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Pure XML, true single-source, concurrent multi-user editing. Just when you thought Help & Manual couldn't get any better, we have a surprise for you that will change the way you think about writing and managing technical documentation: Help & Manual Version 5 is not just an improvement on the current version, it is going to redefine single-source authoring.
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v5.html
We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.51!
[Read on...]We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.51!
This update is recommended for
all users of Help & Manual version 4.x and introduces several new features as well as a fix for the XML export. See link for details.
- Webhelp export: script changes to prevent automatic TOC synchronization
- User interface: tree view can be locked
- Print manual designer: new font button
- XML Export and Import: two bug fixes, one improvement
- Miscellaneous fixes and enhancements
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v45.html
Help & Manual 4 comes with an integrated visual designer for print and PDF templates used in combination with help projects.
[Read on...]Help & Manual 4 comes with an integrated visual designer for print and PDF templates used in combination with help projects.
To make translations of help projects easier and and complete the translation roundtrip, the Print Manual Designer is now available as a stand-alone application as well. This separate setup is aimed on external translators who do not have Help & Manual installed.
The application is a free download, no license is required.
Download link:
http://www.ec-software.com/downloads.html
A minor maintenance update is available for Help & Manual 4.50. We have fixed a few small annoyances and bugs with this update.
[Read on...]A minor maintenance update is available for Help & Manual 4.50. We have fixed a few small annoyances and bugs with this update.
- XML export: changes to a-keyword tags and comments.
- HTML export: changes to table width tags and text with colored background
- Batch export with external variable sets: the TITLE variable was not overloaded in one particular situation
- Webhelp export: image names of custom TOC icons were not automatically lowercase, that could have led to broken image references in the Webhelp TOC
- Project synchronization: new synchronization option to help synchronize older help projects
http://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html
ComponentSource®, reseller of EC Software products and the world's largest marketplace and community for reusable software components, today announced the launch of its new annual Awards program. At the launch ComponentSource announced the winners of the second annual awards for 2007 for both leading publishers and also their individual products.
[Read on...]ComponentSource®, reseller of EC Software products and the world's largest marketplace and community for reusable software components, today announced the launch of its new annual Awards program. At the launch ComponentSource announced the winners of the second annual awards for 2007 for both leading publishers and also their individual products.
Help & Manual and EC Software have been honored with the ComponentSource Bestselling Product Award and the ComponentSource Bestselling Publisher Award for 2007.
http://www.ec-software.com/press_20080208.html
HHReg, our popular free HTML Help registration utility has been updated to version 1.2 and now comes with a dual-language binary that contains English and German. HHReg is designed for end users and security is a critical issue! For this reason, HHReg detects the system language and automatically switches the user interface language.
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hhreg.html
EC Software Help Suite (EHS) has been updated and now includes packages for Delphi 2007 as well. EHS is a component suite for Borland Delphi that builds a bridge to HTML Help (.chm files) for older Delphi versions and add-ons for context sensitive What's This? help.
http://www.ec-software.com/downloads_delphi.html
We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.5.0!
[Read on...]We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.5.0!
This update is recommended for
all users of Help & Manual version 4.x and introduces a couple of new features as well as a fix for a cross-browser scripting vulnerability issue in Browser-based Help. See link for details.
- Impict adds XML export & import for image translation
- Cross-browser scripting vulnerability in Browser-based Help
- Creating topics with Drag & Drop
- Inserting special characters
- Miscellaneous fixes and enhancements
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v45.html
The demo page features two new online demos with video and sound.
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_demos.html
In this article, we will review one particular HAT, Help & Manual, but we'll try to explain a bit about Help Authoring in general too, for the developer who is also required to get involved with the production of application help.
For the end user, it doesn't matter how well an application has been written if the help and documentation is poor.
In the hothouse, geeky culture of an IT development team, the way an application works must seem obvious. In the real world outside it often isn't, but well-crafted help and documentation can ease the cultural gap remarkably well.
The Technical Author is generally responsible for the Help Text, the printed manual, the 'white papers' and the material on the website. It is a daunting task. Increasingly, the work has to be sent to a bureau for translation into other languages; and the content has to survive translation into written languages that go from right-to-left, or vertically, as well as left-to-right. There may still be a demand for the production of a printed manual or PDF file too.
To make the task possible, technical content must have a single source that can cater for all these demands. This is where a HAT (Help Authoring Tool) comes in, and any technical author who works with Windows applications will be familiar with HAT software.
http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/.net-tools/top-hat/
This is a maintenance update. In addition to some internal tidying of the program code we have also corrected some issues that a small number of users reported and we have made some preparations for the switch to XML as the primary save format (this will not affect the way the program behaves now). See below for details.
