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Overview
This topic provides a brief overview of the AccuRev Desktop UI.
If You Are a New AccuRev User
The AccuRev GUI provides extensive documentation in the form of a context-sensitive help system. This help not only covers the AccuRev GUI, but also provides access to the complete AccuRev documentation set, in both HTML and PDF format. The help can be invoked from the AccuRev Help menu, or from the Help
button on the toolbar, for from the F1 key, anywhere in the AccuRev GUI.
If you click on Help > Help Contents & Manuals, AccuRev opens a browser that includes a navigation pane, containing Contents (TOC), Index, and Search tabs.
If you click on a Help button or the F1 key, or click on the Help menu option for “This Screen”, AccuRev displays context-sensitive help focused on the topic of interest. In this case, the navigation pane is collapsed to save screen space, but it can be displayed by clicking the Show Navigation 
button in the upper-left corner of the display.
Note: Once the Navigation pane has been opened, it cannot be closed, but you can click and drag its right border toward the left and make it almost zero width.
All documentation is provided in both HTML and PDF. Typically you search or browse to the information you need in the HTML. If you decide you want to view the PDF version of the current document, you click the PDF button 
in the upper-right of the Help window.
Also, Windows users have direct access to the PDFs through the Windows Start -> AccuRev menu.
Finally, you can access the on-line help system without starting the AccuRev client by using the following URL: <accurev_install>/doc/WebHelp/AccuRevHelp.htm
How to Configure My Browser?
As browsers have matured, they have often added tighter security requirements with new releases. Since the AccuRev help is based on Javascript, and is accessed from a local file system rather than through a web server, you may need to configure the security settings on your preferred browser to display the help. If the AccuRev help fails to display properly the first time you try to use it, please see Configuring a Web Browser to View Help Topics for more details, and check the Release Notes for any late-breaking changes.
Help Topics for Multiple Features
Most Help buttons within AccuRev go directly to the section of the documentation that addresses the current feature in the GUI. However, there is one situation where the same Help button can appear in different contexts. In this case, you are presented with a choice of topics. Depending on what you are doing in AccuRev, you will want to select:
- General help on the Update command: see Update: Keeping Your Workspace Current
- Help on the Update progress box only: see The Update Progress Box
Note: You may also be directed to these topics if you were was using the include/exclude facility or Populate. The File Browser's include/exclude operations complete their work by performing an Update of the workspace. Populate command does not perform an Update, but uses the same low-level routines to copy files from the repository to the workspace tree.
