C# Adventure 02: Output

In this chapter we'll walk through how to create a new project, and then output (write out) text to the console window. At the end of this section you'll replace the example text with your own.

New Project

Launch Visual Studio. Like many applications, Visual Studio has several ways to perform common operations (such as starting a new project). Which you choose is your preference.

• Select the option from the Start Page (see screenshot on the left)
• OR choose the File drop down menu (top left of the application) and select File > New > Project...
• OR use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-N

New Project Dialog Box

The New Project dialog box has options for the project, such as where files will be saved, and the project name. There are three places for you to make changes for your Adventure Game (highlighted in the screenshot below):

1. Language: On the left side of the dialog box choose Visual C#. As you can see from the list, Visual Studio supports development with other languages besides C#. It is important to choose the correct language for template and project setup.
2. Template: In the middle pane choose Console Application. Visual Studio will create a project skeleton for a command-line application.
3. Project name: Name your project something like 'Adventure' or 'AdventureGame'. Keep your project name as one word - no spaces.

Before you click OK look at the location address underneath the project name. This is where Visual Studio will be saving files for our project. (In later chapters we'll need to navigate to this folder so it is a good idea for you to know where Visual Studio is saving your files at.)

Click OK to close the dialog box.

Visual Studio Generated Code

Visual Studio should open up your new project with a code file displayed. On the tab is the file’s name: 'Program.cs'; the default name for the first file in a C# application. The extension .cs indicates it is a C# code file. (If your file has a different extension you might have chosen a language other than C#.)

Window Layout

The way your code and other panes are shown in Visual Studio can be customized.

Your layout probably has a large pane to show code files that takes up most of the layout, an Output pane on the bottom, and the Solution Explorer and Properties on the right. If you modify your layout you can save it as a preset.

If you want to reset the layout to the default you can access it via the Window menu. Window > Reset Window Layout.

Solution Explorer

The Solution Explorer shows files that are part of your project. Not all of your code has to be in one file, and there are several other files that Visual Studio has created to support your project.

If the Solution Explorer is not visible you can open it by using the shortcut Ctrl-Alt-L or by using the View menu (View > Solution Explorer).

If you accidentally close your Program.cs file, or if you reopen your project in the future and your code isn't showing, right click on the file's title in the Solution Explorer and you will see an option to show the code.

Like other large applications, there is a lot of depth to Visual Studio. This series will cover the basics of the IDE needed to build our Adventure Game, but if you want to learn more about it there are plenty of resources available. Click the toggle box below to show resource suggestions.

Generated Code

Inside your Program.cs file you can see code that Visual Studio has generated. It should look similar to this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Adventure
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        }
       
    }
}

We'll start with adding some lines of code and testing our application to see it run, then in the next chapter we'll walk through the code to learn what it does.

namespace Adventure

Quick Quiz

Before we continue, let's check what you remember. These questions should be easy for you!

Output: Game Title

To show text for the player to read in the Console Window, we need to add some code. Inside of the Main function add the two lines of code below.

Console.WriteLine("Adventure Game!");
Console.ReadKey();

Until you are comfortable with programming, it is better if you type out the lines of code yourself instead of using copy and paste edit options.

Some keyboard shortcuts and IntelliSense drop down menus will write common code elements for you, but typing will help you memorize keywords, and you will have a better sense of the syntax.

IntelliSense menus

When typing code in Visual Studio a drop down menu appears with suggestions based on what you are writing.

You can use arrow keys to move between the options, or the scroll bar on the drop down. Hovering your cursor over one of the items will display information about it. Double-clicking an option, or selecting one and pressing enter, will insert it into your code.

The Intellisense menu is helpful to see what the options are for an element and can speed up development.

Your code should now look something like this:

It is important to make sure that your code is inside the correct set of curly braces (the squiggly brackets { }).

The text inside the quote marks that says Adventure Game! can be your own unique title.

Nested Elements

The curly braces signal the beginning and ending of code blocks. A nested code block is one that opens and closes within another code block.

In the screenshot below, the nested blocks are highlighted. There are three.

• Adventure contains Program.
• Program contains Main.
• Main contains two statements.

Improper Nesting

"Improperly nested" means that an element is not enclosed within curly braces correctly. For example, if an element opened with a left curly brace but did not have a closing counterpart.

This is an easy error for an IDE to detect and alert you about, but sometimes it is difficult to figure out where the problem is. Your IDE might point to a problem at the end of the file, but the missing brace could be much earlier in the code. There are several techniques you can use to help figure out where the problem is.

