You can perform actions on one or more of the subprojects that make up a Container project from the Project Control dialog box, shown in Figure 10.2. Use the Project Control dialog box to access project properties for any subproject or to control subproject binding.

Figure 10.2. Container projects in the Project Control

In Figure 10.2, there are five projects in the open project list. The active project, the Container project Cont_proj_2, is shown at the top of the list and is selected by default. This project is bound to the current connection.

In addition, the Container project defines two subprojects, Proj_1 and Proj_2, shown by the plus sign appended to each entry. Both are open but unbound. In this example, the two subprojects are not Container projects (see Nesting Container projects).

For a Container project, the order of the subproject list, held in the PROJECT group, defines the order in which the subprojects open. In this example, the subproject list contained the entries:

This specifies that Proj_2 opens before Proj_1. However, the Project Control dialog box shows that subproject Proj_1 was the last project to open and so this is at the top of the list of open subprojects (see Figure 10.2).

When you build your container project, the last project to open is the first project to build so the Project Control dialog box shows the build order for Cont_proj_2 as Proj_1 followed by Proj_2 (see Figure 10.2). This ordering might be important where you have dependent projects. Therefore, you must specify the subproject list in order of dependency, that is dependent projects must appear first in the list so that they are opened before, but are built after, the projects on which they depend.

You cannot add files to a Container project, only to a subproject. To do this, use the Project Control to make the subproject active. For details see:

If you close a Container project, all subprojects close automatically. However, you can close one or more subprojects while keeping the Container project open. If you try to build a Container project where one of the subprojects is closed, this operation fails.