eWriter Viewer v5.2 Update
Posted by Alexander Halser on September 12, 2024
This is a maintenance update for the eWriter Viewer 5 with support for Microsoft Edge.
Changes in Version 5.2
eViewer for Windows (32/64 bit)
- Start problems fixed: when started without a help file, the viewer sometimes did not start at all
- HTML dark mode for Internet Explorer implemented (the Microsoft Edge display engine does support dark mode anyway). For details, see the documentation in the developer distribution package.
Download of all packages:
SnipSVG and HelpXplain Maintenance Update
Posted by Alexander Halser on August 16, 2024
We are glad to announce the immediate availability of SnipSVG 1.4 and an updated version of HelpXplain 1.8.4.
SnipSVG 1.4
- Paste from clipboard: additional support for SVG data implemented. SnipSVG understands the ‘image/svg+xml’ format as well as plain text. If clipboard contains regular text starting with “<svg”, SnipSVG attempts to insert the SVG data as image.
- Insert SVG icon: problem with initial size calculation fixed (width and height always preferred the viewbox attribute)
- Favorites button: this button is now always enabled. When empty, it shows an info text with a link to the corresponding help topic.
- F1 help: more detailed context-sensitive help when pressing F1
- Formatting text: when applying a text format to a partially selected text, the caret sometimes vanished.
HelpXplain 1.8.4
- Creating screencasts: the layout and options dialog for screencasts includes a new option: Enlarge cursor icon. The cursor symbol of screencasts recorded on displays with high resolution (Windows scaling > 100%) had a different size than in screencasts recorded at scaling 100%.
- Paste text from clipboard: if the text on the clipboard contained HTML tags (brackets), the special characters were not escaped.
- Formatting text: if the text contained literal HTML code (e.g. “<b>Text</b>”), the content was taken as raw code, resulting in the removel of the brackets.
- Insert SVG icon: problem with initial size calculation fixed (width and height always preferred the viewbox attribute)
All updates are available from our download page.
eWriter Viewer v5.1 with Microsoft Edge
Posted by Alexander Halser on August 2, 2024
We officially released eWriter Viewer version 5 with full support for Microsoft Edge (Windows version).
Changes in Version 5
eViewer for macOS
- Accessibility improvements and better support for screen readers and macOS VoiceOver.
eViewer for Windows (32/64 bit)
- Accessibility improvements and better support for screen readers
- Supports Microsoft Edge as display engine, with a silent fallback to MS Internet Explorer if the Edge runtime is not available
- Compared to the beta version released in April, the Edge display engine is now significantly faster and supports custom context menus.
- Update v5.1 (Aug 7, 24): with MS Edge, external file links did not work when they were executed from an <iframe>. This was the case with external file links were included in ebooks compiled with standard skins.
Download of all packages:
Fast-Help Converter Updated to Version 1.4
Posted by Alexander Halser on July 24, 2024
This is good news for our growing Fast-Help user community: we have updated the converter application for Fast-Help databases!
Download:
https://www.helpandmanual.com/fasthelp/
Version 1.4 fixes several conversion issues, in particular with Fast-Help projects created (or started) with old versions of Fast-Help. The update solves missing images, missing tables and errors when converting CHM text popups.
SnipSVG and HelpXplain Updated
Posted by Alexander Halser on May 14, 2024
We are glad to announce the immediate availability of SnipSVG 1.3 and an updated version of HelpXplain.
SnipSVG got new object alignment functions (similar to HelpXplain, which already had them for quite a while) and both apps implement improved clipboard handling: when copying images to the clipboard, some programs (Microsoft Outlook, for instance) do not place the actual image on the clipboard, but a HTML fragment with an embedded picture. Both, SnipSVG and HelpXplain can now read and paste this format.
In SnipSVG, we have implemented a list of default sizes for social media postings. This app is ideal to create this kind of images, but you had to know the typical sizes by heart. The new helper function sets the picture frame to a dedicated size, so that your social media postings look perfect.
As a result of a dedicated picture frame size, we realized that it would be a good idea to implement object alignment functions. Normally, you move objects around and resize them as you like, then simply auto-size the picture frame. For a dedicated frame size, however, it is helpful to have the reverse option and move/resize objects to the picture frame. The six new arrangement options are implemented in the Edit > Arrange menu.
SnipSVG 1.3
- Can paste images from clipboard in HTML format
- Share to clipboard as PNG: if the picture had a transparent background, the PNG image on the clipboard was misinterpreted by some programs (resulting in a black background, not transparent)
- Share to HTML/RTF: when sharing an image with numbering tags, the numbering table used wrong symbols for tags > 10.
- Default sizes for social media postings implemented next to the picture width/height settings.
- Object alignment functions added in Edit > Arrange.
HelpXplain 1.8.3
- Can paste images from clipboard in HTML format
- (Object alignment functions were already implemented in earlier versions)
All updates are available from our download page.
Maintenance Updates in May
Posted by Alexander Halser on May 6, 2024
We are glad to announce the immediate availability of Help+Manual 9.5 and an updated Translation Assistant.
Help+Manual 9.5 comes with OCR
Reminder: Google Analytics switches off “UA” version
Posted by Alexander Halser on April 30, 2024
On July 1, 2024, Google Analytics 4 will have fully replaced the old “Universal Analytics”.
From that date, Google will begin turning off all Universal Analytics services and Universal Analytics APIs, which means Universal Analytics properties will be inaccessible through the Google Analytics front-end and APIs.
If you are using Google Analytics in Help+Manual’s and haven’t migrated to Google Analytics 4, it’s time for a change, because the old version will stop working on July 1. Read the rest of this entry »
BETA: eWriter Viewer v5 with Microsoft Edge
Posted by Alexander Halser on April 25, 2024
Many of you have been waiting for this, some asked for it. Here you go:
eWriter Viewer v5 with support for Microsoft Edge
This is a beta version! We ask you do download and try the redistributable package and report back any problems you might find.
Download:
https://www.helpandmanual.com/download/eviewer-v5-developer-redist.zip (beta)
Fast-Help Converter Released
Posted by Alexander Halser on April 2, 2024
In our effort to support the FastHelp user community and provide a smooth transition from FastHelp to Help+Manual, we have released a converter application for FastHelp.
The converter takes a FastHelp database and fully converts it into a Help+Manual project. The software retains all details including topics with conditional text, variables, links, images, hotspots, etc.
FastHelp to Help+Manual Converter
SnipSVG 1.2 Update
Posted by Alexander Halser on March 26, 2024
We are glad to announce the second update of SnipSVG, our new free screen capture and image editing tool for Windows and macOS!
SnipSVG uses SVG vector images as its primary format. SVG images can be used directly in HTML and many other applications. They give you the same sharp quality at all zoom settings, and unlike JPG or PNG images you can always edit all the elements of the image separately.
Changes in Version 1.2
- Picture crop: Border trim function implemented. The border trim crops an image by a fixed amount of pixels. This function is particularly useful to remove the visible 1-pixel border from Windows 11 screenshots. Windows 11 displays borders with a translucent color, so that the window background may shine through, resulting an a thin border line with mixed colors.
- File menu: the Close command got a keyboard shortcut – CTRL+W. This shortcut closes the current tab. To quickly close the current tab without being asked to save the changes, you can use the keyboard shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+W.
- Bugfix in Save-to-SVG: the plain text version of text objects and shapes with text exported the wrong text color. It had written the color code as “BGR” instead of “RGB” and this has affected all text that was not black, white or green.
Download
Please download SnipSVG from the SnipSVG homepage.