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Step 1: Create a LightSwitch Project

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For your first project, you will create an application that lets you manage contact information. Your first step is to start Visual Studio Professional 2012 and create a project.

Create a Project

To create a project for your application

  1. From the Windows Start menu, click Visual Studio 2012.

  2. On the File menu, click New Project.

    The New Project dialog box opens.

  3. In the Installed Templates list, select the LightSwitch node.

  4. In the center pane, select either LightSwitch Application (Visual Basic) or LightSwitch Application (Visual C#).

  5. In the Name field, type My First Application and then click OK.

    The My First Application Designer window appears, and the necessary folders for your project are added to the Solution Explorer window, as shown in the following illustration:

    My First Application project

Closer Look

You just created a project for the contact management application. A project in LightSwitch is a place to store and organize the pieces of your application.

When you opened the New Project dialog box, you saw several types of projects to choose from. Your contact management application is a regular Windows-based desktop application that can run from your Start menu. You can also create a web-based application that can run in a web browser. You can usually change the application type later.

When you created the project, you chose either Visual Basic or Visual C# as the programming language. The language that you choose is a matter of personal preference; the capabilities of both are the same. Although you can change the application type, you cannot change the programming language after you create the project.

In most cases, you will want to enter a more meaningful name for the project in the New Project dialog box. You can also change where the project files are saved.

Next Steps

In the next lesson, you will learn how to create an entity that defines the data for your application.

Next lesson: Step 2: Define the Data

See Also

Tasks

How to: Create, Open, Save, or Delete a Project

Other Resources

Creating Your First LightSwitch Application

Projects: The Container for Your Application