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References Page, Project Designer (Visual Basic)

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Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

Use the References page of the Project Designer to manage references, web references, and imported namespaces in your project. Projects can contain references to COM components, XML web services, .NET libraries or assemblies, or other class libraries. For more information on using references, see Managing references in a project.

To access the References page, choose a project node (not the Solution node) in Solution Explorer. Then choose Project, Properties on the menu bar. When the Project Designer appears, click the References tab.

UIElement List

The following options allow you to select or remove references and imported namespaces in your project.

Reference Paths

Click this button to access the Reference Paths dialog box.

Note

When the project system finds an assembly reference, the system resolves the reference by looking in the following locations, in the following order:

  1. The project folder. The project folder files appear in Solution Explorer when Show All Files isn't in effect.
  2. Folders that are specified in the Reference Paths dialog box.
  3. Folders that display files in the Add Reference dialog box.
  4. The project's obj folder. (When you add a COM reference to your project, one or more assemblies may be added to the project's obj folder.)

References

This list shows all references in the project, used or unused.

Add

Click this button to add a reference or web reference to the References list.

Choose Reference to add a reference to your project using the Add Reference dialog box.

Choose Web Reference to add a web reference to your project using the Add Web Reference dialog box.

Remove

Select one or more references in the References list, then click this button to delete it.

Update Web Reference

Select a web reference in the References list and click this button to update it.

Imported namespaces

You can type your own namespace in this box and click Add User Import to add it to the namespaces list.

You can create aliases for user-imported namespaces. To do this, enter the alias and the namespace in the format alias=namespace. This is useful if you are using long namespaces, for example: Http= MyOrg.ObjectLib.Internet.WebRequestMethods.Http.

Add User Import

Click this button to add the namespace specified in the Imported namespaces box to the list of imported namespaces. The button is active only if the specified namespace is not already in the list.

Namespaces list

This list shows all available namespaces. The check boxes for namespaces included in your project are selected.

Update User Import

Select a user-specified namespace in the namespaces list, type the name that you want to replace it with in the Imported namespaces box, and then click this button to change to the new namespace. The button is active only if the selected namespace is one that you added to the list by using the Add User Import button. You can add:

  • Classes or namespaces, such as System.Math.

  • Aliased imports, such as VB=Microsoft.VisualBasic.

  • XML namespaces, such as <xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">.

See also