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References Page, Project Designer (Visual Basic)

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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 Framework class libraries or assemblies, or other class libraries. For more information on using references, see Project References.

To access the References page, select a project node in Solution Explorer, then on the Project menu, click Properties. When the Project Designer appears, click the References tab.

Visual Basic noteVisual Basic Note:

Project references are managed differently in Visual Studio than they were in Visual Basic 6.0. For more information, see Project Management for Visual Basic 6.0 Users.

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

  • Unused References
    Click this button to access the Unused References Dialog Box (Visual Basic).

  • Reference Paths
    Click this button to access the Reference Paths Dialog Box (Visual Basic).

  • 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

Tasks

How to: Add or Remove References in Visual Studio (Visual Basic)

How to: Add or Remove Imported Namespaces (Visual Basic)

How to: Remove Unused References (Visual Basic)

How to: Set the Copy Local Property of a Reference

Reference

Unused References Dialog Box (Visual Basic)

Reference Paths Dialog Box (Visual Basic)

Add Reference Dialog Box

Add Web Reference Dialog Box

Imports Statement (XML Namespace)

Other Resources

Managing References