The following tips will help you use PowerCOBOL most effectively:
If in-doubt, check the pop-up menu by right-clicking the mouse button. As you'll see from the following tips, the most frequently used functions are generally found on the pop-up menus.
When you open a project, right-click on the project name and select "Expand all" from the pop-up menu. This lets you see all the objects in the project.
To create or edit a form, right-click on the form name in the project tree-view and select "Open".
To edit or view code or properties associated with an item, right-click on the item and select the desired function from the pop-up menu.
To see the available methods or properties for a control, copy or type the name of the control into the PowerCOBOL text editor, select the text and right-click.
To preview how your controls will work, without building the project, select Layout, Preview from the Form Editor menu.
To build a module or project select the module or project in the project tree-view and select Build [All] or Rebuild [All] from the Object menu or pop-up menu. (Note that you can go straight to executing a module - PowerCOBOL recognizes if a build is required and performs a build + execute as a single step.)
To execute your application, select the main module in the project tree-view and select Execute from the Object menu or the pop-up menu.
To set run-time environment variables, use the Run-time Environment Setup Tool (COBENVUT.EXE) which can be selected from the pop-up menus for the project or module in the project tree.
