Archive for category Skins
Premium Pack 4.0.3 Maintenance Update
Posted by tim green in Browsers, CHM HTML Help, Documentation Authoring, Skins, Software Updates, Utilities on March 23, 2020
We have just updated Premium Pack 4 to version 4.0.3. This now includes the promised V4 Modern Standard set of skins, which are similar to Modern Flexible but with a more basic appearance and functionality. In addition to this it tidies up some color variables and style settings and corrects a couple of small issues reported by users.
How to get the Premium Pack update
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase if you do not yet have it.
Skin Updates
- New skin category: The V4 Modern Standard skin category is now included. This is a simple, functional layout similar to Modern Flexible, but without width restriction (always full width), with simple drop-down user-configurable menus in the page header.
- General: Minor corrections in color variables and layout.
- Modern Compact skins: New settings in Skin Options to disable the logo and link buttons.
- Flexible and Magazine skins: The MAX_PAGEWIDTH variable in the General Settings variables section now accepts both pixel (px) and percent (%) values for setting the maximum width of the help in the browser window.
- Magazine skins: Improvement to drop-down menu behavior in phone mode (opening one submenu now closes any other submenu to save space, as in the other skins).
- Flexible skins: Feature images did not move up with the page header in phone mode when hiding the page header, leaving a gap.
- V3 eWriter skins: An error caused a delay on opening WebHelp, during which context calls to the skin would fail.
- V3 eWriter skins: The Minimalist Standard skin included some double variable references that prevented saving changes.
Toolbox utility
- New program icon
- New language files for Dutch for V4 skins
- Minor bug fixes
Help+Manual 8.0.2 Maintenance Update
Posted by Alexander Halser in Skins, Software Updates, Translation on March 21, 2020
This is an important maintenance update, strongly recommended for all users of version 8!
Data Loss with Topic Status Change
Version 8.0.2 fixes a bug related to topic-status changes that can cause data loss: if the topic status was changed for multiple topics at once, those topics that have been edited before (and were yet not saved) lost their content.
This bug also triggered a problem with the table of contents, a warning appeared that the table of contents could not be stored.
Please, download and install v8.0.2 over your existing installation of Help+Manual 8.
New Features and bug fixes
- eWriter eBooks: several small fixes to the eBook viewer – initial browser zoom on high-dpi monitors, viewer app button was sometimes too large, app button color highlight did not always revert to normal.
- Images in nested tables: were displayed at the wrong size if editor zoom was > 100% and the user switched between editing the outer topic and the first table. This bug was a cosmetic issue only.
- Publishing tasks: after publishing a task, the click to show the compiler log created an error. Wrong caption in publishing tasks dialog (Delete selected item was named Add Task Action).
- Image toggles inside table cells, with a fixed image size and without caption, did not scale with Premium Pack skins when the text size changed by the user
- Link lists: when chapters without text and regular topics were mixed in a list, the text-only-chapters did point to the previous topic
- HelpXplain export: umlauts in tooltips of poster image had wrong encoding
- DeepL translation plugin: Japanese and Chinese Simplified are now supported
Update Build 5475 (March 29)
- Design-time comments: when a comment was displayed as an icon only, it could not easily be double-clicked for editing. Double-click editing for icon-only comments has been improved.
- Bug fix for the customize-bullet-list dialog
- Error message “Invalid characters in path” fixed
Download
Help+Manual 8.0.2 is available from our download page:
Premium Pack 3.50 Maintenance Update
Posted by tim green in Browsers, Documentation Authoring, Scripting, Skins, Software Updates, Utilities, WebHelp on January 20, 2020
This update adds some significant improvements to Google Analytics configuration and handling to the V3 WebHelp skins. It also includes some other small improvements and fixes in the V3 WebHelp skins and the Toolbox utility.
How to get the Premium Pack update
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase if you do not yet have it.
V3 WebHelp Skins
- Google Analytics updated from the older gat.js system to the new analytics.js system. This should be more reliable. In addition to this you can now configure inclusion of the WebHelp path, named trackers and the titles of the search and keyword index events in your Google Analytics console. See Google Analytics in the V3 WebHelp skins chapter.
- No Server Mode: Demo links in the header menus failed in some browsers because they used the shorthand // protocol instead of http:// or https://. Browsers have become stricter about resolving links using the shorthand protocol reference since this feature was created.
- No Server Mode: Anchor links in the TOC and keyword index failed as an unintended result of another change in recent updates.
- Permalink tool: The “:” colon character for the port reference was included even when the port was the standard port 80 and was not referenced. This was also caused by a change in browser behavior.
- Smartphone mode: Tables tagged with the phone CSS class were hidden in phone mode because of changes in HM HTML output for tables. This is related to CSS for the X-Tables function that was then applied to other tables.
