Archive for category HelpXplain
Happy Anniversary: Help+Manual is 25 Years Old!
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain on November 14, 2022
Can you believe this? Help+Manual is 25 years old! And we are excited to celebrate this anniversary with you:
25 Years!
25 Days!
25% Discount on all products!
eWriter Viewer v3 for Windows and More…
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain, Software Updates, Utilities on July 14, 2022
We are happy to announce the immediate release of eWriter Viewer Version 3. This is an update to the Windows version, a MacOS version is coming soon.
What’s New in eViewer Version 3?
The updated viewer has a slightly redesigned and even more reduced user interface – it integrates the toolbar into the title bar. The UI supports Windows light mode, dark mode, high-contrast modes and, of course, high-dpi monitors.
Multiple languages: the UI languages English, German, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish are built-in. When you redistribute the viewer for application online help, you can supply a custom language file to match the language of your application. Further customization of the UI is still possible in Help+Manual.
Beneath the surface, pretty much everything is new.
There is a new application design: while the old version created one instance per .ewriter file, version 3.0 creates just one single instance but opens a separate window for each file displayed. This is a huge improvement, because when using the viewer to display application online help, you can close all help files that your application might have opened with one single call – a “/close” parameter.
The viewer also comes with a new command line interface. The old command line interface that you you might be using now is still supported – no changes required. The new command line interface offers additional features and is identical to the MacOS version – we’ll get to that later.
- Redesigned multi-language user interface with 6 languages built-in
- Individual localization possible with custom language file
- Single-instance & multi-window design makes it easier to control the app for displaying application online help
- New command line interface for application online help
- Windows 7 or higher
- 32 and 64 bit executables
- Compatible with all .ewriter books created with Help+Manual and HelpXplain, including old versions
- Customization in Help+Manual (eViewer app menu, app button color, book icon)
- Optional stand-alone EXE help files combining viewer and content
Download
Download the updated Windows eViewer directly from the eWriter website:
https://www.helpandmanual.com/ewriter/
Coming Soon…
We have been working on a MacOS version of the eWriter Viewer and it is getting close to release state. (Please contact support, if you are interested in testing the MacOS beta.)
Please watch this news feed for updates. The timetable for eWriter Viewer is approximately:
- Official eWriter Viewer v3 for MacOS (universal binary for Intel/ARM) in July 2022
- Developer package with redistributable viewers for Windows and MacOS including tester applications (Win/Mac) for the new command line interface. July/August 2022
- Help+Manual v8.5 with the updated Windows viewer and new/modified export options for eWriter files: August 2022
HelpXplain v1.6 Maintenance Update
Posted by Alexander Halser in HelpXplain on February 7, 2022
We are glad to announce the release of HelpXplain 1.6. If your maintenance plan for HelpXplain includes the release date (Feb 7, 2022), this is a free update. The quickest way to find out, is to start HelpXplain and click Help > Check for Update.
HelpXplain 1.6
This maintenance update fixes a couple of small bugs.
- Script errors: Typewriter animations of text were invisible when played again, fade-in animations that were placed on the very first slide and started at 0:00 seconds became invisible in subsequent loops.
- Screen Capture tool: optical glitches fixed in screen capture UI, when Windows UI style was set to “classic” Win2000 style (this causes Windows to switch off Aero and transparent drawing, which parts of the UI have relied on).
- User Interface: optical glitches in UI fixed when Windows UI style was set to “classic” Win2000 style
- Text Objects: on monitors with more than 100% scaling, when Windows UI style was set to “classic” Win2000 style, the text size appeared too small.
- SVG images: bugfix for images with base64-encoded embedded data that was split into junks separated by tab chars (this bug fix is the same as in Help+Manual 8.4.3).
Please download the update and install it over your existing version.
New Help+Manual Full-Service Reseller for Switzerland
Posted by tim green in Documentation Authoring, Help+Manual, HelpXplain, PDF, Technical Writing, Training, Translation, Uncategorized, User Community on November 20, 2021
Naef Learning offers sales combined with training and localized documentation in Switzerland
EC Software is delighted to welcome Naef Learning, our new full-service reseller for the Swiss market. In addition to selling the full range of EC Software products, Naef Learning backs this up with extensive support, training and maintenance services, plus documentation in German.
Services include:
- License sales
- Training, both for team leaders and team members
- Individually customized workshops for best software use
- Support in German, including German documentation
Black Friday Offers in 2021
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain on November 18, 2021
We are happy to announce that this year our Black Friday offers start early on November 19 and will last until November 30! This is 12 days of really big savings for you: We’re offering a 30% discount on all products, upgrades and services.
