First Premium Pack 2 Site Online

[Tim Green]

One of our top beta testers, Darren Rose of PC Assist Online, has just put the very first Premium Pack 2 site worldwide online with a pre-release version of one of the skins. You can view it here:

PC Assist Online Help Site

Darren has used the Night Rider webhelp skin. There are a total of 14 webhelp skins, including several in Windows 8 Metro style, along with 8 CHM skins, 8 smartphone skins compatible with iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry, and a dedicated iPad skin. The release is coming soon, we just need to complete the packaging and documentation.

The WebHelp skins feature tabbed browsing with undockable tabs and the ability to park topics in additional tabs, a collapsible header for more browsing space and a new toolbar for much easier and more intuitive navigation. They are actually much more than skins, they are a completely new webhelp user interface.

CHM File Link Fixer in Premium Pack 2

The CHM skins in PP2 come with an exciting new feature we call File Link Fixer. You can now link to external files with normal file or Internet links from your CHM, no matter where they are. They can be in the CHM folder or in another folder accessed with a relative link. The CHM file link bug will be corrected on the fly and the link will work.

Smartphone skins with "tap tables"

The smartphone skins include a feature we call "tap tables" that make it possible to combine a compact smartphone display with the ability to display more extensive data when necessary. Normally, all the content automatically fits the smartphone display (images are resized to fit, also on rotate). If you need to display "bigger" data you put it in a fixed-width table with a special ID. In the display, the table is hidden and replaced by a tap bar. When the user taps on it, the table is overlayed over the normal display and the user can navigate in it with horizontal and vertical scrolling, and a second tap bar at the top to close it.

[Aitch]

Ohhh!! very very nice indeed! I like!
Well done Darren, and thank you for sharing the site.

[Darren Rose]

Thanks Heidi

Is a pleasure to be able to test and show how good the Premium Pack 2.0 skins are - Tim has done some fantastic work with these new skins

[Sharon Close]

Well done Darren (and Tim)

Your site looks great! Looking forward to having a go myself now.

cheers

Sharon

[PatInAustin]

I am looking to buy the skin package. I see the web site is selling Premium Pack 1.50. Will the version 2.0 be a new separate product or an upgrade to v1.50.

[Tim Green]

Hi Pat,

I am looking to buy the skin package. I see the web site is selling Premium Pack 1.50. Will the version 2.0 be a new separate product or an upgrade to v1.50.

The new package will be an extension of the original package and the current skins will be included in the new package as well, as the "Classic Skins". Customers who purchased the Premium Pack recently will get a free upgrade. The new package will include 14 WebHelp skins, 8 CHM skins, 8 Smartphone skins, 1 dedicated iPad skin and the 14 Classic skins.

[Thomas Hagstrom]

Is there a screenshot of the Metro skin? Man, I'd like to get my hands on that :)

[Tim Green]

Is there a screenshot of the Metro skin? Man, I'd like to get my hands on that

Here you go: Screenshots of a Metro skin (there are six variants to choose from), a CHM skin and a smartphone skin. The screenshot of the smartphone skin still says "double-tap to show topic" but since then swiping has been added for both Android and iOS. Double-Tap is only needed for BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 because they still don't support swiping well enough.

[Paul Elbertse]

Hi,

This new skin looks beautiful.

I have a remark though.
Users often use the index and search function.
In this new skin it looks as if these functions always open and show the search results in the right side of the window
where in the current skins they open in the left side where the TOC is.
This (the new skin) makes navigating from the search result to the contents back and forth not user friendly because you always need to switch between tabs.
Moreover, when you switch back to the search results you are not able to see which search result you just clicked.
I know that you can undock the tabs, but still. I don't think my users will like this. Pitty because I think the new skin looks very nice indeed.

I hope you have the perfect solution!?

Regards,
Paul

[Tim Green]

Hi Paul,

The Search and Index tabs can be undocked into separate windows and they still work there.

[ComputingData]

What is the price for people who want to upgrade from the last premium pack to this one, or is it a free upgrade?

[Tim Green]

What is the price for people who want to upgrade from the last premium pack to this one, or is it a free upgrade?

It is free if you purchased the last version within the last three months, you should receive an upgrade notification soon if that is the case. If you purchased earlier you can already get a reduced-price upgrade from the upgrades page on the online store.

http://www.ec-software.com/order.html

Click on the Upgrades button at the top, then select the Premium Pack upgrade option from the drop-down at the top of the Upgrade page.