Help+Manual News

Premium Pack 5.2.2 for SnipSVG 2.0

We have just released a small update to Premium Pack 5 that basically just adds compatibility with the new SnipSVG 2.0. All the skins in the Premium Pack now support the new animated SVGs and SVGs with embedded web video created by SnipSVG 2.0. There are just a couple of other small fixes.

How to get the update:

You can download and install the update with the link and credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have these, just contact support by email and we will help you out.

Changes in 5.2.2

  • SVG support:
    Adds support for the animated SVG files and SVG files with embedded videos that can be created with SnipSVG version 2.0 and above.
  • Videos with captions in lightbox mode:
    To comply with accessibility standards, Help+Manual now includes a <figure> tag around the video placeholder image. This prevented videos with captions from being displayed correctly in lightbox mode, which has now been corrected.
  • Link errors in V2 Modern skins:
    Some V2 Modern skins included debug code that displayed an alert when any link was clicked in a topic page.
  • Social sharing link:
    In individual skins, the social sharing link window opened could close instantly if it was opened a second time in a new topic.

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SnipSVG 2.0 Released

We are happy to announce the first major update of our freeware image editor SnipSVG!

This version 2.0 is really a big update, here are the new features at a glance:

  • Animations: create animated SVG images with SnipSVG
  • New objects: text tables, curved text, web videos
  • Create custom shapes by combining shapes
  • Updated screen capture with window-sizer

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Two build updates with two bug fixes

Help+Manual 9.7.0 Build 6883

  • The updated HTML export in v9.7 caused a problem with pre-formatted source code examples. This has been addressed with an updated CSS stylesheet.
  • SNIPX command line converter 2.0 for animated SVGs included

Help+Manual Translation Assistant 9.7.0 Build 622

  • A DeepL error message in combination with bulk translations was not correctly displayed.

All updates are available from our download page.

More detailed information on the recent v9.7 update.

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eWriter Viewer v5.3.1 Update

This is a maintenance update for the eWriter Viewer 5 with support for Microsoft Edge.

Changes in Version 5.3.1

eViewer for Windows (32/64 bit)

  • One small fix for the Webview2 (Microsoft Edge) version.

Download of all packages:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/ewriter/

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Help+Manual 9.7 and Translation Assistant 9.7 with new DeepL-API

We are glad to announce the immediate availability of Help+Manual 9.7 and an updated Translation Assistant. This is in fact quite a large update, although most of the changes remain mostly “invisible”.

The most important change concerns the DeepL translation plugin and the DeepL bulk translation function in the Translation Assistant. Both applications have switched to the latest version of the DeepL translation API.

In order to keep working with the DeepL translation plugin, you must update to Help+Manual 9.7 and Translation Assistant 9.7. DeepL will soon retire their old translation API.