[Read on...]This is a maintenance update. In addition to some internal tidying of the program code we have also corrected some issues that a small number of users reported and we have made some preparations for the switch to XML as the primary save format (this will not affect the way the program behaves now). See below for details.
Overview
- PDF Export with multiple TOC references
- XML import from translation
- Check for upcoming file formats
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v44.html
This is a maintenance update to correct some issues that a few users have reported. We recommend to install this update over version 4.31.
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v432.html
We are glad to announce the release of
Help & Manual 4.31! Outwardly, this is a very minor update with just a few visible changes. However, we have corrected a number of issues that individual users have reported to us for specific configurations and situations, some of them very rare. And there are also a number of changes and improvements that we are sure many users will welcome.
[Read on...]We are glad to announce the release of
Help & Manual 4.31! Outwardly, this is a very minor update with just a few visible changes. However, we have corrected a number of issues that individual users have reported to us for specific configurations and situations, some of them very rare. And there are also a number of changes and improvements that we are sure many users will welcome.
Overview
- Tables now allow page breaks inside rows
- Updated PDF engine with improved font embedding
- New options for HTML Help TOCs
- Improved CHM import and export for Asian and other languages
- New Delphi Wizards for Delphi 2007 for Win32
- Project Synchronization leaves child modules intact
- Improved keyword index sorting for many languages
- New meta tag topic ID variable for Browser-based Help
- Merge imported variables with the current variable list
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v431.html
UBIT - the Austrian National Professional Organisation for Management Consultancy and Information Technology has created the
CONSTANTINUS award to promote excellence in consulting and IT-services.
[Read on...]UBIT - the Austrian National Professional Organisation for Management Consultancy and Information Technology has created the
CONSTANTINUS award to promote excellence in consulting and IT-services.
EC Software has been nominated for the Constantinus award with its consulting project
DIALOG Infosystem in cooperation with
Jäger & Schmitter Dialog, Germany.
The
DIALOG Infosystem is a web-based call center information system based on
Help & Manual. Since the introduction in 2005, Help & Manual and the web-based information system has become the central source of information and knowledge for JS Dialog, used by 700 employees and 70 authors in 4 different locations across Germany and Italy.
Out of 138 submissions, the project has been nominated in the category
Constantinus International. We are looking forward to the award ceremony, which will take place in Salzburg/Austria on June 21st, 2007.
Links: (in German)
Constantinus Award website
Jäger & Schmitter Dialog websitehttp://www.constantinus.net/award/constantinus-international/introduction/
Jim Cheshire of Jimco Software and Books writes about Help & Manual: It's not often that a product comes along that is so impressive that it almost seems too good to be true. In fact, I think I can count all such products I own on one hand. After spending a few weeks with Help & Manual 4.3, I can truly say that it has earned a spot as one of those products that seems too good to be true.
http://www.jimcosoftware.com/reviews/hm/
We are currently testing version 4.31 of Help & Manual, a minor but important update. The key features in the update will be improved PDF font embedding, page break handling in table cells and more HTML Help output options. Version 4.31 is due to release by the end of May 2007. If you are interested in testing the new version, please
drop us an email.
http://www.ec-software.com/company_contact.html
Alessandro Carichini for
Programmazione.it, an Italian online magazine, reviews Help & Manual.
"
If we compare it to products like RoboHelp, then the price of 459 dollars is rather competitive, but when compared with open source software, the picture changes. However, we are talking about a high-level product that covers all the documentation needs of a company."
Click on the link below to read the full article (in Italian language).
http://programmazione.it/index.php?entity=eitem&idItem=35985
At $459.00 this product is a bargain. I's a fraction of the price of RoboHelp® and in my opinion it does the work just as well as RoboHelp®. Give the trial version a test drive and see if you don't agree.
http://www.free-downloads.net/articles/Help_and_Manual_Review
We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.3! This update includes many improvements frequently requested by our user.
[Read on...]We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.3! This update includes many improvements frequently requested by our user.
- New directory structure for Samples and Templates
- Improvements in the Impict screenshot editor with a new Export As function, drag & drop support and better color reduction for GIF images
- Three-frame mode for Browser-based Help: you can now automatically create a 3-frame layout in Browser-based Help for better integration in your own website.
- New navigation options for Browser-based Help: single-click navigation and automatically expanding table of contents
- PDF export can embed files in the PDF
- Syntax highlighter for C#
- New variables for HTML templates, for better search-engine optimization
- Translation: configuration file for editing H&M XML with SDL Trados
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v43.html
Sisulizer just released a new feature in their localization tool: Localization of compiled HTML Help files (.chm).
