspace/project and the Windows folder in which it is kept. It is possible to have multiple projects existing in the same folder, and it is possible to have source code files in a folder that are not part of the current project. The Windows folder simply indicates which files are physically located in that folder. The files actually associated with a project can be determined from the file view in the workspace window (as was indicated in Figure A). The files listed in the file view are the files that will be compiled and linked to attempt to create an executable program.

Here are some things you will need to learn to do to manage your projects:

• Adding a new source file to a project: Simply repeat the steps given above to create an initial source code file (Figure C).
• Removing a source file from a project: click on the file to be removed in the file view of the workspace window. Hit the delete key (Del) on the keyboard. The file will be removed from the list of project files. Note that this does not delete the file from you project folder! To do this you must go through the Windows interface.
• Adding a preexisting source code file from somewhere else: (For example, you may be reusing a class from a previous project, or adding in code supplied by someone else such as the instructor). Using the Windows interface, copy the new source code file into your project directory. Select "Project/Add to Project/Files" from the menu bar at the top of the developer studio window. This will bring up the window shown in Figure H. Select the new file you want to add and select "OK".

Figure H

Using these three functions, you will find that you have a lot of flexibility in determining how to manage your projects. Experiment with some toy projects to get the feel for how to do this.

Notes on Managing the Source Code Editing Window

The default layout of the developer studio window does not leave much room for editing your source code. There are a number of things you can do to improve this.

First of all, you can have multiple files open in the editing window simultaneously. To do this click on the multiple files button as shown in Figure I. This will give up a view such as is shown in Figure J.

You can return to the single file view by selecting the button shown in Figure J.

To get more space for editing, you can hide the workspace and output windows. Do this by hitting the icons shown in Figure J. This will give you a view as is shown in Figure K.

This will allow you plenty of room to do your editing. When you try to compile and run your program, or if you need to add or delete files from the project, use the show workspace and output windows as shown in Figure K.