Posted by Alexander Halser on August 18, 2020
We have received several complaints between July 11th and today from people who have been charged (on their bank account or their credit card) in the name of “helpandmanuals.com“. (Note the “s” at the end of the domain name, which is different from our domain, which is “helpandmanual.com“). Does this apply in your case? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by tim green on August 4, 2020
We have just updated Premium Pack 4 to version 4.0.4. This update contains a large number of basically cosmetic updates. There is no urgency to install it if everything is already working OK for you. Just read through the descriptions and decide for yourself if and when you want to 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.
Posted by tim green on June 19, 2020
Good news for all our US customers: The API license needed to use the DeepL machine translation plugin in Help+Manual and HelpXplain is now also available in the USA for just $5.49 per month.
The license is referred to as DeepL Pro. Here is the DeepL announcement:
DeepL posting on the new license
You can order the new DeepL Pro license on this page:
Order page for the new license
In addition to the monthly fee there is also a charge for translation volume. However, the amounts here are so generous that it would be difficult to exceed $10 per month in total.
Posted by Alexander Halser on May 24, 2020
We are glad to announce the release of Help+Manual 8.1. If you are using version 8 already, this is update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
The focus for this update was on speed issues and on floating licenses.
Did you ever experience a delay when taking a screenshot with Help+Manual? The delay occurred after the screenshot had been taken and before the save dialog appeared. If yes, this is an important update for you!
When taking a screenshot, Help+Manual prompts you to save the screenshot as picture file and suggests a file name, something like clip0019.png. To make sure this suggested file name is unique and not already used by another image, Help+Manual has to test whether such a file exists anywhere in the project search path. This function was not fast enough and that became even more obvious during the covid19 pandemic, where many users were working from home offices, connected via VPN. The connection lag multiplied those delays.
What’s new is, that the save dialog for screenshots should come up 10 to 50 times faster than before – depending on the folder structure of your help project.
This is important news for admins: the Floating License Manager has been updated with a password/PIN code function. This is an additional security layer, which can be applied to a pool of floating licenses by the administrator. When a password/PIN code is set in place, Help+Manual will prompt the user to enter the password/PIN code. This code is stored locally, so that the end user is not required to enter it every time.
Admins can set or change the password/PIN code to effectively exclude users who are no longer authorized to use a license from the floating license pool.
Help+Manual 8.1.0 is available from our download page:
Posted by tim green on April 22, 2020
The well-known help technology expert and trainer Matthew Ellison has just published a comprehensive review of Help+Manual 8 on the UA Europe site. As an expert on help authoring, Matthew is uniquely qualified to assess a program like Help+Manual.
Posted by Alexander Halser on April 21, 2020
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we’ve released a maintenance update for Help+Manual 8. If you are using version 8 already, this is update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
The new link lists in version 8 are a highly appreciated feature by most users and we quickly received suggestions how to improve them further. While we are still collection user suggestions for this new object, one of these has been implemented with the 8.0.3 update: an inline option to publish a list of links as comma-separated text, instead of a classic list.
The View tab has a button to start a new tool, that sets, changes or removes file associations in Windows. A file association tells Windows which program to start when you double click, for instance, a file with the extension .HMXZ. These file associations are automatically set by the installer. For admins who administer floating licenses, however, this can be a big help.
If you create PDF manuals with numbered outlines (outlines are the interactive TOC in a PDF file), the outline numbering was not reflected by the links that point to those topics. The PDF Layout configuration setting now features a configuration option whether to apply numberings to links as well or not:
Help+Manual 8.0.3 is available from our download page:
Posted by tim green 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.
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.
Posted by Alexander Halser on March 22, 2020
This is a maintenance and feature update for HelpXplain, which is free for all registered users. Every license of HelpXplain includes 12 months free updates, maintenance and support.
Version 1.3 comes with 2 new features and several small bug fixes. One new feature is an option to restrict the Maximum Image Size in the publish dialog. This is a very useful setting if your Xplain contains many images, in particular large ones. Images may considerably slow down the loading time when viewed in a web browser. If there are too many too large images, memory might not be sufficient. The Maximum Image Size option can reduce the physical size of images during export.
The second new feature is in the DeepL translation function: it now supports Japanese and Chinese (Simplified).
Other changes and bug fixes in version 1.3:
This update is included in your maintenance plan! Please download the update and install it over your existing version.
Posted by Alexander Halser on March 21, 2020
This is an important maintenance update, strongly recommended for all users of version 8!
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.
Help+Manual 8.0.2 is available from our download page:
Posted by Alexander Halser on March 15, 2020
Dear EC Software Clients and Help+Manual Users,
In light of the global spread of Covid-19, we have been monitoring the situation for some time and have taken precautionary steps to safeguard the well-being of our team members and their families while simultaneously ensuring business continuity.
We would like to inform you of what we have done and will do to minimize any disruption for our and your business:
We have closed our office until at least end of March and keep working from home. All of the team members are well and healthy and none of us has been traveling to at-risk countries recently. We feel confident that over the next weeks and months, there should be no degradation of our ability to support you.
Due to our office being closed, telephone calls for sales and support usually cannot be answered. Please contact us by email, the online contact form, or post in the Help+Manual user forum, if you have questions or need software support. Our generic support address support@ec-software.com is regularly monitored and usually answered within a business day.
We greatly appreciate your understanding and cooperation throughout this entire situation and will continue to keep you informed of any significant changes that may impact our business.
Sincerely,
EC Software Executive Team