docs-desktop/dotnet-desktop-guide/net/winforms/get-started/create-app-visual-studio.md

title, description, ms.date, ms.topic, dev_langs

title	description	ms.date	ms.topic	dev_langs
Create a new app with Visual Studio tutorial	Follow this tutorial to learn how to create a new Windows Forms app for .NET with Visual Studio 2019.	10/26/2020	tutorial	csharp vb

Tutorial: Create a new WinForms app (Windows Forms .NET)

In this short tutorial, you'll learn how to create a new Windows Forms (WinForms) app with Visual Studio. Once the initial app has been generated, you'll learn how to add controls and how to handle events. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a simple app that adds names to a list box.

[!INCLUDE desktop guide under construction]

In this tutorial, you learn how to:

[!div class="checklist"]

• Create a new WinForms app
• Add controls to a form
• Handle control events to provide app functionality
• Run the app

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8 Preview
  • Select the Visual Studio Desktop workload
  • Select the .NET 5 individual component

Create a WinForms app

The first step to creating a new app is opening Visual Studio and generating the app from a template.

1. Open Visual Studio.

2. Select Create a new project.

   :::image type="content" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/vs-create-new-project.png" alt-text="Create a new Windows Forms project in Visual Studio 2019 for .NET":::

3. In the Search for templates box, type winforms, and then press Enter.

4. In the code language dropdown, choose C# or Visual Basic.

5. In the templates list, select Windows Forms App (.NET) and then click Next.

   Important

   Don't select the Windows Forms App (.NET Framework) template.

   :::image type="content" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/vs-template-search.png" alt-text="Search for the Windows Forms template in Visual Studio 2019 for .NET":::

6. In the Configure your new project window, set the Project name to Names and click Create.

   You can also save your project to a different folder by adjusting the Location setting.

   :::image type="content" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/vs-config-new-project.png" alt-text="Configure new Windows Forms project in Visual Studio 2019 for .NET":::

Once the app is generated, Visual Studio should open the designer pane for the default form, Form1. If the form designer isn't visible, double-click on the form in the Solution Explorer pane to open the designer window.

Important parts of Visual Studio

Support for WinForms in Visual Studio has four important components that you'll interact with as you create an app:

:::image type="content" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/vs-main-window.png" alt-text="The important components of Visual Studio you should know when creating a Windows Forms project for .NET":::

1. Solution Explorer

   All if your project files, code, forms, resources, will appear in this pane.

2. Properties

   This pane shows property settings you can configure based on the item selected. For example, if you select an item from Solution Explorer, you'll see property settings related to the file. If you select an object in the Designer, you'll see settings for the control or form.

3. Form Designer

   This is the designer for the form. It's interactive and you can drag-and-drop objects from the Toolbox. By selecting and moving items in the designer, you can visually compose the user interface (UI) for your app.

4. Toolbox

   The toolbox contains all of the controls you can add to a form. To add a control to the current form, double-click a control or drag-and-drop the control.

Add controls to the form

With the Form1 form designer open, use the Toolbox pane to add the following controls to the form:

• Label
• Button
• Listbox
• Textbox

You can position and size the controls according to the following settings. Either visually move them to match the screenshot that follows, or click on each control and configure the settings in the Properties pane. You can also click on the form title area to select the form:

Object	Setting	Value
Form	Text	Names
	Size	268, 180
Label	Location	12, 9
	Text	Names
Listbox	Name	lstNames
	Location	12, 27
	Size	120, 94
Textbox	Name	txtName
	Location	138, 26
	Size	100, 23
Button	Name	btnAdd
	Location	138, 55
	Size	100, 23
	Text	Add Name

You should have a form in the designer that looks similar to the following:

:::image type="content" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/vs-form-preview.png" alt-text="Visual Studio 2019 designer with the form open for Windows Forms for .NET":::

Handle events

Now that the form has all of its controls laid out, you need to handle the events of the controls to respond to user input. With the form designer still open, perform the following steps:

1. Select the button control on the form.

2. In the Properties pane, click on the events icon :::image type="icon" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/icon-events.png" border="false"::: to list the events of the button.

3. Find the Click event and double-click it to generate an event handler.

   This action adds the following code to the the form:

   private void btnAdd_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
   
   }
   

   Private Sub btnAdd_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnAdd.Click
   
   End Sub
   

   The code we'll put in this handler will add the name specified by the txtName textbox control to the lstNames listbox control. However, we want there to be two conditions to adding the name: the name provided must not be blank, and the name must not already exist.

4. The following code demonstrates adding a name to the lstNames control:

   private void btnAdd_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(txtName.Text) && !lstNames.Items.Contains(txtName.Text))
           lstNames.Items.Add(txtName.Text);
   }
   

   Private Sub btnAdd_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnAdd.Click
       If Not String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(txtName.Text) And Not lstNames.Items.Contains(txtName.Text) Then
           lstNames.Items.Add(txtName.Text)
       End If
   End Sub
   

Run the app

Now that the event has been coded, you can run the app by pressing the F5 key or by selecting Debug > Start Debugging from the menu. The form displays and you can enter a name in the textbox and then add it by clicking the button.

:::image type="content" source="media/create-app-visual-studio/app-running.png" alt-text="Running a Windows Forms for .NET app.":::

Next steps

[!div class="nextstepaction"] Learn more about Windows Forms