Archive for category Software Updates
Help+Manual 8 Build 5452 Update
Posted by Alexander Halser in Software Updates on February 15, 2020
We have updated the initial release from Feb 9 to build 5452. This is a small maintenance update that fixes a couple of minor problems that customers have reported since the initial release of version 8.
- The eWriter Viewer app is now included in the distribution of Help+Manual, no separate installation required
- Bugfix toggle images: left/right aligned toggle images without image caption were not correctly positioned in Webhelp
- Bugfix PDF: some OLE objects could have caused an error during PDF export
- Optical glitch with text conditions on high-res monitors fixed
- New setting in Program Options to manually specify the link to HelpXplain
- Batch compilations: extra message about maintenance removed, task bar button removed
- Extra task bar button on Windows 7 removed
- Webhelp export: the full-text indexer did also index HelpXplain presentations, because they are separate HTML pages. Xplains are now excluded from indexing, because they are always hosted by a topic page and should not be displayed as stand-alone pages.
- When a help project was opened from Windows Explorer (double-click) and the last edited topic (which is automatically displayed, when the project opens) was extremely long, an error prevented Help+Manual from starting.
- Right-aligned images in table cells sometimes caused a miscalculation of the right cell margin
- Print/PDF problems with equation objects fixed, the debug function to highlight links did highlight dead links in green (should be red).
- Link lists: variables in link captions are now resolved
- Amazon Kindle export did not work
- ePUB/Kindle export: magnification lens for image toggles has been removed for these two output formats. The support for image overlays is too weak by many ebook readers.
Download
If you have an older version of Help+Manual installed, you can use the update side by side with an existing installation. Help+Manual 8 is available from our download page:
https://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html
Upgrades and Special Upgrade Bundles
We offer several upgrade bundles with discounts of more than 40%! The super discounts will be available until the end of February. So, there enough time to try out the new release.
Help+Manual 8 Released
Posted by Alexander Halser in Software Updates on February 9, 2020
We are glad to announce the immediate availability of Help+Manual 8, a long awaited new major release with tons of new features. Along with Help+Manual 8 goes the updated Premium Pack 4 add-on with new Webhelp and magazine-style skins.
New features at a glance
- New plugin system (PDF Review, Machine Translation)
- Floating server licenses with checkout
- Animated screencasts and new screen capture tool
- Native formula editor and new symbol dialog
- PDF: Rotated print, table of figures, HelpXplain print options
- User interface, editing and formatting
- Premium Pack v4 Update
- Explore the new features in detail
Download
If you have an older version of Help+Manual installed, you can use the update side by side with an existing installation. Help+Manual 8 is available from our download page:
https://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html
Upgrades and Special Upgrade Bundles
We offer several upgrade bundles with discounts of more than 40%! The super discounts will be available until the end of February. So, there enough time to try out the new release.
https://www.helpandmanual.com/order.html?promotion=upgrade
Coming soon: New Screen Capture Tool
Posted by Alexander Halser in Documentation Authoring, Software Updates, Utilities on February 6, 2020
We have implemented a completely new and much more advanced screen capture tool in Help+Manual. This tool supports:
- Captures on multiple monitors with different resolutions
- Multi-part captures (add new captures to the existing capture to create a single image)
- Capture animated HelpXplain screencasts for tutorials – a series of screenshots with animated transitions showing how to do something on the computer screen
Coming soon: PDF Peer Review
Posted by Alexander Halser in Documentation Authoring, PDF, Software Updates on February 2, 2020
You create a PDF file with Help+Manual, including your own comments, and distribute it to your colleagues for additional comments, which they add with their own PDF commenting tool.
When they return the commented PDF to you, you open it with the PDF Review Plugin in Help+Manual and it shows you all the comments side by side with the corresponding topic selected.
Read the rest of this entry »
Coming soon: Machine Translation in Help+Manual
Posted by Alexander Halser in Software Updates, Translation on January 27, 2020
Here’s another small teaser of something we’ve been working on the last couple of months:
Machine Translation
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.
eWriter 2.1 Maintenance Update
Posted by Alexander Halser in Software Updates, Utilities on November 17, 2019
eWriter is a converter application to turn HTML pages into a self-contained Windows executable or eBook. This output format is integrated into Help+Manual as well (and will soon become available in HelpXplain). The eWriter converter application is the free stand-alone version.
Update Version 2.1
This update includes an updated viewer app with improved support for eBooks in full-screen/maximized window mode.
Download
Download eWriter Creator stand-alone edition directly from our website:
http://www.e-writer.com/
eWriter 2.0 released
Posted by Alexander Halser in HelpXplain, Software Updates, Utilities, WebHelp on October 17, 2019
eWriter is a converter application to turn HTML pages into a self-contained Windows executable or eBook. This output format is integrated into Help+Manual as well (and will soon become available in HelpXplain). The eWriter converter application is the free stand-alone version.
Redesigned Runtime Viewer
The viewer for eWriter eBooks is now a stand-alone app. We have completely rebuilt the viewer app with this version and made it (optionally) available as a separate installer. The viewer looks more modern, but more important is the new code base which it is built on: it is more or less platform-independent.
The eWriter Viewer app is currently available in 32 and 64 bit versions, and it is listed in the Microsoft Store:
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.