[Read on...] Sisulizer just released a new feature in their localization tool: Localization of compiled HTML Help files (.chm).
Sisulizer Enterprise imports all translatable content directly from a .chm file. Text is automatically segmented into paragraphs for easy translation. You translate the text either in a WYSIWYG editor, or in a grid with separate columns for the source, and target language. HTML tags are retained in the translatable text.
Translations are saved in a so-called translation memory, a built-in database that remembers phrases that have been translated already. When you update your help file, Sisulizer's rescan function will detect the changes and attempt to automatically pre-translate unchanged content. Comfortable filters such as filters for untranslated text, changed or new paragraphs, help you to quickly update the translation as well.
Try the 30-days evaluation version from this link:
www.sisulizer.com/downloads.shtml
Special offer for Help & Manual users:
Until end of February, 2007 Sisulizer Enterprise is available for EUR 999 excluding VAT. Help & Manual customers are eligible for an extra discount of 100 EUR. Please contact
Sisulizer support for details on the discount.
About Sisulizer:
Sisulizer is a new software localization and translation tool, created by Sisulizer Ltd, Finland.
http://www.sisulizer.com
We are going to release Help & Manual 4.3 by the end of February. The new version will be a free update to all 4.xx users and includes several new features regarding browser-based help!
[Read on...]We are going to release Help & Manual 4.3 by the end of February. The new version will be a free update to all 4.xx users and includes several new features regarding browser-based help!
Take a sneak preview on version 4.3 by downloading the full setup from the link below.
New features for browser-based help:
- The help can optionally appear in a 3-frame page - up to now just two frames or no frames at all were supported.
- You can fully customize the 3rd frame or load external files
- More options for the navigation: headings can optionally expand on a single mouse click instead of a double-click and unfocused headings can collapse autoamatically.
http://download.ec-software.com/hm43rc1.exe
Atlanta, GA, Feb 9th, 2007 - ComponentSource®, the world's largest marketplace and community for reusable software components today announced the launch of its new annual Awards program. At the launch ComponentSource announced the winners of the first annual awards for 2006 for both leading publishers and also their individual products.
[Read on...] Atlanta, GA, Feb 9th, 2007 - ComponentSource®, the world's largest marketplace and community for reusable software components today announced the launch of its new annual Awards program. At the launch ComponentSource announced the winners of the first annual awards for 2006 for both leading publishers and also their individual products.
Help & Manual and EC Software have been honored with the
ComponentSource Bestselling Product Awards and the
ComponentSource Bestselling Publisher Awards for 2006.
Ranking number #70 in the overall ComponentSource product charts, Help & Manual sold better than any other help authoring tool. This is an impressive achievement, for help authoring tools are not only a niche category in the software market, this was also our very first year with ComponentSource. Help & Manual climbed up the charts from zero to #70 in just 12 months and it is still going strong.
About ComponentSource:
ComponentSource, a partner of EC Software, is the world's largest marketplace and community for reusable software components for all platforms. The respected barometer for the component industry, ComponentSource pioneered the open market for reusable software components in 1995, and continues to drive the market through its award-winning e-business model and groundbreaking work to establish the first widely accepted reusable component standard. A global e-business with customers in over 110 countries, ComponentSource is headquartered in Atlanta, GA United States and has offices in Reading, England and Tokyo, Japan. http://www.ec-software.com/press_20070209.html
Our popular HTML Help registration utility HHReg is now available for
Windows Vista.
[Read on...]Our popular HTML Help registration utility HHReg is now available for Windows Vista.
Since HHReg performs registry changes in the "local machine" branch, it requires explicit administrator rights on Windows Vista. The updated version 1.1 includes a manifest to run HHReg in admin mode only.
If you plan to use HHReg on Windows Vista, please download the new version, since older versions of HHReg will not work on Vista!
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hhreg.html
If you ever looked at the XML code that Help & Manual exports you may have found it daunting. "Better not touch that code manually" may come to your mind. And that's a mistake, because the code is really extremely simple. So, if the idea of generating content for Help & Manual via XML appeals to you, read ahead.
http://www.ec-software.com/support_articles.html?article=2006-12-04_createxml
As promised a couple of weeks ago, the INI file for the SDL Trados TagEditor is available. This INI file is for Trados TagEditor 7.5.0.
[Read on...]As promised a couple of weeks ago, the INI file for the SDL Trados TagEditor is available. This INI file is for Trados TagEditor 7.5.0.
