Project Settings in Visual Studio

In Visual Studio, you can access project settings by right-clciking the projects node in Solution Explorer, and choosing "Properties" from the context menu (not to be confused with the "Properties" folder that is in some Elements projects).

This view shows all the settings available for the project, grouped in logical sections.

The left-hand column on the grid shows the title for each setting, while the remaining columns (typically five) show the value(s) configured for the settings in different scopes, increasing from right to left.

Settings Levels

The very right-most column, titled Default, will, where applicable, show the default value for the setting that would or will apply if the project does not override it. Not all settings have a default value, and for those that do, that value might be hardcoded, depending on the project type or platform, or be derived from other settings (the Default Namespace setting, for example, defaults to getting its value from the Executable Name).

The second-to-right column, captioned Project, lists values as they are set globally for the full project. If a value is shown in gray, that value is not set, but being inherited from the default; if a value shows in black, it is set at this level.

The next number of columns show the setting values for each of the Configurations set up in the project. Most projects start out with two configurations, called Debug and Release, but this number and their names are arbitrary and can be changed. Just as in the Project column, each configuration column will show the setting value in gray if it is inherited from the project (or the default), or in black when set explicitly for this configuration.

Finally, the left-most column is entitled User, and it allows you to set values that won't be stored in the project's .elements file, but instead in a separate .elements.user file stored next to it. Essentially, this allows you to override settings for local use and without affecting other developers working on your project (by excluding *.user from the files you commit to version control). Like the other columns, this one also shows values inherited from the right in gray, and values set explicitly in black.

Because the User column shows an aggregate of (a) a per-user setting, (b) the active configuration, (c) project level settings and (d) the default, this column also gives you a handy overview of what the current effective values for each of the settings are.

Types of Settings

Fire and Water know three types of settings:

• Free-form settings may contain any manually typed-in string. To change them, simply click into the field and start typing/editing the value you want to set.
• Multiple-choice settings show little black arrows, and clicking them will provide a popup menu with available options to choose from. If a value is set, the menu will also include an option to clear the value. If a setting contains an invalid or unexpected value, it will indicate that.
• Finally, boolean settings allow you to toggle between two values, YES and NO.

Available Settings

You can find an overview of all project settings that are available and understood by the Elements compiler and tool chain in the Project Settings Reference topic.

Applying Settings

Like everywhere in Fire, there is no need to "save" or "apply" settings. As soon as you change them, your project (or (.user) file) will update, and the new setting will be in effect.

See Also

• Project Settings Reference