Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Eclipse (Windows) > Welcome > Introduction to Eclipse > Eclipse Basics > Using the Windows and Menus > Views

Views

The Eclipse IDE provides a variety of subwindows called views that provide specific functionality. Default views for Eclipse are:

Navigator view - provides an exact representation of the project folder and files as on disk. Not used in COBOL
Project Explorer view - shows a hierarchical view of the files in your projects
Console view - show the result of a process such as during building or debugging an application.
Problems view - shows errors and warnings from the projects in your workspace.

Visual COBOL provides a number of COBOL-specific views and windows that appear by default in the COBOL perspective. For example, the following views are default for the COBOL perspective:

COBOL Editor

The editor provides numerous features to help you write your code such as:

Background parsing underlines errors as you type, while hovering over the item gives information on the error.
Content Assist provides context sensitive proposals for typing COBOL code in the editor:
You can search for references to any variable in your code.
The Outline view shows the structure of the file you are editing. This view enables you to navigate around the file. For example, if you want to go to a particular COBOL section or a data item in the Editor view, just click on it in the Outline view.
You can use block selection to move blocks of text. Press Alt+Shift+A to switch to block selection mode, then click and drag to select.
By using the COBOL Copy View you can view copybooks inline, enabling you to see the effects of COPY … REPLACING, as in the following example. You can open COBOL Copy View when working in the COBOL editor by pressing F4.

COBOL Explorer

The COBOL Explorer view includes the following features to help you manage your projects:

For COBOL Project, Remote Project, and Mainframe Project types, COBOL Explorer adds category folders that automatically group together your project's COBOL programs, copybooks, and output files. (These folders are not physical folders on the disk, but effectively headings for certain file types.)

To simplify navigation around your project, you can hide some files that are part of the project, such as the .cobolBuild, .cobolProj, and .project files, and the .settings folder and its content in JVM projects. You do this by opening the view menu, selecting Customize View and choosing from the options.

Filters

Choose types of content to hide in COBOL Explorer.

Option	Description
.*resources	Any files of type .* such as .cobolBuild, .cobolProj
Closed projects	Resources in closed projects never display, but you can choose to hide all closed project icons too
Empty folders inside COBOL categories	Folders mapped to the COBOL Programs and Copybooks that contain no COBOL program or copybook files
Non-COBOL projects	Projects of types other than those under Micro Focus COBOL - for example AspectJ, Plug-in, or Update-site projects
RSE Internal projects	Projects generated by the RSE plug-in

Content

Choose types of content to show in COBOL Explorer.

Option	Description
Working Sets	Working sets are subsets of workspace resources you can choose to show or perform options on. To define a working set, click Project > Build Working Set > Select Working Set > New.
COBOL Elements	Non-resource types that are COBOL-specific: x category folders, including those for COBOL programs and copybooks icons for the different types of COBOL files. overlays for build errors and warnings some context menu items
Resources	COBOL projects, COBOL programs and copybooks. Has effect only if the COBOL Elements option is unchecked.

COBOL Explorer helps you fix problems by using icons to identify files and containers that cause build errors and warnings.
- A file that generates a warning, and any containing folders and categories, is marked with a yellow warning sign. For example:
- A file that causes an error, and any containing folders and categories, is marked with a cross. In this example the icons indicate the most severe problem is the error caused by Program4.cbl, and the folders are marked with error icons despite Program5.cbl generating a warning:
- A project that suffers from a dependency error is marked with a red exclamation mark; its contents remain unmarked. In this example the project depends on another project that is closed, causing a build path problem: