Grouping project files into folders

Visual C++ provides the following folders by default when you create a new project:

• Source Files
• Header Files
• Resource Files

Based on whether there are any external dependencies, it also provides an 'External Dependencies' folder. This is a special folder and you cannot modify it's properties.

Files that you add to your project are grouped based on their extensions. The extensions for the default folders are as follows:

Tip #1: You can right click on any of these folders and add or delete file extensions in the properties tab that is displayed.

Tip #2: You can add new folders by selecting 'Project | Add to Project | New Folder...' from the main menu. This displays a dialog box that let's you add the name of the folder as well as the extensions for files you want to group into that folder.

I frequently use this feature to add a 'Documentation' folder and include the extensions 'htm;html;doc;txt'. This enables me to group the documentation files for my VC++ projects within the project itself for easier access. Since I also use Visual SourceSafe to store my project's documentation, this allows me to perform any SourceSafe operation from within VC++.