CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.netvisual-studio
nam
nam

Reputation: 23868

Understanding project types in a Visual Studio web application

I'm trying to make some changes to an old ASP.NET Web Application project developed by someone a couple years ago in VS2015. The project seems to comprise of many subprojects. In the following image, the icon of each subproject seems to indicate a specific type of the project. Could someone please explain each of these types by looking at the icon?

enter image description here

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2923

Answers (2)

haku
haku

Reputation: 4505

Since you have the solution, you could right click on the project, then on the application (first option), see whats under output type: That should give you more info.

One with c# icon is either class library or win form or wpf (check output in prop) one with flask icon is some kind of unit test project one with circle/world is a asp.net web app (.net framework)

By the way, if you have other project icons, you could open add new project window in visual studio (by right clicking on the solution, then add, then new project OR from the menu File.New.Project) and go through the list and compare. It may not be efficient, but there aren't many project types anyway.

Upvotes: 0

Alejandro
Alejandro

Reputation: 7819

Visual Studio displays different icons for some "special" project types, which obtained from its internal GUID in the project file, and assigned when created from the proper templates. In the screenshot, they mean:

  • A window with a globe: Web application. A project that serves a dynamic ASP.NET web page.
  • A window with an Erlenmeyer flask: Test project. A project that contains unit tests authored with the MsTest framework.
  • A box with the C# legend: Everything else. It can be a class library, a normal windows or console program, or any other project that Visual Studio doesn't recognizes, but always writen in the C# language.
  • A window with the Visual Studio logo: The loaded solution containing all other projects.

However, don't put too much faith in those icons being representative of anything meaningful. They appear when you use the suggested procedures in Visual Studio to create them, but if you deviate enough from the tutorials, they'll all end up showing generic icons. Therefore use descriptive names for them.

Upvotes: 2

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