- X-Tables function: Expanding rows lacked borders in some X-Tables in phone mode. This was also related to changes in Help+Manual HTML output for tables.
Toolbox utility
- Baggage Files — Add File: After adding a Baggage File the column headers of the Baggage Files list were sometimes updated incorrectly.
- Baggage Files — Export File: On some systems the prompt to save the baggage file could appear multiple times when exporting a baggage file.
Premium Pack 3.49 Maintenance Update
Posted by tim green in Documentation Authoring, Scripting, Skins, Software Updates, Utilities, WebHelp on November 29, 2019
We have just released a minor update of the Premium Pack with the improvements and fixes listed below.
How to Get the Premium Pack Update:
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase if you do not yet have it.
V3 Skins (WebHelp and eWriter versions)
- Search highlighting: When the topic already containing search highlighting was selected in the search results after a new search the original highlighting was not removed.
- Google Analytics: Occasionally it was possible for the first topic visited to be tracked twice.
- Google Analytics: Ghostery and other similarly aggressive tracking blockers will no longer cause a critical error in WebHelp. These blockers simply kill the tracking function within the Google script instead of actually blocking the outgoing tracking calls, and this disruption of the script needs to be caught so that it does not terminate all other scripts on the page as well.
- Image toggles: In response to many requests, image toggles are now closed by clicking outside the image in desktop mode. Tablet and phone modes remain unchanged.
- Search results: Breadcrumb trail was not displayed in the header of a topic opened from search results (side-effect of a previous search update).
- Anchor links: Anchor links sometimes did not scroll to the target anchor on internal topic links (side-effect of previous search update).
- TOC: If the last item in the sibling chapter before the current chapter was a sub-chapter clicking the Top button would highlight that sub-chapter instead of the actual parent chapter.
- Android devices: Small script error in some pages corrected. This probably had no effect on performance and only showed up as a JS console message.
- EWriter skins: Removed Android and Google Analytics code that didn’t do anything.
Toolbox utility
- Open new project: The current project will now only be closed if you actually open another project. If you cancel, the current project remains open.
- Save Project button: The save project button now turns green when active for better visibility.
Premium Pack 3.48 Maintenance Update
Posted by tim green in CHM HTML Help, Skins, Software Updates, Uncategorized on October 11, 2019
We have just released a very minor update of the Premium Pack with the following small improvements and fixes. You only need to update your skins if any of the following things are important to you.
How to Get the Premium Pack Update:
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase if you do not yet have it.
V3 Skins (WebHelp and eWriter versions)
- Tooltips in ATOC menu: The ATOC_TIP variable was not set to HTML and as a result the entity was displayed as code in the tooltips instead of as a space.
- Disabling the ATOC: The ATOC_SHOW variable for disabling the ATOC was not connected and had no effect. This was never noticed because the ATOC menu is automatically hidden if there are no corresponding links in the current topic.
- Top navigation button: In some configurations clicking or tapping on the Top topic navigation button would not jump to the correct higher-level topic.
CHM skins
- Topic header components: Improved scaling on modern. high-resolution monitors and Windows devices.
- Drop-down menu components: Improved scaling on modern. high-resolution monitors and Windows devices.
- Topic header title text color: New variable (HD_TEXTCOLOR in the Header Components group) setting the topic header title color in the skin. This eliminates the need to set the color correctly in the Help+Manual project.
Toolbox utility
- Close project warning: If you open a new project or skin while one is already open a warning is now only displayed if the current project contains unsaved edits. This makes switching to a new project or skin faster.
Premium Pack 3.47 Maintenance Update
Posted by tim green in Browsers, Documentation Authoring, Scripting, Skins, Software Updates, WebHelp on April 18, 2019
We are happy to announce the release of version 3.47 of the Help+Manual Premium Pack add-on. This is a minor maintenance update. It includes fixes for the issues described below in the V3 skins and the Toolbox utility. All other skins remain unchanged.
How to Get the Premium Pack Update:
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase.
V3 WebHelp and eWriter Skins
- Anchors with keywords: Selecting anchors with keywords in the keyword index caused a JavaScript error and did not open a toggle associated with the anchor. This was a side-effect of the Google Analytics query feature added in 3.46.
- Non-server mode: The optional q=search+term addition to the URL for Google Analytics for search and keyword index clicks added in 3.46 is now automatically disabled when V3 WebHelp is accessed without a web server. This caused errors in non-server mode and cannot be used there anyway.
- Non-server mode: In some cases the use of a file name other than index.html for the main WebHelp file caused errors when viewing V3 WebHelp without a web server. This has been corrected, but use of index.html is still strongly recommended.
- Search highlighting: In some configurations search terms were not correctly highlighted in the found topic pages.
- Popups: Popups can now also be closed with the ESC key.
- Popups: The title font from the popup title bar is no longer applied to the entire popup (the main font from the project is used).