Help+Manual 9.7 Changes

  • DeepL: new API implemented.
  • DeepL: new option included to change from “non-splitting-tags” to explicit “splitting-tags”.
  • DeepL: the editor for API glossaries now shows line numbers. If there are any duplicates in the list, it jumps to the corresponding line number.
  • DeepL: protected word lists and API glossaries are saved as UTF-8 text when exported within the dialog box.
  • DeepL: translating single TOC entries included a line break in the translation, which created problems when building breadcrumb tags for the HTML output, because the line break was preserved in the breadcrumb tag.
  • SnipSVG images: when using the native .SnipX format in Help+Manual, these images are translated into SVG images in the HTML output and are implemented with an <object> tag. Embedding SVGs with an  <object> tag is mandatory to for interactive SVG files. The converter has been updated to version 2.0 in order to support animated SVG files created by the (upcoming) SnipSVG 2.0.
  • Equations: the entry box for the equation how has a vertical scrollbar for extra long equations. When inserting a new equation, the initial dummy text “a = x + y” is highlighted and the edit control is active, so the user can start typing right away.
  • Equations: improved vertical placement in HTML, both when exported as inline SVG and PNG. The inline SVG has been upscaled to a multiplier of 8 instead of 4, resulting in smoother curves.
  • Markdown Snippets and Load-topic-from-Markdown: Markdown headings are now auto-imported as anchors, the anchor ID is built according to the Microsoft standard for Github. (Markdown does not have anchors as we know them from HTML, but some Markdown interpreters consider headings as valid anchors, with an auto-converted ID.) With this change, it is now possible to deep-link into the content of Markdown snippets.
  • Insert Anchor dialog: the dialog box is now sizeable.
  • The WEBP library ECLibWebp.dll is loaded dynamically. This speeds up the start of H&M, because the DLL is loaded on demand only (when the first webp image needs to be decoded).
  • eViewer 5.3 included.
  • Project Report: includes help context numbers of master/child projects.
  • HTML Export: videos – including web videos like youtube – always contained an outer div with the class name <div class=”video-lightbox” …>. Inline videos did not have a class name. Change: inline videos now have <div class=”video-inline” …> and both have an additional HTML class “flexwidthXXX”.
  • HTML Export: if a Youtube video specified a poster image, but the image file was missing, this caused a silent error.
  • HTML Export / ARIA: to improve accessibility, manually bold formatted text is exported with a <strong> tag (instead of <span>), manually italic formatted text is exported with an <em> tag instead of <span>. You will not see any differerence in the HTML output, but these tags are interpreted differently by screen readers.
  • HTML Export (CHM only): for YouTube and Vimeo web videos, Help+Manual does not use lightboxes anymore, but redirects to an external browser window. This was already the case for Prezi presentations. All of them, YouTube, Vimeo and Prezi have given up support for Internet Explorer (the display engine in CHMs). To prevent inevitable Javascript errors with web videos, the CHM file opens a new window in the default web browser to run the video.
  • PDF export: when exporting SVG images as PNG (because they include drawing commands, which cannot be translated to PDF), the SVG image is rendered larger than displayed to get a better PNG quality. This might increase the PDF size in some cases.
  • PDF export: if the very last page (back cover) of a manual template contained a PDF snippet, the PDF export failed with an error.

Help+Manual Translation Assistant 9.7 Changes

  • DeepL: new API implemented.
  • DeepL: new option included to change from “non-splitting-tags” to explicit “splitting-tags”.
  • DeepL: the editor for API glossaries now shows line numbers. If there are any duplicates in the list, it jumps to the corresponding line number.
  • DeepL: protected word lists and API glossaries are saved as UTF-8 text when exported within the dialog box.
  • Topic editor: improved mouse-hints for inline text toggles.
  • Image hotspot editor: asks to save changes, if the dialog is canceled after changes have been made.

 

All updates are available from our download page.

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Season Greetings

It’s this time of the year again. We wish all our users a Merry Christmas and a peaceful holiday season! Whether you celebrate it with your family, with friends, just by yourself or not at all, enjoy the days.

And just in case you still need an idea for a last minute gift: how about giving away free software?

SnipSVG, our free image editor and screen capture tool for Windows and Mac is the perfect giveaway: just buy a small USB stick and install SnipSVG in portable mode, directly on the thumb drive. Wrap it nicely and give it to someone who you love and who loves being creative.

Our Christmas card this year comes as an SVG file. Created with SnipSVG, of course. What else?

Albeit this one was created with the very latest internal version, which already has a couple of new features. For instance, we find it kind of cool to embed web videos into screenshots, especially when the screenshot is a single self-contained SVG file. So, if you wonder if this “play” button in the image below is clickable, just give it a try 🙂 Enjoy!

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eWriter Viewer v5.3 Update

This is a maintenance update for the eWriter Viewer 5 with support for Microsoft Edge.

Changes in Version 5.3

eViewer for Windows (32/64 bit)

  • Bug fix for configuration storage: in some cases, the eViewer did not store the last user settings. As a result, it always started with default size and position.

Download of all packages:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/ewriter/

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Help+Manual (Beta) – DeepL Translation Plugin with New Option

Are you using the DeepL translation plugin with Help+Manual and have you ever experienced a translation glitch like this?

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SnipSVG Version 1.5 for Windows and macOS

SnipSVG 1.5 comes with a new set of shapes: all the typical shapes required to create a flowchart. This is a first step towards making SnipSVG a versatile flowcharting tool. There’s more to come in a later version.

However, most of the work for the v1.5 update went into the macOS version. We not only fixed bugs, but made it ready for macOS 15.1 Sequoia.

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HelpXplain Maintenance Update: Build 1854

We have updated HelpXplain to version 1.8.4 build 1854. This update does not introduce any new functionality, but fixes a problem with text objects sometimes being cut off at the bottom. If you face this problem with existing Xplain files, please re-apply the font size for the text objects affected by this problem.

Furthermore, this update handles two occasional error messages better. One error has been fixed, the second is being properly reported.

All updates are available from our download page.

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