First time user of Visual Studio 2005...need help DESPARATELY

Within the solution explorer, right click on Form1.vb (or whatever your form is called). The context menu should offer "View Code" and "View Designer" as two of the choices. Click on View Designer. If you still get the code editor (or if you aren't even offered the View Designer choice) my guess would be that somehow your file (or files) are not recognised as describing a form or other entity with a designer.

At the top of the Solution Explorer there should be a row of buttons. The second from the left should be "Show All Files". Click on that and the S.E. should now show the hidden files behind your form - Form1.designer.vb and Form1.resx. Be very careful if you choose to change this file in any way. The contents of these files are parsed by the designer and any deviation from what is expected might be enough to confuse the designer - causing exactly the kind of problem you are having.

The start of the Form1.designer.vb file should look like this...

<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _ Partial Class Form1 Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

If it does then Form1 should be recognised as being of type Form and so capable of being viewed with a designer. However, the rest of the contents of that file may make it impossible for the designer to actually display the form. We can't really tell you what the contents should look like because that will depend on which controls you've drawn on the form. You could make a new project with a new form and some sample controls and then compare that form's designer file with your broken one to see if anything obvious jumps out. But there's no guarantee you'll find anything or fix the problem.

Depending on how much time and effort you have invested in this unviewable Form it might be easier and quicker to just start over with a new form or even a new Project?

FrankBoyne at 2007-8-31 >

When you view all files, your form is made up of three files.

You have the designer interface ie. Form1.vb with its code behind file called

Public Class Form1

a system generated designer file ie. Form1.Designer.vb with its code behind file called

<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _

Partial Class Form1

and a resx file Form1.resx

You shouldn't really change the hidden files, thats why they are hidden. The only time you should change this file directly is if an error shows up in the error window and the designer cannot generate the design view (and you should get an error page displayed.)

MarkTheArcherEvans at 2007-8-31 >