Help system in VS2012 screwed up?

[Anthony_Richards]

I have Intel Fortran Composer 2015.2.179 installed in VS2012 pro.

I an not a regular user and have not used it for a while and on opening it and hoping to do a Help search for help on some Windows API functions,
I find I can only select Intel Compiler and Libraries help and its search is restricted to Fortran stuff. If I type in 'SendMessage' or any other Windows API function name or Windows resource name I get a null return.

I recall in the past having access to a much wider search ability, so I am wondering if my help system has been screwed up since I installed the latest composer version.

I recall in the past being able to choose the help system before, but that option appears to be missing from the Help menu in VS2012 now.

Please can you update me on how I might be able to merge the Intel Fortran help with the wider API help that typically was available in the old Visual Studio Compaq Visual Fortran Help.

[Les_Neilson]

I think you will find it under the first item on the help dropdown "View Help"

This took me to MSDN where I searched for sendmessage and it took me to the appropriate page.

Les

[Anthony_Richards]

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. The attached screen shot shows what I get when I select Help..view Help.
Notice on the right hand pane the help selection available. I had earlier found the manage content tab and looked down the list and added what I thought might help. I selected Visual C++, but that gives help on class methods of the same name as, for example 'SendMessage' or 'GetDlgItem' rather than help on the straight old Windows API functions with the same name. Do I need to add Windows SDK help? It was not on the list available  in the 'Add remove Content' pane in the 'Manage Content' tab.

[Steven_L_Intel1 · Accepted solution]

You want to select "Windows Desktop App Development" in Add and Remove Content.

[Anthony_Richards]

Thanks, Steve, that certainly gives me access to more of the information that I want and used to get in CVF, although I find using the index tab better than the search tab.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Understood, but Microsoft made it impossible to get that nice merged documentation we had in CVF, not the least because it was unmanageable with the multiple and expanded sources available nowadays.

[JVanB]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the question (as I've been saying today: don't expect 2,2,4-trimethylpentane performance on a heptane kind of day) but can't you just google SendMessage MSDN and usually get the result you want on the first hit? Also you need to open the appropriate file from the %INCLUDE% directory (in this case it would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Composer XE 2015\compiler\include\user32.f90) to be sure of the way ifwin will declare the interface.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Yes, one can certainly look these up on MSDN, and I prefer to do that, but it's sometimes nice to have the content local and find it in the help viewer.  You are also correct that it is worth looking up the interface in the appropriate module source to see how the C declaration was adapted for Fortran, as sometimes you have to pass LOC(argument).