Formatter profiles

Formatting preferences are stored in profiles, which means that you can store different sets of preferences and then choose which set of preferences to work with at any one time. Switching between these profiles allows you to use different formatting preferences if you are required to format your code to different standards from project to project: simply choose an active profile from the Preferences section to use it when you invoke the formatter from the COBOL editor.

Your list of user-created profiles is workspace-specific, but you can export them to another local workspace or to another machine. Sharing profiles enables development teams to create consistent looking code throughout the team. There is also a default profile (named Micro Focus [built-in]) in every workspace, which cannot be exported, but it can be used as a base set of preferences when creating new profiles.

When creating or editing profiles, you can use the Preview pane to see what effect an option will have on code in the editor. To clearly see the effect it will have, toggle Show Original Code to switch between an example of the new changes and previously formatted code.

One setting that will affect any active profile in the workspace is the Automatically format on save setting. If you select this, the formatting for the current active profile is automatically applied as soon as you save your program in the editor. If this option is not selected, you must use the Format options on the Source menu to invoke any formatting.