Apart
from this Getting Started book, all the documentation is online
only. You get to it from the Windows 95, Windows 98,
Windows 2000 or Windows NT Start menu or from Mainframe
Express's Help menu. This Getting Started book is both
online and in printed book form.
Much of the documentation is in the form of online help. The rest is in
the form of online books written as Web pages. You get to these from the
Start menu or from the Mainframe Express help - when you click a book's
button in the help, the book is displayed in your Web browser.
When you're looking for information, we recommend trying the different
kinds of documentation in the following order:
- See if there's a tool tip.
If you want information about a field or control, try leaving the
mouse pointer on it for a moment. A brief description of its purpose may be
displayed, either beside it or at the bottom of the Mainframe Express
window.
-
Try context help.
If you want information about a menu item or control, click the
Context Help button
on the toolbar
or at the top right,
then click the menu item or control. Alternatively, put your mouse pointer on
the menu item or control (don't click if doing so will start a function), and
press F1. You may also be able to right-click on the item and click
What's This? on a popup menu that appears.
- Look in the help, using the help index.
If Mainframe Express is running, click Help Topics on the
Help menu. Otherwise, from the Start menu, click Programs,
then Micro Focus
Mainframe Express, then Help. Then click the Index tab and
enter a relevant word. The index will automatically position at the entry, if
one exists. Alternatively, scroll through the index to find what you want.
In some cases the help index takes you to a help topic that directs
you to an online book. If this happens, click Index in the Table of
Contents of the online book, click the first letter of the phrase you're
looking for, then scroll the index to find the phrase.
- Look in the online books,
using the Master Index.
From the Start menu, click Programs, then
Micro Focus Mainframe
Express, then Bookshelf. Then select Master Index and click
Master Index in the left-hand pane. Click the first letter of the word
you want at the top of the right-hand pane, then scroll through the index to
find the word.
-
Look in the online books, using the text search.
From your Start menu, click Programs >
Micro Focus Mainframe
Express > Bookshelf. Click Master Index, then click
Search. Specify the words you want to search for in the Search
For field, then click Search. Click the title of the chapter you
want to view, then click the browser window displaying the Mainframe Express
online books. The browser shows the chapter you clicked earlier, and the text
you searched for is highlighted in red.
- Look in the help using
Find.
Return to Help Topics, click the Find tab, and enter the word
you're looking for. If this is the first time you've used Find since
installing, the system will take a little while to create a dictionary.
There is no equivalent to Find for the online books.
- If you still haven't found the information you want, repeat Steps 3
through 5 using some other relevant word.
You will find it useful to select the Contents tab in Help Topics
and spend a few minutes looking through the Contents to see what the help
covers. Similarly, select each book in turn from the Mainframe Express
Online Books folder and look through their contents to see what they cover.
Here are some further tips:
- The online help is
mainly for quick help. To read about a subject in depth, look first in the
appropriate online book, and if you don't find it look in the help. The books
are all accessible from the help Contents. There are separate indexes for the
books, the Mainframe Express Help, the Readme Help, and the Help for individual
options such as CICS Option. The index for the books is called the Master Index
because it covers all the books. The books have individual indexes as well.
- You can print out the online
books from your Web browser. Each Web page is one chapter; so if your Browser's
print function prints one page, each print operation prints one chapter. To be
certain of printing the text rather than the Contents list, click first in the
pane containing the text.
- The Mainframe
Express CD-ROM contains the Adobe Acrobat Reader and an Adobe Acrobat file for
each book, from which you can print the whole book in one operation. You are
authorized to print one copy of each book for your own personal use.
- Links in the online books
are either to other chapters or books, or to the online glossary. To return,
use your Web browser's Back button. You may have to click it twice to
get the correct Contents list back.
- The online books have the Contents in the left-hand frame and the
text in the right-hand frame. On some browsers, when you click a link in the
Contents, you can get the text in a full frame by dragging the mouse a little
before releasing the button. If you click a link in the text you get the
Contents of the target chapter in a full frame.
- To get a popup menu with
functions appropriate to an item, right-click the item. These functions often
include What's This?.
-
To get the syntax for a COBOL reserved word visible in a source view window in
the IDE, put the cursor anywhere within the word, then press F1.
Alternatively, right-click on the word and click Help on the popup menu.
You can do the same for an error message in the Output window.
- If
you have any problem installing or running Mainframe Express, look in the
Readme Help to see if it's a known problem. From your Windows Start
menu, click Programs, then Micro Focus Mainframe Express, then
Readme. Information in the Readme Help is listed in the index of the
Readme Help, not in the index of the Mainframe Express Help.
You can
also get to the ReadMe Help even without having Mainframe Express installed.
It's a WinHelp (.hlp) file in the root of the Mainframe Express CD. It's
the file whose name begins with "read" - the next few letters of the
name may vary. Open it using Windows Explorer, or by using winhelp or
winhlp32 from a command prompt.
- If
you are migrating from an earlier version of Mainframe Express, look in the
topic Backward Compatibility in the Readme Help for advice.
- For
support, updates, and information on Mainframe Express, use WebSync, a facility
in Mainframe Express to access a Micro Focus Web site. To start WebSync, click
WebSync on the Help menu.
- You
will find the contact addresses and numbers of
Micro Focus offices that
deal with Micro Focus products either in the Readme Help or on a separate sheet
included in the product packaging.
Comments on the books? Click Send Us Comments.
Copyright © 2001 Micro Focus International Limited. All rights reserved.
This document and the proprietary marks and names
used herein are protected by international law.