The Help window is useful as it is connected to many of the features on the COMSOL Desktop. This concept is called topic-based help or context help. You can also search all the HTML documentation content from this window.
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The Help system automatically starts a web server using port 8090 on the computer where COMSOL is installed. Depending on the security settings, you might get a question to allow that port to be used the first time the help system is started.
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To learn more about a node in the Model Builder, or a window on the Desktop, click to highlight a node or window, then press F1. The Help window opens and displays the topic information about the selected feature.
There are several ways to open the Help window:
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To display topic-based (context) information in the Help window, on the COMSOL Desktop:
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For Windows users, hover over toolbar buttons to display a tooltip. At the same time you can press F1 to display more detail. This is only applicable to buttons, not submenus.
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On the Documentation window, enter Search terms in the field and choose the Search scope — All documents, Selected only, or Application library.
See Searching Help and Documentation Content for more information about search terms you can use.
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On the Help window, click the Sticky Help button to lock the current help window (the icon is highlighted
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Locate the Format area and choose Integrated (the default) from the Help mode list to show the help contents in the Help window that is integrated in the COMSOL Desktop environment, or select Web browser to display the help contents in a separate browser. For the integrated mode, the PDF-file target setting controls what happens when you click a PDF link in the Documentation window. Choose In place to display PDF documents inside the Documentation window or New window to launch them in the default system web browser. If you select the Preload help files check box, help system initialization will start in the background when the COMSOL Desktop opens. Try this setting if you experience a delay the first time you access help in a COMSOL session.
In the Source area, set the Location to Local to display help using locally installed help files or to Online to access help from the COMSOL web site. For the Local option, edit the Documentation root directory file path as required. The default file paths are based on the platform:
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For Mac and Linux, under the main COMSOL Multiphysics installation directory: COMSOL52a/Multiphysics/doc.
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If you connect to the internet through a web proxy, you can use the controls in the Proxy server settings area to specify the proxy server settings to use when communicating with the COMSOL website for displaying online help in integrated mode as well as for performing updates of the COMSOL Application Library and the COMSOL Part Library (see The Application Library Update Window and The Part Library Update Window for further details about these services).
The Configuration list has the following options:
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In the General section of the Preferences dialog, under Web browser (Windows and Linux only), you can choose which browser the COMSOL software should use to show pages on the COMSOL website and help contents when using the web browser help mode. The following settings are available:
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On Windows: Choose the Program setting System default to use the default system web browser. Alternatively, choose Custom and then give the path to an Executable location for a different browser installed on your computer.
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On Linux: Type the path to the web browser directly in the Executable field, or click the Browse button and then point to the executable file on the file system.
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