Visual Studio - General Issues

If you have Visual Studio 2019 16.0 installed, the Create a new project dialog box does not list COBOL in the Language field. You can find the COBOL project templates, by searching for either COBOL or PL/I using the search field.
To resolve this problem and make the COBOL categories visible in the Language field, you need to install Visual Studio 2019 version 16.1 or later.

Do not use the Startup object in the Application properties page to set the main program. The startup object must be the first static method in a class specified using the ILMAIN directive.
The use of drag and drop for adding large numbers of files or folders is not recommended, as the IDE may become unresponsive while the files are imported. To add files to your projects, use either one of the following options as appropriate – File > Create Project From Existing Code or, in Solution Explorer, Add Existing Files, Add Existing COBOL Files context menu commands at project level.
When trying to rebuild a project that includes a filename.xaml file, you might receive a build error that the project output could not be deleted. A possible cause for this might be a third party application, such as the real time scanner of your antivirus software, locking the file. To work around this problem, instead of a rebuild, perform a build.
When adding a bitmap or an icon to a WPF COBOL project, the Build Action for the resource is set to None by default. In order to include the resource in the built output, you need to manually set its Build Action to Resource.
When you perform a search in the IDE for copybooks that your programs depend upon, if you have not specified that an extension is a copybook in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL > Advanced, the IDE examines only the Additional directives field on the COBOL tab in the project's properties, for COPYEXT. It does not check COBOL.DIR and the files' properties. To work around this restriction, ensure the extension has been added to the Copybook extensions option in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL > Advanced.
The multi-output project template has the following limitations:
- Adding managed resources such as classes, WinForms, resources, Service References, Web References is not supported. You need to create these in a separate managed project and reference that project from within the Procedural Multi-Output project.
- The programs generated from the procedural multi-output project cannot be referenced from other managed projects, nor can they be referenced using object COBOL syntax. However, a multi-output project supports adding references to other types of managed projects.