HelpSmith Team’s Blog

We are pleased to announce that HelpSmith 4.0 has been released.

What’s New in HelpSmith 4.0?

New features:

• A completely new Web Help system format:
  • Now it is possible to fully customize the appearance of the navigation pane (Table of Contents, Index, Search);
  • You can also use a help topic or external web page as the content of the top and bottom frame, which is useful for customizing your Web Help system;
  • Now you can define custom icons for the Table of Contents;
  • The Search feature now allows you to find separate words or whole phrases. The search results are ranked according to their relevance.
  • The Index tool now allows you to quickly find a keyword (by typing it in the appropriate field) and the topics associated with that keyword;
  • Optionally, found keywords can be highlighted in the current topic with different colors or a single color;
  • Added Table of Content behavior settings;
  • Better navigation pane interface: TOC, Index, Search tabs are not scrolled with the pane’s content;
• Added a “Print Topic” macro for hyperlinks. This allows you to insert a hyperlink that will print the current help topic. The macro works in HTML Help and Web Help systems;
• Added a system variable #TopicPath that displays the location of the current help topic in the Table of Contents;
• Added “Repeat Horizontally”, “Repeat Vertically” values to the background properties dialog-box. These values are similar to CSS’s repeat-x, repeat-y attributes;
• New fields “Author”, “Version”, “Summary”, “Comment” have been added to the project options.
• Added new system variables “#Author”, “#Version”, “#Summary”, “#Comment” that display the corresponding fields from the project options;

Improvements:

• A small image that has been set as the background of a help topic or table now works in the design-time as fast as in a browser program;
• Internal HTML exporter now uses strict web standards, which solves most compatibility issues in modern web-browsers;
• The media repository now allows you to add several files simultaneously;
• It is now possible to pin HelpSmith to the Windows taskbar in Windows 7;
• Added support for PNG files saved in the “Indexed Colors” mode;
• The Project Options dialog-box is now resizable;

Minor bug fixes:

• Fixed a random “Access Denied” problem when saving the help project which is stored in an SVN folder. This is also actual for other version control systems, antiviral and other third party software that gets access to the help project files;
• The background properties dialog-box did not save custom values for vertical and horizontal alignment;
• Internet Explorer ignored the border width specified for the splitter element between the frames in Web Help;

Download

You can download the latest HelpSmith version here.

How to Upgrade?

If you are a registered user of HelpSmith 3.x, you can simply download and install the latest version. If you have a license for previous HelpSmith versions (for example, 2.x, 1.x), you can get a 50% discount. You can place your upgrade order by visiting this link.

We are glad that HelpSmith receives positive rates and feedback from our existing customers and from people who are yet in the process of evaluating different help authoring tools for their tasks. We constantly collect such testimonials while communicating with HelpSmith users and publish them, with a permission from their authors,  on our website from time to time.

It is always great when people searching for a product can read what other users of that product think about it. So if you are looking for a help authoring tool, you have such a possibility on this page! As usually, if have any comments, questions, or difficulties, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you all for your feedback!

We are pleased to announce that HelpSmith 3.5.5 has been released.

Release notes for HelpSmith 3.5.5:

• Fixed compilation issues for HTML Help (CHM) that occurred on some help projects;
• Improved the internal character-encoding engine;
• Fixed issues with using special characters in some Asian languages;
• Better support for PNG images, an updated PNG engine is now used;
• Other minor improvements and bug fixes.

You can download the latest HelpSmith version here.

The Conference for User Assistance
Memphis * March 11-14

The focus of the Conference for Software User Assistance is on developing the best possible user experience for all types of software applications through well-designed interfaces and helpful and accessible support information.
Featuring 35 of the top experts in the user assistance field.

All the details are available:
http://www.writersua.com/conference/index.html

We have released HelpSmith version 3.5.3 that includes some improvements and minor bug fixes:

• Support for the new video format MP4 added;
• Fixed an issue with using Asian languages (Chinese, Korean,  Japanese) in the Table of Contents of an HTML Help system (CHM);
• Other minor improvements and bug fixes.

You can download the latest HelpSmith version using this link.

We have released HelpSmith version 3.5, which is available in the download area of our website. This update mainly includes improvements and fixes of some issues reported by our users. Also, we’ve changed the registration system, which means that registered HelpSmith users will need a new license key to upgrade to the latest version. Of course, the users who have a license for HelpSmith 3.x will get new license details for free according to our upgrade policy.

I have a license(s) for HelpSmith 3.x, how do I get my new license details?

If you have a license(s) for HelpSmith 3.x, simply create a support ticket and provide us your current license information such as Order Ref. Id, Registration Email, or simply send us your current license key. So we will be able to find your existing license(s) information in our customer database and will provide you a new license key.

Important: Please note that for security reasons, we can send your new license details only to the email address you used when registering. Thus, please make sure you have access to the original email address and use it when creating a ticket. This will significantly speed up the upgrading process.

Upgrading from previous HelpSmith versions (2.x and below)

If you have a license(s) for previous releases of HelpSmith (versions 2.x, 1.x), you can upgrade to the latest version with a significant discount. For more details, please visit the Upgrade page.

