General Visual Studio IDE Issues
- 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.
- You need a trial or full license for
Enterprise Developer to successfully run and debug COBOL Web site projects. If you have a free Personal Edition license, you receive an error: "System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object." when you run or debug the Web site.
- After opening a Net Express project (.app) file in Visual Studio and converting it to a Visual Studio solution, Visual Studio's recent projects list saves a reference to the original Net Express project .app file but not to the Visual Studio solution that was produced from it. If, after closing this solution, you need to reopen it in the IDE, you need to use
File > Open, or navigate to the solution directory and double-click it.
- 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.
- The expanded copybook view has the following limitations:
- In expanded copybook view, it is not possible to edit copybooks referenced through a COPY... REPLACING statement when the expanded copybook view shows the replaced values. In this case, the expanded copybook view is read-only.
- The read-only status of expanded copybooks is not preserved when you close the project. Next time you open the project, the copybook is shown in the Expanded Copybook view but not as read-only.
- If you used the OF or IN phrases with a COPY statement, it is not possible to show the corresponding copybook in the Expanded Copybook view or open it using the
Open "CopybookName" in New Window command if the copybook is stored in a library file (where you have used the COPYLBR Compiler directive).
- Navigating to items in the expanded copybook view is not supported from the
Class View or using the
Navigate To command.
- References to file locations in the output windows such as pointing to the build output, or in the results received by
Find in Files, do not point to items in the expanded copybook view.
- Selecting the currently selected statement in the call stack in an expanded copybook may show the actual copybook. You can use the
Show Next Statement command of the debugger to return the actual expanded copybook position.
- The Breakpoints window always shows the line number of a breakpoint within the file containing it, not the line number within expanded copybook view.
- The
Call Stack,
Threads and
IntelliTrace windows all display line numbers corresponding to the file containing the statement, not the line number within expanded copybook view.
- If you move the caret to an invalid position in the expanded copybook view, the
Set Next Statement command will display an ‘Unable to set the next statement to this location’ error message and the copybook will be opened as a separate document.
- When stepping through managed code, if the next statement to step onto is within the same class or program, and on the same line number, but in a different source file, the debugger steps over that statement. For example, if you try to step from line 10 of
Program1.cbl to line 10 of
Copybook1.cpy, the debugger steps over the statement in the copybook.
- When you add a COPY statement in a COBOL program and then show it in Expanded Copybook View, the line for the copybook statement is read-only. If you then perform an Undo in the COBOL program, the COPY statement is removed while the contents of the copybook is still shown in the program.
- Replace All does not work inside the Expanded Copybook View
- For copybooks in your project with file extensions that are not traditionally associated with COBOL you must first add the file extension to the list of known copybooks extensions in
Tools > Options > Text Editor > File Extensions before you can show them in Expanded Copybook View.
- The following restrictions apply when using the Find All References command to search for an item in the entire solution:
- Searching through the entire solution only works for managed COBOL projects. When searching for a reference to or from an item in a native project, Find All References only finds references in that same project.
- The project containing the item that is being searched for must be built to ensure Find All References finds any external references to the item.
- Find All References must parse the source files of a project before it finds any references. In case of a very large solution, this task may take longer to complete and, also, parsing may exhaust all memory available to the IDE and cause it to become unstable.
