Getting the Download Link:
Since the introduction of the updated Premium Pack versions for Help & Manual 6, H&M 5 users need a new download link for their version of the Premium Pack. Please contact support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) for details if you do not have this yet.
Change Log
New features, fixes and changes in versions 1.53
- Blank page in WebHelp
In some cases WebHelp would open with a blank page in Internet Explorer 9 in Standards mode. - Toggles becoming hidden
Toggles after the current toggle would sometimes become hidden in IE9 and IE7 on pages with multiple toggles directly after each other. Resizing the topic window would make the toggles reappear. This affected both WebHelp and CHM on computers with IE9 installed. - Missing horizontal scrollbar on opening toggles with large images
In IE9 the horizontal scrollbar would sometimes not appear when a toggle containing an image wider than the current window was opened. This affected both WebHelp and CHM on computers with IE9 installed.
New features, fixes and changes in versions 1.50
- URL switches for navigation panes
Addition of optional switches that can be used in WebHelp URLs to open the help with the keyword index or search panes and optionally perform a search for a specified keyword or search term. Specific topics can also be opened at the same time with the same link. - iOS 5 compatibility
Apple has corrected the Safari browser history bug in iOS 5, so the Previous and Next buttons in the Safari web browser now work correctly on the iPad and iPhone. This version of the Premium Pack checks for the presence of iOS 5 on these devices and activates the Previous and Next buttons if it is present. In addition to this, single-finger scrolling now also works in the ordinary Premium Pack skins on the iPad and iPhone in iOS5, not just in the dedicated iPad skin. Performance in the iPad skin is still better, but the normal skins are now more usable on the iPad. - Sortable tables
In some cases date columns in certain formats were incorrectly sorted as text or normal numbers. - Animated toggles
Small refinements in animation routines, including bug handling for Internet Explorer. - Toggle Jump
Small corrections for links to anchors in toggles from search and index entries.
This is really just a maintenance update but it does add one nice little feature: animated toggles.
- Animated toggles
Expanding text and inline text toggles now animate smoothly instead of "snapping" open and shut. This is quick enough so that it doesn't get in the way but it provides a valuable visual cue to the user, making it easier to see the content that has become visible. The logic also handles nested toggles correctly. This is also supported in the dedicated iPad skin. Here, opening one toggle automatically closes the other toggles on the page for smoother browsing. We experimented with this for the desktop skins as well but it didn't work so well there, so we decided to restrict it to the iPad skin where topics are generally smaller. On the desktop skin the user can always close the other toggles with the Toggle Toggles button. - Better handling of Windows CE browsers
The browser on some versions of the obsolete Windows CE mobile operating system sometimes pretends to be Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP, even though its capabilities are quite different. The initialization script now identifies this browser and switches off the Show/Hide TOC feature, which the Windows CE browser is incapable of handling. The version of the browser that identifies itself honestly as Windows CE is still blocked, however, as it is not capable of handling WebHelp correctly. - Meta tags to prevent search engines from indexing navigation pages
The Table of Contents, Search and Keyword Index pages in WebHelp now contain meta tags to prevent them from being included in search engine indexes. The TOC is set to "noindex, follow" so that its own contents are not indexed but all the pages referenced in the TOC are indexed. The keyword index and search pages are set to "noindex, nofollow" to prevent both indexing of the pages themselves and the links they point to (this would make the search engine spiders generate unnecessary traffic). - Help corrections
A couple of typos and oversights in the Premium Pack help have been corrected. - Toggle bug in dedicated iPad skin
In the dedicated iPad skin opening a toggle closed any other toggles on the page that were open. However, it was then not possible to close the current toggle without opening another toggle. This has been corrected and toggle animation has been added. - Second vertical scrollbar in Webhelp print preview
On some browsers a second vertical scrollbar was visible in the print preview window in WebHelp. This wasn't printed but it didn't look very good in the preview. It now no longer appears. - iPad skin adjustments
- Tapping on the current topic in the TOC no longer reloads the topic.
- Similarly, the Top, Next and Previous buttons no longer reload the current topic if the target is the current topic.
- The default indent for the TOC levels has been increased slightly to make sub-chapters/sub-topics easier to see.
- Dedicated iPad skin
We have added a dedicated webhelp iPad skin for producing an iPad version of your WebHelp. This provides an iPad style interface and full touch support, including:- Single-finger scrolling in TOC and topics.
- Pinch to zoom in topics.
