4. Visual Studio 2012 and Windows Store Application Types

In application development, the integrated development environment (IDE) can make the difference between feeling like you can work easily and focus on the problem your application is supposed to solve and feeling like you are so distracted trying to figure out how to maneuver within the IDE that you cannot focus on the real task of producing software. With the last several versions of Visual Studio, Microsoft has increasingly built upon a reputation of having one of the best development IDEs available. Even many developers who don’t care to develop for the Microsoft platform will say (if grudgingly) that one is hard-pressed to find a better development environment. In this chapter, you will learn about Visual Studio 2012, which is the latest release in this lineup. As complete coverage of the tools and features would require a book of its own, I will cover in this chapter the topics that I consider to be most important to finding your way around the environment well enough to complete the exercises in this book. In addition to learning about Visual Studio in general, you will also learn about the project templates that are used for Windows Store application development.