Features in the product help system

The help system contains the information that you can learn about and effectively use your IBM® Rational® software. To browse topics, use the navigation features of the help system.
Help home page

When you first open the help system, the help home page displays. The page includes links to important help topics, especially those topics that you can use to get started with the product. The help home page also links to other IBM, Rational, and product-specific websites where you can find more resources and information.

Tip: After you leave from the help home page, to return to the page, in the topic toolbar, click the Home button Home icon.
Contents

The help topics are organized in a navigation tree in the contents view. To expand and collapse the navigation, either click the plus plus_icon and minus minus icon icons or double-click the topic titles. To open a topic, click its title.

Tip:
  • To return to topics that you viewed, in the topic toolbar, click the Go BackGo Back button and Go ForwardGo Forward button icons. You can use these icons to access the browser history of your current session, but you cannot use them to go to the previous or next topics in the contents view.
  • If you opened many branches of the navigation tree and want to return to the starting state with all of the branches closed, click the Collapse All button Collapse All icon.
Index

You can also use the index to browse to topics. The index points you to topics that describe a particular word or phrase. To use the index, click the Index tab Index tab in the Contents pane. Either type a term to find it in the alphabetically ordered list of index terms or use the Previous and Next links to browse the list. Click a term to see its corresponding topic.

Tip: To return to the contents view, click the Contents tab Contents tab. To find the location of a topic in the contents view, on the topic toolbar, click the Show in Table of Contents button Show in Table of Contents icon.
Links to related topics

A topic contains an independent unit of information; for example, all the steps to complete a task, a complete description of a concept, or a whole lesson in a tutorial. Most topics are related to other topics and include links to those related topics, either in the text or, more commonly, at the end of the topic.

Tip:
  • To find more information that is related to the current topic, browse the topics near it in the contents view and browse the links to its related topics.
  • Breadcrumb links indicate the location of the topic in the hierarchy of the help contents. To go to the corresponding topic, click a breadcrumb link.
  • To decide whether to open a topic, hover your mouse pointer over the topic link to display a short description of the topic.
Contents view and topic synchronization
When you follow a link from one topic to another, the contents view does not change. To locate the current topic in the contents view, in the topic toolbar, click the Show in Table of Contents button Show in Table of Contents icon.
Tip: To keep the contents view synchronized with the displayed topic, in the contents view toolbar, click the Link with Contents button Link with Contents icon.

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