When you activate the browser, the CodeWarrior IDE compilers generate a database of information about your code. This database includes data not only about your code, but also about the relationships between various parts of your code, such as inheritance hierarchies.

The browser is a user interface that allows you to sort and sift through this information in ways that suit your needs.

Like any good database access program, the browser does not dictate how you should look at your information. It gives you a variety of tools to suit your working style.

There are three principal ways of looking at the information available to you in the browser:

• Contents View-a comprehensive view of all data
• Browser View-a class-based view
• Hierarchy View-an inheritance-based view

The browser also implements instant access to information. By right-clicking (Windows) or clicking and holding the mouse (Mac OS, Solaris, and Linux) on any symbol for which there is information in the database, you get instant access to related source code. "Browser Contextual Menu" discusses this feature.

In addition, the browser lets you decide the scope of the view. You can look at data in all your classes, or you may wish to focus on one class.

Within the browser and hierarchy views, you can look at multiple classes or single classes. Table 7.1 summarizes the various major choices you have when using the browser.

Viewing Style	Wide Focus	Narrow Focus
comprehensive	contents	not applicable
inheritance-based	multi-class hierarchy	single-class hierarchy

The browser-related menu commands in the Window Menu-Browser Contents, Class Hierarchy, and Class Browser-display wide-focus views. Once you have the wide view, you can focus on a particular class.

No matter what viewing style or focus you happen to be in at any given moment, the browser has simple and intuitive mechanisms for switching to another kind of view.