Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a series of Microsoft products designed to ease the development of ASP.NET. I first worked with Visual Studio 2005. Find out about the current version at Microsift Visual Studio.

The current version of Microsoft Visual Studio can be downloaded immediately for free a free trial. The download includes its own web server and can include SQL Server. I participated in the Beta of Visual Studio 2005 and attended a free siminar.

Tips for Using Visual Web Developer 2005 Express

1. There's an excellent beginner tutorial at Guided Tour.
2. If Firefox is your default browser, displaying the current file in your browser with Visual Web Developer (VWD) defaults will ask for a user id and password. To fix this, right click the website in the Solution Explorer (upper right), select Property Pages and uncheck NTLM Authentication. This must be done for each website defined in VWD. (Tested with VWD beta version.)
3. If you have debugging on (recommended) then the Design View is locked after displaying the file in your browser, even when the browser window is closed. Stop the debugger by clicking Debug in the top menu, then Stop Debugging. (Tested with Firefox as browser, VWD beta version.)
4. Remember to save each file created in the Solution Explorer to make it available to your web pages.
5. In the Property window, double clicking the value of a Property selects the value string - great for replacing it.
6. Web Parts Design mode does not work in FireFox (requires Internet Explorer).
7. If you start getting 404 errors when your source file does exist, delete app_offline.htm from your project folder and the problem should be resolved.