Viewing the Product Help

Visual COBOL is configured to display the product help available online on the Micro Focus SupportLine Web site: https://www.microfocus.com/support-and-services/documentation/.

You can view the product help in one of the following ways:

Online help (default)

Note: Your Visual Studio must be configured to show online help by default. Make sure Help > Set Help Preferences in Visual Studio points to Launch in Browser.

You can access the Help in one of the following ways:

  • Click Help > Micro Focus Product Help > Product Documentation.
  • Alternatively, press F1 inside the editor or from a UI part.

    This opens the Visual COBOL help or Microsoft's MSDN depending on which keyword in the editor or part of the UI you are querying.

Local help

Note: If you've had an earlier version of Visual COBOL installed on your machine, you need to uninstall any older version of the documentation as follows:
  1. Click Help > Add and Remove Content inside Visual Studio.

    This starts the Microsoft Help Viewer.

  2. Click the Manage Content tab and click Disk.
  3. Click Remove next to the line for the Visual COBOL documentation.
  4. Click Update.

The local help is not shipped with the installer. If you prefer to view the help locally on your machine, you need to download and install it manually as described below.

  1. Download the local help files:
    1. Find the download link for local help in your Electronic Product Download email or in the Product Updates section on the Micro Focus SupportLine Web site and save the files on your machine.
    2. Expand the archive on your machine. Ensure that the .msha and the .cab files are in the same folder.
  2. Ensure that the Visual Studio Help Viewer is installed:
    1. Click Help inside Visual Studio.

      If no View Help command is available, you need to install the Help Viewer manually. See Installing missing components of Visual Studio in Software Requirements for instructions on how to install it.

  3. Install the help in the Help Viewer:
    1. Click Help > Add and Remove Content inside Visual Studio.

      This starts the Microsoft Help Viewer.

    2. Click the Manage Content tab and click Disk.
    3. Click the browse button next to Disk and navigate to the folder in which you extracted the local help files.
    4. Select helpcontentsetup.msha and click Open.

      This loads the Visual COBOL documentation.

    5. Click Add and then Update.

      After the installation is complete, the Visual COBOL product Help appears in the Help Viewer.

  4. Configure Visual Studio to use local help:
    1. Start Visual Studio.
    2. Ensure that the Visual Studio Help Library is pointing to local help - from the Visual Studio menu click Help > Set Help Preferences > Launch in Help Viewer.
    3. Click Help > View Help.

      This opens the product help in Microsoft's Help Viewer.

      For full details of the Visual Studio Help system, see the MSDN.

      Note: On some Windows versions such as Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 or later, an issue with Microsoft Help Viewer and Internet Explorer's security being turned on can cause the Help content to be displayed as raw HTML code. To resolve the issue, you need to turn off the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) for both administrators and users. Check the Microsoft Windows help for more information on how to do this.
Parent topic: After Installing