USING MICROCHIP HELP

3.21 USING MICROCHIP HELP

Microchip Technology provides on-line HTML help for MPLAB IDE and each of its development tools. Select Help>Topics to bring up a list of available help files in the Help Topics dialog.

• Navigating in the Help Viewer • Types of Help Available

3.21.1 Navigating in the Help Viewer

The main features of the help viewer are shown in Figure 3-2. FIGURE 3-2:

HELP VIEWER - MAIN FEATURES Title Bar

Button Bar

Browse Buttons

Browse Buttons

3.21.1.1 BUTTON BAR • Show/Hide – Show or Hide the Left Pane.

• Back – Go back one topic. • Print – Print currently displayed topic. • Options – Shows more available options.

 2005 Microchip Technology Inc.

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3.21.1.2 BROWSE BUTTONS Browse buttons are located on each displayed topic in the view pane.

• Click < to browse to the previous help topic, according to the table of contents. • Click > to browse to the next help topic, according to the table of contents.

3.21.1.3 NAVIGATION PANE • To view a functionally organized list of all Microchip Help topics, click the

Contents tab. Click on the + next to a folder to open the folder and see the topics contained within. Click on a topic listed here to view it in the right pane of the viewer.

• To view an alphabetized list of help topics, click on the Index tab. • To search for words in the help topics, click the Search tab. • To create and maintain a list of “favorite” topics, click the Favorites tab. • To close the left pane, click on the Hide button (which will change to a Show

button) on the button bar. To view the left pane, click on the Show button (which will change to a Hide button.)

3.21.1.4 VIEW PANE Click on the blue underline text to activate a hyperlink:

• Jump to another topic. To return, click Back or browse to other topics. • Open a pop-up. To close the pop-up, click outside the pop-up box.

3.21.2 Types of Help Available

Tool help is available from the MPLAB IDE Help menu. Help on specific dialog boxes or windows is available from those items. Limitations of a tool are available from the Settings dialog.

3.21.2.1 HELP MENU Help for each development tool is available from the Help menu. Most help files include

the following: • Tool Overview

• Tutorials/Examples of Use • General Usage Information • Troubleshooting Information • Reference Material

3.21.2.2 DIALOG BOX Dialog box help is available from a Help button on each dialog. Clicking Help displays

step-by-step instructions for using a dialog box to complete a task.

3.21.2.3 WINDOW Window help is available from the F1 key. Press the F1 key on your keyboard while a

window is active to see information on the contents of that window.

3.21.2.4 LIMITATIONS Debug tool limitations are available for display after you have selected a device

(Configure>Select Device) and set the debug tool (Debugger>Select Tool). You may then open the Settings dialog (Debugger>Settings) and click on the Limitations tab.

Both debug and programmer tool limitations are accessible by opening the tool help file (Help>Topics) and looking for “Limitations” in the table of contents or index.

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 2005 Microchip Technology Inc.