The INI file is attached to the forum posting
http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=5144 including a description, how to use it. If you are translating with Trados, please login in the user forum to download it.
http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=5144
We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.2! While this is a minor update (which means it's a free update for registered users of version 4) it implements major new features.
[Read on...]We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.2! While this is a minor update (which means it's a free update for registered users of version 4) it implements major new features.
- Toggles - expanding text
- Windows Vista compatibility
- Internet Explorer 7 compatibility
- MojoPac 1.0 compatibility
- Built-in PDF Engine: full support for Asian languages
- Right-to-left language support
- Improved full-text search for Browser-based Help
- Style replace
- Enhanced mouse-over hints for HTML
- Improved import
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_v42.html
The new, completely redesigned EC Software website went online over the weekend. Have a look at
www.ec-software.com!
http://www.ec-software.com
Software localization as well as the translation of technical documentation isn't exactly a trivial task. And if you were never involved in a translation project, you might find it difficult to get started. This article is aimed at newcomers to the field of documentation translation and provides an overview of what is possible and customary in the business.
[Read on...]Software localization as well as the translation of technical documentation isn't exactly a trivial task. And if you were never involved in a translation project, you might find it difficult to get started. This article is aimed at newcomers to the field of documentation translation and provides an overview of what is possible and customary in the business.
Topics covered:
* Localization of the software user interface
* Translating online help and user manuals
* Computer-aided translation (CAT)
* Manual translation with external editors
* Translating in Help & Manual
This new article from Alexander Halser introduces you to document localization with Help & Manual. The link requires login to the H&M user forum. Please create an account if you are not registered yet.
http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=4841
You can now use Help & Manual to create Browser-based Help for displaying on Pocket PC PDAs and phones. You just need to download our new project template and use it for creating a new project -- full instructions are included. The template includes all the necessary styles, settings and miniature graphics for the table of contents.
[Read on...]You can now use Help & Manual to create Browser-based Help for displaying on Pocket PC PDAs and phones. You just need to download our new project template and use it for creating a new project -- full instructions are included. The template includes all the necessary styles, settings and miniature graphics for the table of contents.
Download: http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=4698
The download page also includes a web link to the compiled output of the template so that you can test it with your Pocket PC device before using it.
http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=4698
We have now released a new non-scrolling header template that works both in HTML Help
and in Browser-based Help (regular HTML). In addition to this the template also now supports printing in both HTML help (including printing multiple topics) and also in Browser-based Help.
[Read on...]We have now released a new non-scrolling header template that works both in HTML Help
and in Browser-based Help (regular HTML). In addition to this the template also now supports printing in both HTML help (including printing multiple topics) and also in Browser-based Help.
The template works fine in all browsers. If a browser doesn't support JavaScript you just get a regular static header, it doesn't break the layout.
Downloads:
Do-it-yourself version with code and instructions:
http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=4585
Project template of H&M4's own help with the new template integrated:
http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=4600http://helpman.it-authoring.com/viewtopic.php?t=4585
ThumbsPlus is a highly customizable image database / graphics editor application that makes it easy to catalog and locate, as well as, maintain and modify all your graphics and multimedia files.
[Read on...] ThumbsPlus is a highly customizable image database / graphics editor application that makes it easy to catalog and locate, as well as, maintain and modify all your graphics and multimedia files.
Users of ThumbsPlus 7 Pro and above can now download a new plugin that enables ThumbsPlus to display and manipulate
Impict's native .IPP images. I've been playing with it for half an hour and it appears to work fine -- and ThumbsPlus 7 is also a terrific image viewer and manager. You can download the plugin from the Cerious site for the English version or the ThumbsPlus.de site for the German version:
English version:
http://www.cerious.com/download.shtml
German version:
http://www.thumbsplus.de/index.php?cat_id=2&page_id=0&subpage_id=2
After downloading just copy the plugin to your ThumbsPlus program directory. Then press F9 to display your options and define a new file type for .IPP.
http://www.cerious.com/download.shtml
Matthew Ellison takes a test drive of Help & Manual for
www.writersua.com
Help & Manual, as its name implies, specializes in creating high quality online and print documentation from a single source. However, it takes a different approach to other tools such as WebWorks ePublisher Pro and Doc-to-Help that convert print-oriented documents to online Help. Help & Manual instead uses a topic-based paradigm, and has its own proprietary editor for creating and editing a single topic at a time.
Read the full review herehttp://www.writersua.com/articles/helpman/index.html
This is the long awaited maintenance update for version 4.1! We fixed a couple of minor problems, especially with the XML export/import and implemented a really cool new feature: you can use
Photoshop images directly without converting them! Help & Manual reads .psd files and converts them to web formats automatically. This feature is implemented via plugins, more image formats will follow.