First, if your IDE has collapsible areas, you can close them and visually see where the IDE thinks your blocks start and end.

Look at the next two Visual Studio screenshots. You can see that on line 11 there is a box with a minus sign. Clicking on that collapses the code block and hides the nested elements.

Above, none of the code blocks are collapsed. Below, the code block that starts on line 11 has been collapsed, and the elements nested inside have been hidden.

Improper Nesting Example

Can you find the error in the code below?

namespace Adventure
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        Console.WriteLine("Adventure Game!");
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

If your IDE doesn’t have collapsable code blocks, or you are using a text editor, you can visually match up the opening curly brace to its closing counterpart. If you follow the C# coding convention to have curly braces on their own line , it might be easier to see where one is missing. Once you know what to look for, a missing brace is usually not that hard to find.

Some text editors automatically draw dotted lines between braces in your code (such as Sublime Text), which makes finding a missing brace easier.

Have you spotted the error, and thought of a way to fix it?

On the line following "static void Main(string[] args)", there is a curly brace that opens a code block, but it doesn’t have a closing counterpart. To fix this error, we would add a brace to the line after “Console.ReadKey();”. See the screenshot below for an example of how the code should look.

Testing the Code

Once you have the code in place, test your program. Press the start button or use the F5 key on your keyboard.

If there are no errors, you should see a console window pop up that looks something like this:

If you have an error, expand the toggle box "Troubleshooting Errors" (below).

Once you see that your application is running, close the console window. There are a couple ways to close it. You can click the red square (where the Start button was).

You can also click the x in the upper right corner of the window.

If you try to add more code to your project when the console window is open, you'll see a reminder that you need to close your application before you can edit it further.

Hopefully everything worked and there were no errors!

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Adventure
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        Console.WriteLine("Adventure Game!");
        Console.Read();
        }
       
    }
}

Project Files

There are several ways to open a project using Visual Studio. With some of the options, however, it is important to know which file to select. Visual Studio generates a lot of files for you, but not all of them will open a project in a way that will allow you to edit it.

Recent Projects

You can launch from "Recent"; after you've made at least one project, Visual Studio's Start Page will have a Recent section with links to projects. Straightforward and easy, this is a good choice.

File Menu Options

There are also two options in the File drop down menu. The first is Open > Project/Solution (CTRL-SHIFT-O).

When you open a project with this option, choose the Solution file. It has a file extension of .sln.

The File menu also has a choice called "Recent Projects and Solutions".

Remember the .sln file is the one to select.

Project File Types

If you've looked into your project directory, you've probably noticed that Visual Studio has created a lot of folders and files for you.

There are three different types of files you should know about. The first is your .sln file. This will open up your project Solution.

The second is Program.cs. The .cs indicates that the file is C# code. Projects can have more than one .cs file.

If you open a .cs file in Visual Studio you will see your code, but you won't be able to do all of the things you are used to doing when you have a Solution open. Always open the .sln file when you want to work on your project.

The third file extension you should know is .exe. When you test your project (by pressing Play or F5), Visual Studio compiles your code into an executable application. You can double-click on the .exe in your bin > Debug folder and run it. You'll see the last version of your project that Visual Studio has compiled.

Important files to know:

• Solution (.sln): open your project with this file.
• C# Code (.cs): A file with C# code.
• Executable (.exe): An executable application.

To Do: Title and Overview

Assignments

1. Change the title of your Adventure Game in your code.
2. Add another line of code that writes something else to the screen, like an introduction to the game or welcome message.
3. Read Problem Solving in Programming.

Now that you know how to write out text to the screen, change the title of your Adventure Game. You should choose something that is unique - so this game will be your own creation. Keep the text basic for now. You can always add to it or edit it as we move through the series.

After you change the title, add another line (just below the one that writes out your game title) that gives a brief introduction to the game. You can describe the setting, or welcome the player - whatever you'd like (example below).

Make sure that you are just changing the text within the quote marks (" "). The quote marks are important markers for what should be written out to the screen.

Before we finish the series we'll look at how to make the text fit better within the window, and ways in which we can add style to it visually.

Example:

Console.WriteLine("Your game title here!");
Console.WriteLine("Welcome to ..... You will be exploring the fantastic world of ..... ");
Console.Read();

After you finish changing the code in your game, read about troubleshooting, debugging, and "stepping" through code in Visual Studio.

Code Files

Example code for this chapter:

• 2.1 Output to Console Window

Next Step

Now that we have our first version of the application we'll go through the code and discuss some C# programming concepts.