Basic Project Configuration in Visual Studio 2019

As you might recall from a blog post a year or two ago, I like to ensure my projects in Visual Studio are set up in what I consider suitable and sensible ways.  I learned this from Yan Chernikov, a game programmer with EA, who runs a very well produced YouTube programming channel.

In this post I'm going to walk through the basic project configuration settings I set for all my projects.

First, you'll need to have a blank project created.

Create a new project

Create an empty C++ project

Name the project

A brave new world

Now, select the project name and click the "wrench" to get the project properties.

Under the General section of the Configuration Properties, set the following values:

• Output Directory: $(SolutionDir)bin\$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\
• Intermediate Directory: $(SolutionDir)bin\intermediates\$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\

Set directories

Hit Apply and then OK.  That's it!  Of course there are plenty of other things that we can configure, but these basic steps will ensure that any project we create will be stored and filed sensibly for any Configuration or Platform.

In future blog posts I'll cover how to set up SDL and other external libraries and even write some simple "Hello World" test programs.  Exciting, I know.  Stay tuned.