[Read on...]This is the long awaited maintenance update for version 4.1! We fixed a couple of minor problems, especially with the XML export/import and implemented a really cool new feature: you can use
Photoshop images directly without converting them! Help & Manual reads .psd files and converts them to web formats automatically. This feature is implemented via plugins, more image formats will follow.
Outlook to Version 4.2:
This release should have been v4.2 already, but we are a little bit behind our schedule. The major new feature for the next update will be
Toggle Objects! A toggle is a specialized object to switch the visibility of text in a topic at runtime. It is already possible to implement this with Javascript and HTML Code objects, but we are going to support this on an abstract level, so that it works with PDF manuals, too. Stay tuned for the next update and check this newsfeed regularly!
Changes in Version 4.15:
- Plugins: support for Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, TIFF and Kodak Photo CD
images. These picture formats can be used directly in Help & Manual.
- Change Icon dialog box: the selection list of the TOC icons is now integrated as menu toolbox.
- PDF: The print manual designer has five new page numbering options and manual page breaks have been improved: when a manual page break is defined before the very first item in a topic, the entire topic including its heading is properly moved to the next page. We have also improved the "Insert Page Break" function on the "Insert" menu: when on a page break, the menu option changes to "Remove page break".
- PDF, again: Weblinks that start with https: instead of http: are supported.
- Conditional text on topic level: Nested IF-tags with ELSE-conditions were treated wrong.
- XML: Inconsistent list definitions may have caused malformed XML.
Furthermore, when importing into an empty new project, new map ids were assigned to TOC entries. When importing into an existing project, help context numbers assigned to anchors were ignored. Both problems are fixed now. Also fixed: topic IDs with dots in the name were truncated at the last dot during the XML export.
- HTML Help: encoding of topic links placed in Javascript popups changed, encoding of HTML entities in context sensitive text popups was wrong.
- HTML Help (workaround): Keywords that contain hyphens may result in a wrong keyword sort order. This is a bug in HTML Help compiler and we have implemented a workaround for this limitation.
- Browser-based help: Bugfix for the full-text search - very long stop-word lists caused an access violation on Windows 2000.
- HTML / Doctype declaration: it is now possible to modify the topic HTML templates and implement a different DOCTYPE declaration instead of the obligatory <%DOCTYPE%> variable.
- Winhelp export: SHG images with device colors were exported as bitmaps with device colors. In some cases, the Winhelp compiler did not compile them.
http://www.ec-software.com/download.htm
We are pleased to announce the release of HHReg, a free registration tool for HTML Help files that enables these files to be opened on network drives.
[Read on...]We are pleased to announce the release of HHReg, a free registration tool for HTML Help files that enables these files to be opened on network drives.
HHReg is a utility for registering HTML Help (.CHM) files on an individual Windows computer to make them available for viewing.
Registration for HTML Help files has been required since Microsoft
issued a security patch for Microsoft Internet Explorer, disabling HTML Help files opened on network drives (local CHM files are not affected).
HHReg removes this limitation by explicitly registering HTML Help CHM files in the Windows registry, making them available for viewing even when opened on network drives. You can register your individual .CHM files or the folders containing your .CHM files. This does not compromise security since the registration is only applied for the specific folders and/or files you select.
Since this has to be done on every client computer HHReg includes full support for command line execution, allowing you to easily register multiple files in silent mode with simple batch calls.
Please accept this tool as a free service from EC Software, as an
expression of our commitment to the help authoring community and to
all our own Help & Manual users.
http://www.ec-software.com/products_hhreg.html
Tucows'
Blogware weblog publishing and managment service can be used by anyone but it targets businesses interested in using "blogs" as an information tool. Blogware is a sophisticated and customizable content management system that can be used for weblogs of all kinds -- from simple personal blogs to complex commercial blogs and even photo blogs and multi-language blogs. (Both photo gallery and multi-lingual facilities are included.)
[Read on...]Tucows'
Blogware weblog publishing and managment service can be used by anyone but it targets businesses interested in using "blogs" as an information tool. Blogware is a sophisticated and customizable content management system that can be used for weblogs of all kinds -- from simple personal blogs to complex commercial blogs and even photo blogs and multi-language blogs. (Both photo gallery and multi-lingual facilities are included.)
Since Blogware is a web-based service it needs a web-based help system for user assistance. Tucows used Help & Manual for this and the Blogware help is a good example of the kind of slick results that are possible with Help & Manual:
Blogware help (made with Help & Manual 4)
http://home.blogware.com/
You can read this newsfeed with your own newsreader by subscribing to http://www.ec-software.com/news/feed.xml