The promotion starts at midnight on November 18 and applies to:
- New product purchases
- Upgrades from older versions of Help+Manual
- Maintenance extensions for current licenses
- Add-on purchases like Help+Manual Premium Pack
Renew your maintenance now for savings later
Please note that you can renew your maintenance now even if you currently have an active license with valid maintenance. By renewing before expiration, the maintenance extension will simply extend the previous expiration date and save you 30% compared to a purchase after the Black Friday promotion (or more, if you extend for 2 or more years).
Black Friday Promotion New Orders:
Black Friday Promotion Upgrades and Maintenance Renewals:
DeepL machine translation now available free of charge!
Posted by tim green in Documentation Authoring, Help+Manual, HelpXplain, Software Updates, Technical Writing, Translation on June 8, 2021
We’re delighted to announce that DeepL machine translation is now available free of charge in both Help+Manual and HelpXplain. The new free API developer subscription from DeepL allows you to translate up to 500,000 characters per month at no cost. This will almost always be enough for HelpXplain projects, which typically contain very little text, but it will also cover most Help+Manual projects. Read the rest of this entry »
HelpXplain v1.5 Released
Posted by Alexander Halser in HelpXplain on April 15, 2021
We are glad to announce the release of HelpXplain 1.5. If your maintenance plan for HelpXplain includes the release date (Apr 14, 2021), this is a free update. The quickest way to find out, is to start HelpXplain and click Help > Check for Update.
HelpXplain 1.5
We have implemented custom HTML meta tags for easier social-media integration, added new arrange functions for objects and fixed a technical issue with audio files sometimes not playing on iOS Safari.
Plus, the update supports 13 new languages for the DeepL translation tool, including Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Greek, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian and Swedish.
Download
Please download the update and install it over your existing version.
eWriter Viewer Update
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain on December 12, 2020
We have updated the eWriter viewer application to version 2.5.0. The eWriter output format is supported by Help+Manual as well as HelpXplain.
Version 2.5 of the viewer does not have any functional changes, but fixes a problem with a Windows 10 system-wide option, that is rarely active but could be active on your end user’s computers. This option is in Region Settings and is called
Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide languages support
If this option was activate on a Windows 10 computer, the eWriter viewer did not work correctly. Content was incorrectly formatted and images were mostly missing. Viewer version 2.5 fixes this problem.
The update is available for download from our website (link after the picture) and soon in the Windows 10 store. Read the rest of this entry »
Black Friday Offer: 30% Off for all New Purchases and Upgrades
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain on November 25, 2020
We are pleased to announce our Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers for this year: 30% discount on any of our products between Friday November 27th and Monday November 30th.
This promotion applies to:
HelpXplain 1.4 Released
Posted by Alexander Halser in HelpXplain, Software Updates, Uncategorized on October 29, 2020
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we’ve released an updated version of HelpXplain. If your maintenance plan for HelpXplain includes the release date (Oct 29, 2020), this is a free update. The quickest way to find out, is to start HelpXplain and click Help > Check for Update.
HelpXplain 1.4
Version 1.4 comes with 2 new features important for social media sharing. It introduces a setting for custom meta tags. Some users have requested we should add additional social media meta tags (such as a Facebook App_Id). The new meta option enables this and a lot more.
The second new feature is in the Publish dialog: an option to mask the viewport of the Xplain. When an Xplain is embedded in another HTML page, the host page normally restricts the viewport so that the view matches the aspect ratio of the Xplain.
Social media sharing, however, often include direct backlinks to the Xplain HTML page directly. In this case, the Xplain runs in a new window or tab of the browser and the window size hardly ever reflects the aspect ratio of the presentation. As a result, some of the slides might become prematurely visible. The mask viewport option blacks out the browser window area which does not belong to the viewport.
The difference between masked and unmasked viewport explained:
- This is an image slider without masked viewport (opens in a new window)
- Same image slider with masked viewport (opens in a new window)
Other changes and bug fixes in version 1.4:
- The Publish dialog has an option to specify the maximum image size. If you use a lot of high-resolution images, reducing the size will significantly reduce the loading time of the Xplain on the web.
- HTML Editor: some glitches fixed, right-click menu implemented, shapes and callouts with text now automatically introduce a left and right margin.
- Recent files list: extended right-click menu has “Clear all” option
- Save translation file in .xliff format: the save function did not test for source-language compatibility, this has been added.
- Slide option “Stop Autoplay” did not work, if the slide contained an exit animation.
- Improvements in Powerpoint import
- Preview for skin customization: optical glitches fixed
Download
This update is included in your maintenance plan! Please download the update and install it over your existing version.