EditIntroduction
Popfly Explorer enables you to easily save, access and share all types of Visual Studio projects on Popfly directly within the Visual Studio IDE. This guide briefly shows you how to use Popfly Explorer in Visual Studio.
EditPrerequisites
Popfly Explorer works with all versions of Visual Studio 2005/2008 Express and above. You can download
Visual Studio 2008 Express editions. This guide uses
Visual C# Express 2008
as an example.
Once you have Visual Studio installed, you need to download and install
Popfly Explorer.
You also need a Windows Live ID and an account on Popfly. If you don't already
have it, create one on
Popfly.
EditSign In Popfly Explorer
Launch Visual C# Express 2008. Select menu Popfly -> Show Popfly Explorer to
display Popfly Explorer.
 Popfly Explorer Sign In |
Enter your
Windows Live ID credential and click Sign In.
Popfly Explorer will validate your account and load your Popfly projects and
friends if successful.
 Signed In |
EditSave a Visual Studio Project to Popfly
To save a Visual Studio project to Popfly, first you need the project open in
Visual Studio. You can open an existing Visual Studio project or create a new
one.
 Windows Forms |
When your project is ready to be saved to Popfly, click menu Popfly -> Save
ProjectName to Popfly (or the equivalent button on Popfly Explorer toolbar).
Popfly Explorer may prompt that it needs to save a local copy of the project and
reload the local copy.
 Reload |
Click "Save to Popfly" to confirm. Your project will be saved to Popfly and a new local copy of the project will be loaded into Visual Studio. This may take a while, depending on the size of your project.
Your project is now saved on Popfly! Go to Popfly Explorer, you can see that the new project "WindowsFormsApplication1" is listed on the top of your Popfly projects list. If you check your projects on Popfly in your browser, you will also find the new Visual Studio project.
 PE Projects |
 Projects |
EditAccess a Visual Studio Project on Popfly
You can access your Visual Studio projects on Popfly from within Visual Studio.
Simply go to Popfly Explorer and double click the project you want to open (or
right click on the project and select Open Project from the context menu).
 Open Project |
Popfly Explorer will retrieve the project from Popfly, save it to your hard drive, and open it in Visual Studio.
However, if the project has previously been saved on your hard drive, you will be prompted with this dialog:
 Local Copy |
The copy on your hard drive may contain new changes you have made. If you want
to open that copy, select "Open Local Copy". If you decide to get rid of your
hard drive copy and open the Popfly one, select "Delete and Open from Popfly".
EditDownload a Visual Studio Project As a Zip File
Once a Visual Studio project is saved to Popfly, it can be downloaded from
Popfly as a Zip file! Simply navigate to the project details page in your
browser, and click the "download" button. (You can directly launch the project
details page from Popfly Explorer: Right click on the project and select Project
Details Page from the context menu.)
 Download as Zip file |
EditShare a Visual Studio Project
To share/unshare your project, right click on the project in Popfly Explorer and
select Properties from the context menu. This opens Visual Studio Properties
window for the project.
 PE Share |
The sharing status of your project can be toggled in the Properties window:
 Share Property |
EditFind and Rip a Project
Popfly Explorer has a search interface so that you can find and rip other's
shared projects. Click "Find Project" button on the Popfly Explorer toolbar to
bring up the search tool.
 Search |
You can specify project type and term to search for. Right click on any Visual
Studio projects in the result list and select "Open Project". Popfly Explorer
will retrieve the project, save to your hard drive and open it for you in Visual
Studio.