Introduction

## Information Browser

Everything Understand for C++ knows about a given entity can be learned using the Information Browser. The information is represented via a tree. The tree can be expanded selectively or in bulk.. Each branch of a tree follows a relationship of the entity. Each terminating item (leaf) of a tree corresponds to some information about that entity. As you drill down relationships you can change entities you are learning about. Each time you change entities, that is remembered in the Information Browser history for quick backtracking.

### Drilling Down A Relationship

Drilling down the tree works as expected (mostly). To expand a tree, click on the + sign. To close the tree click on the -sign.

There are a few tricks however....

Right clicking on either a + or - sign in the tree brings up a collapse/expand menu:

If the tree node is currently closed, you will be presented with the option to Open or Open All. If the tree node is currently open, you will be presented with the options to Close, Close All, or Open All.

Open All and Close All will operate on all levels of the selected branch.

To Open or Close all branches, right click in the white space of the Information Browser and choose Open All Branches or Close All Branches.

See Sharing Information Browser Info (Printing and Copying/Pasting for details on the Print and Save As options.

### Drilling Down Efficiently

Certain relationships that you always use can be set to "pre-expand" on loadup. For instance, "+Calls" can be set to always expand. Another mode is for the Information Browser to "remember" how you had a tree expanded the last time you looked at the kind of information. Set these options from the Options->Preferences Dialog, Info Tree tab:

### Sharing Information Browser Info (Printing and Copying/Pasting

Everything shown in the Information Browser can be Printed, Saved as a Text File, or Copied/Pasted as Text information into another application. In a text format, the branches of trees are represented by tab indents.

Printing or Saving - Right click on any whitespace in the Information Browser to get this menu:

Copying/Pasting - Mark text as is standard to your windowing system (Windows or X11). Then right click on the marked area:

### Visiting Source Code

In general, if you double click on an C/C++ entity in an Understand informational browser (Information Browser or Filter Area) then the C++ declaration for the source to that entity will be loaded into the Document Area.

### Right Click Menu Source Visiting

Another way to visit source, this time from any C++ entity you see in the Understand for C++ GUI, is the Right Click Menu. Any C++ entity's Right Click Menu will contain a menu item for visiting each of it's declaration locations (Declaration and Implementation):

### One Click Visiting References

The bottom portion of the Information Browser always contains a list of everywhere the entity is referred to in the analyzed source code:

### Entity History

As you explore your code with Understand for C++ you can go a lot of places very quickly. Often you want to backtrack along your path to explore a new path. To help you do this each Information Browser, Hierarchy, Declaration, and Source window contain a full history of what they have done. The Information Browser history can be found in the bottom left corner:

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