Latest version updates of HelpSmith, which introduced new features and fixes to some minor issues, have actually made the product one of the most quality help authoring tools available on the market today. And this is confirmed mainly by the feedback we get from HelpSmith users everyday. We are nevertheless working hard on making the product even better and also on providing quality technical support answering any questions from existing HelpSmith customers and from users who are in the process of evaluating the trial version of the product.

HelpSmith Updates

As many of you could notice, we often release new updates of the product. Such minor versions usually include small feature updates or fixes of the issues found by the users. Thus, we’ve recently fixed an unexpected problem with using transparent images, and a problem that happened if you accidentally copy/paste a multi-line text into the title field in topic properties. Also, we’ve added a new option for hyperlinks, which is useful on Web Help systems in some cases: now you can open external hyperlinks not only in the topic’s frame or in a new tab or browser window, but also on the topmost frame (that is the new page will fill the entire Web Help system’s window). There are also other improvements that have been made thanks to the feedback from our customers.

Technical Support

Providing quality support services is an important part of our work on a help authoring tool. A while back, we successfully integrated an on-line Help center with our website, which eliminates the problem of undelivered emails and also gives us the possibilities to work with user requests much more efficiently. At the same time, we are still available by email. So if you have questions regarding HelpSmith, please do not hesitate to contact us.

HelpSmith and Windows 7

In addition, we are proud that HelpSmith has successfully passed Microsoft-designed tests for the “Compatible with Windows 7″ logo a while before. This proves that the product is actually designed for and works perfectly on the latest Windows version. Again, we would like to thank all of you for choosing HelpSmith as your help authoring tool and for your feedback that makes it possible for us to provide a great help authoring product used by lots of technical writers and software developers around the world!

We are pleased to announce the release of HelpSmith 3.4. The new version introduces the ability to insert custom HTML code into individual help topics and into topic templates. You can use this feature to insert video from YouTube, add Google Analytics tracking code to your Web Help system, and for many other similar purposes.

Now HelpSmith can automatically convert filenames used in WebHelp into lower case to prevent potential access issues on UNIX-based systems (that have a case-sensitive file system). Also, it can generate SEO friendly URLs, which are based on the topic textual Ids.

In addition, the new version allows you to compile help projects from the command line. This is useful when you want to automate the compilation of your help project, for example, along with creation of your software product builds.

What’s New in HelpSmith 3.4:

• The ability to insert custom HTML code into help topics and topic templates.
• Compilation from the command line is now supported.
• New Web Help option: automatic conversion of file names into lower case (useful on UNIX based systems).
• New Web Help option: SEO friendly URLs (automatically replaces all “_” characters in topic Ids with hyphen characters “-”).
• The ability to reassign Context Ids for all of for a selected range of topics (menu command: Tools|Context Tool).
• Fixed an issue with copying and pasting content containing PNG images.

Links
You can download the latest HelpSmith version using this link.

We are pleased to announce the release of HelpSmith 3.3. The new version includes improved Unicode support, the possibility to use video clips in Flash and other formats, better security and compatibility of Web Help with recent versions of the Google Chrome browser, as well as some other new features and improvements.

Below is the full list of changes made in HelpSmith 3.3:

New Features and Improvements:

• Improved Unicode support: all text controls now allow you to type text in multiple languages simultaneously.
• Added the possibility to use video clips: Flash (SWF), QuickTime, and other formats are supported.
• Web Help running from the local machine is now compatible with recent versions of Google Chrome.
• Improved the Search feature in Web Help: the found keywords are now highlighted in topic text.
• Two options added: “Force UTF-8 for URls” and “Force UTF-8 for mailto links”.
• Better security of Web Help.
• The names of user variables are now Unicode.

Minor bug fixes:

• It is now possible to use national characters in the names of video files.
• The code page set for an individual topic was ignored and the similar project option was used instead.
• The Table of Contents did not display Unicode characters in case if the project used an ANSI code page.
• Fixed an issue with using transparent PNG images.
• Fixed minor issues with resizing some tables.
• Fixed an issue with using the Greek language in the Table of Contents of an HTML Help system.

Links
You can download the latest HelpSmith version using this link.

Recently we’ve released a minor HelpSmith update, version 3.2.1. This new version adds an option Insert Mark of the Web for Web Help systems. Some HelpSmith users complained that Internet Explorer displays a yellow Security Warning Bar when viewing a web help system that runs from the local machine, or from a remote computer in the corporate Local Area Network.

The problem occurred because Internet Explorer considers such a web help system to be located in a non-restrictive Internet Zone. According to the Microsoft’s documentation, it is recommended to insert a Mark of the Web to all web pages which will be viewed from a CD, local computer, and also for web pages that include frames, in order to map the web pages to a more restrictive Internet Zone.

The Insert Mark of the Web option in HelpSmith is turned on by default, so your users will not have to click on the warning bar in Internet Explorer every time they need to access the help system. You may leave the option checked when you upload a Web Help system to your web server: in this case the help system will always run in a restrictive Internet Zone; however, the Mark of the Web in its pages does not conflict with the official documentation either.

You can download the latest HelpSmith version by clicking this link.