- Zoom button for displaying topics in their own window.
- Automatic reformatting on orientation change (landscape/portrait).
- Opening a toggle auto-closes all the other toggles on the page to save space.
- Automatic redirect to a page of your choice when opened in another browser.
- User comments using IntenseDebate or Disqus
You can now add user comments to your WebHelp using IntenseDebate or Disqus as your comment provider. You just need to sign up for a free account with IntenseDebateor Disqusand add the ID from your provider and the URL of your WebHelp to the configuration variables. - New configuration variables for index and search highlight colors
Version 1.40 adds three new configuration variables that enable you to change the index and search highlight colors from the standard yellow to any other color you like. - Fix for history buttons bug on iPad and iPhone
The version of Safari installed on the Apple iPad and iPhone have an annoying uncorrected bug in the implementation of the history buttons that prevents these buttons from working correctly on pages using frames. The fix turns off storage of history entries on iOS Safari so that the address bar doesn't hang when users try to use the buttons. - Fix for printing problems in modern multi-threaded browsers
In some cases the Print button did not format the printable version of the topic page correctly on these new browser versions. This was caused by a timing problem on multi-threaded browsers that prevented the page formatting from finishing before the Print dialog was displayed. This has now been fixed. - Spurious Chrome warning message
In the current version of Google Chrome the Chrome warning message sometimes appeared incorrectly even when the Webhelp was accessed on a server. A double check has been implemented to make sure this doesn't happen. - "No index entries beginning with..." text in the Index
This text was hard-coded into the index script and could not be changed by changing the configuration variable text. This has been fixed. - Body background color in pages without headers
In the last update the body color of topic pages couldn't be changed on pages without topic headers. This has been fixed. - Show/hide TOC button on iPad and iPhone
This button is no longer displayed when WebHelp is displayed on the iPad and iPhone because it doesn't work properly there. - Vertical scrollbar in Internet Explorer 9
On some systems the vertical scrollbar in the topic pane did not display properly in Internet Explorer 9 when toggles were opened on the page. This is caused by a bug in IE9 that is also sometimes present in earlier versions of IE. Rather than programming a complex workaround we have made the vertical scrollbar permanent, so it is present in greyed-out form even when the scrollbar is not active. This also prevents annoying page reformatting that happened when the scrollbar suddenly appeared. - Vertical scrollbar "flash" on load
The vertical scrollbar in the topic pane sometimes seemed to "flash" on topic load on slower connections. This has been alleviated.
Initial support for iPad and iPhone and redirects for Android and other mobile devices
- In addition to some maintenance changes, version 1.31 adds some basic options to handle users viewing your WebHelp with the Apple iPad and iPhone and other mobile devices. The help can now be viewed reasonably well on the iPad and iPhone using two-finger gestures to scroll in topics and the table of contents, index and search panes. Full touch device support will not be possible before version 2.0 because it requires a major rewrite of the skin code on a very deep level.
The current version of the Google Android operating system cannot currently handle scrolling elements on the screen at all and is thus not compatible with this version of WebHelp. The new version automatically displays a warning that the help is not compatible with Android and less capable mobile devices (Blackberry, Windows CE, Series 60, Symbian). Optionally, you can also enter a web address to which users should be redirected when they view your help with one of these devices. You can also enter redirect addresses for iPhone and iPad users if you want.
- Second click on Index tab replaced topic with nav pane
A second click on the Index tab after displaying the keyword index replaced the contents of the topic pane with a second copy of the navigation pane. This has been corrected. - Insert linkable images in the nav pane header
If you inserted an image (for example a logo) in the nav pane header a copy of the tab backgrounds was added to the link in the image. You can now add linked images to the code of the nav pane header without this happening. - Optional fix for TOC load problem in some IE installations
On a very few users' computers the TOC failed to align in the navigation pane in Internet Explorer when the help was first loaded. Users who experience this problem can now activate an option that corrects it by reloading the TOC once in Internet Explorer the first time the help is loaded.
- PP Updater utility for transferring your settings from one skin to another (.Net framework 3.5 or higher required)
- Advanced JavaScript popups: Draggable, resizable, always fit in the browser window using scrollbars if necessary, video popups that dim the rest of the screen while playing.
- Search in the WebHelp index: Searches for index keywords quickly, highlights hits and scrolls them into view automatically. Makes the keyword index radically more useful. Use of the index by users in the online version of the Help & Manual help has increased by several hundred percent since search was added.
