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These instructions assume that you have already installed Visual
Studio 2008 on your personal computer system. We need to install "Micro
Focus Net Express with .NET". The settings below are suggestions only and
indicate the typical setup in a computer lab on campus.
- Download the software from the following site:
http://www.microfocus.com/Resources/Communities/Academic/shop/description.asp?productid=56
Click
the link at the bottom of the page to download this free software.
- The following shows the settings you can use during the
installation:
- After all of the above has been done, it's necessary to start
Visual Studio 2008. If this is the first time you've used Visual
Studio, you will see the following screen:
Choose General Development Settings if you would like your system to
be configured like the campus labs and classrooms. For efficiency,
uncheck the box that says "Allow Visual Studio...".
- While in Visual Studio, click Help |
Index. This will run for several minutes to
integrate the COBOL help information with Microsoft help. Once
this step has been done, the installation is complete.
Visual Studio Options
The Microsoft Visual Studio environment is intended for use by
professional programmers and can sometimes be confusing to students
learning to use the product. There are some configuration changes you can
make to help the environment be more friendly. These are some
suggestions:
- Choose Tools | Options and click on Text Editor in
the left pane. You might want to deselect Drag and drop text
editing in the right pane.
- Click on Text Editor | All Languages | Tabs in the left
pane. Click on Smart in the right pane. If you want your
printouts to preserve your indenting, click on Insert spaces in
the right pane.
- If you also use Visual Basic, click on Projects and Solutions |
VB Defaults in the left pane. Both Option Explicit and
Option Strict should be On in the right pane.
- If you also use C++, click on Projects and Solutions | VC++
Project Settings in the left pane. Set Build Logging to
No in the right pane.
COBOL Project Options
For each COBOL project, you will need to set the source format to be
Free, as shown in the second column of options below:
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