- Popups: Automatic positioning and sizing of popups have been improved.
- Port reference in permalinks: The port reference is now included in permalinks if the web server is not running on the standard port 80.
Toolbox Utility
- Editing warnings: Additional checks and warnings have been implemented to help prevent simultaneous editing of skins and projects in Help+Manual and Toolbox.
- Non-active options: The program would exit if the user tried to activate a non-active option without first setting a value for the option (e.g. in HTML Options or Project Options).
- Add Build Option: The Add Build Option tool in the Edit menu was not active in projects that did not yet have any build options defined.
- Delete user-defined variable: Deleting the last user-defined variable in a skin or project did not refresh the variables list and the deleted variable was still displayed.
Premium Pack 3.46 Maintenance update
Posted by tim green in Browsers, CHM HTML Help, Documentation Authoring, Scripting, Skins, Software Updates on December 12, 2018
Version 3.46 of the Help+Manual Premium Pack add-on is a general maintenance update including fixes for minor issues and some fine-tuning improvements.
How to Get the Premium Pack Update:
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase.
Toolbox utility
- The Normalize Styles tool failed to identify some styles as paragraph styles and incorrectly reported that the style could not be found. The affected styles were styles based on other styles without explicit paragraph attributes of their own.
- Some HM projects converted from Help+Manual 4 would cause Toolbox to crash and close when they were opened.
- The Add/Remove Topic ID Prefixes function failed without completing on some projects with an unusual combination of settings.
- The Rename Variable function didn’t update the display of the new variable name in some projects.
V3 WebHelp Skins
- In the layout tables function the style name for identifying layout tables has been changed from layout-table to layout_table. This was necessary because you need to define a project style for this and Help+Manual no longer permits the definition of style names with dashes in the project stylesheet. Old projects using the hyphenated style name will still work; you just can’t create new styles with hyphens. The tap images function is not affected because the style for that does not need to be defined in Help+Manual.
- Focus is now automatically set to the search input field in the Search pane whenever it is displayed.
- User-defined menus in the page header would sometimes extend beyond the edge of the page.
- If you are using Google Analytics, topic pages opened from search results or the keyword index will now include the search text or index keyword in the tracking reference. For example, if the user searched for red widgets or used the red widgets index keyword and clicked on the Introduction topic the tracking reference will be introduction.html?q=red+widgets (?q= is the standard reference for search terms in GA). You can turn this off with the new URL_QTRACKER configuration variable.
- If you are using a non-standard port (anything except port 80) for your web server the permalink function will now include the port reference in the permalink to prevent the URL from being invalid.
V3 eWriter Skins
- Focus is now automatically set to the search input field in the Search pane whenever it is displayed.
- User-defined menus in the page header would sometimes extend beyond the edge of the page.
V2 Webhelp/eWriter skins
- Focus is now automatically set to the search input field in the Search pane whenever it is displayed.
- The Open topic in a new tab function displayed an incorrect message that the topic is already open in a new tab on some touchscreen Windows devices (MS Surface and similar).
Premium Pack 3.45 Update
Version 3.45 of the Help+Manual Premium Pack add-on adds a new set of V3 WebHelp and EWriter skins using the popular Samurai Red color theme and corrects some minor issues.
How to Get the Premium Pack Update:
You can download and install the updated version with the credentials you received when you purchased. If you no longer have this please contact support@ec-software.com and we will help you out. See the Premium Pack product page for more details on Premium Pack 3 and visit our online store to purchase.
New Samurai Red Skins
[showhide type=”newskins” more_text=”Click for details” less_text=”Click to hide”]
The Samurai Red color scheme in the older V2 skins was so popular that many users have asked to have a version of it in the new V3 skins. We have now complied and provided a total of six new V3 Samurai Red skins, with Boxed, Flat and Minimalist versions for both WebHelp and EWriter. Matching tablet and phone modes are included in all three WebHelp skin variants, of course.
[/showhide]
Changes and Fixes
[showhide type=”updated” more_text=”Click for details” less_text=”Click to hide”]
- V3 skins: The social sharing option did not always disable in phone mode when it was turned off.
- V3 skins: A change in the Safari browser on Mac computers prevented V3 WebHelp from working correctly in local mode without a web server.
- V3 skins: If the topic title contained an ampersand character (&) it was displayed as & in the browser tab title.
- V3 skins: In embedded/field-level topics and popups a dummy page title text was sometimes visible briefly on slower servers.
- V2 skins: Web links to secure pages (https) did not automatically open in a new tab when this was configured. This now works correctly for links starting with http://, https:// and //.
- V2 skins: If the topic title contained an ampersand character (&) it was displayed as & in the tooltip for the internal topic tabs in the page.
[/showhide]
More information
See the Premium Pack information page for general details and purchase information and the Premium Pack web-based documentation for full instructions.