- Permalink and Favorites link: Users in WebHelp can now automatically copy the permalink to the current topic to the clipboard and click to add the topic to their browser favorites.
- Print preview in WebHelp: Recent changes to some browsers have reduced the ability to print a whole topic directly from the topic frame. Selecting the Print button now generates a printable version of the topic with a print preview in an external window. This ensures that printing works in all browsers.
- Mail feedback button improved to work better with WebMail clients
- ToggleJump (links to anchors inside toggles) now also works for index entries that link to anchors in toggles in both CHM and WebHelp
- Chapter + subtopics printing bug in CHM files fixed
- XHTML is now the standard output format for WebHelp – this is automatic and independent of your settings in your project
- Workaround for TOC Show/Hide bug in Google Chrome and Apple Safari
- User warning for Google Chrome WebHelp bug on local drives
- Dummy 3-frame header file export improved (only included for 3-frame output)
- Show/Hide Navigation Pane:
A small slide-out button to the left of the topic title in the topic header shows and hides the navigation pane. Activate with the PP TOC Show/Hide option in the Include Options box in the Publish menu.
- ToggleJump improved for slower computers
On some slower computers ToggleJump with anchors sometimes failed in Internet Explorer because IE did not wait long enough after displaying a topic to scroll the content down to the anchor position. - ToggleJump added for hotspots in images
ToggleJump will now also work for hotspots in images when the links in the hotspots are to anchors inside toggles on the same page as the hotspot. This previously only worked for anchors in other topics.
- Improved formatting in sortable table header rows:
You can now use "mixed" formatting in sortable table header rows and all the formatting will be transferred to the sortable version. For example, you can now format part of the header bold and part italic, if you want. You are still limited to one paragraph only per header cell, however. Entering more than one paragraph in a header cell will cause errors. - Brackets in sortable table header text turned off formatting:
Round and square brackets – ( ) and [ ] – in the text of sortable table header rows turned off the text formatting in the surrounding text. This has been fixed. - Paragraph alignment in sortable table header rows:
Paragraph alignment (left-aligned, centered and right-aligned) in sortable table header rows is now transferred to the sortable version along with the space above and space below attributes. Please don't try to use justified paragraphs in sortable table header rows, however.
- Sortable table tooltips in Internet Explorer and CHM:
Tooltips on the sort icons in sortable tables in Internet Explorer sometimes displayed the fallback icons instead of the tooltip text. - NoWrap added to headers in sortable tables:
The headers in sortable tables now have a nowrap attribute that prevents the sort icons from slipping to the next line if the column is too narrow. - Quotes and apostrophes in topic headers did not work with feedback button:
Because of a change in the way Help & Manual inserts certain characters in templates from variables it was necessary to change the way text from the topic caption and header are processed for the mail feedback button. Topic headers containing quotes and apostrophes will now work correctly with mail feedback. Accented and illegal characters are converted for the mail link. - New option for "simple" mail feedback:
If you have trouble with the mail feedback function because of complex or international characters in your topic titles or headers you can now turn on a "simple" feedback function by setting the FB_SIMPLEFB configuration variable to "true". - Hidden search form in some versions of IE:
In extremely rare cases some instances of Internet Explorer hid the search form in the search tab behind the search tab header. It should now be impossible for this to happen.
- XHTML setting:
You no longer need to set XHTML 1.1 output in your HTML export settings. You are free to have this either on or off, as required. - Non-scrolling header problems in Internet Explorer 7 and 8:
If topics contained horizontal lines and/or tables with a percentage width IE 7 and 8 were unable to see the length of the topic, resulting in problems with the vertical scrollbar. This only happened if XHTML 1.1 mode was activated and appears to be due to a bug in IE 7 and 8 in parsing XHTML code. A fix has been implemented that prevents this bug from activating in IE when XHTML mode is used. - Script error in topics without headers:
You can now also use topics without headers with PP 1.21. You will not have any of the navigation functions, of course, but both sortable tables and ToggleJump will work. If you want to create an Expand/Collapse Toggles link yourself in topics without headers use the following code in a script link:
javascript:toggleToggles();
Note that mail feedback links are not possible in topics without headers. - Disappearing text in JavaScript popups in CHM files:
The text was sometimes not visible in JS popups in CHM files if the text was formatted with single-cell tables. - ATOC-Entries for toggles without icons:
Toggle headers without icons did not open when scrolled to with ATOC entries.