FINAL BETA: New HTML-to-EXE eBook compiler for download

[Alexander Halser]

Except the e-Book Search Tab stops working when IE Scripting is disabled

Yes. This is a small disadvantage. No scripting, no active content, unfortunately.

[Murray Phillips]

Large file published
I have just done a test publication using the eBook publisher. I have been publishing to chm, so for the test I published to webhelp using the first skin I could find which was the H&M skin. I haven’t tested the eBook thoroughly but it appears to be fine. I suspect our documentation is a bit larger than usual, the statistics are:
Topics 228
Videos 125
600 impict images
Words (approx. ) 200,000
Size of exe 1.01 meg

[Mike Linacre]

Murray: 125 videos compressed into 1.01 MB? Are you sure?

My own test (no videos): eBook = 1.14 MB, .chm = 192 KB.

[Alexander Halser]

Beta 13, download link:
http://download.ec-software.com/ewriter-beta-13.zip

We have fixed a couple of problems with beta 13...

1) When no network was available (e.g. no Internet connection), the eBook started with a "Navigation canceled" page. Beta 13 should work even when no network is available.

2) Intermittent hickups on start: from time to time, the eBook did not start at all, running in the task manager in the background but not visibly.

3) The option to open external links in the default browser has been removed. It is now always on, except in kiosk mode. (It doesn't make sense to display external links inside the eBook, there are way too many possible issues which are better handled by the default browser.)

4) Beta 13 is much faster.

[Martin Wynne]

3) The option to open external links in the default browser has been removed. It is now always on

Hi Alexander,

I had some content (a slideshow) running in an iframe. It was working fine, but now it opens in the browser instead. It's not an external link, it is on the same domain.

I agree that clickable links to other domains should open in the browser.

regards,

Martin.

[Alexander Halser]

Martin,

Would you mind to email me the test source data? alexander dot halser at ec-software.com

[jgodfrey]

4) Beta 13 is much faster.

Confirmed. That's great, as the "navigational sluggishness" of the previously generated eBooks was somewhat problematic. This update makes a huge difference in that arena!

Jeff

[Darren Rose]

beta 13 definitely quicker!

Get this error during build "ERROR: Resource update error: Error Creating Process Error Code :2" - but it still seems to build okay - UPDATE found it is because when it saves configuration settings it remembers old path for UPX so needs manually changing

Final file is 54mb in size (or 53.4 if I use UPX packing)

[Alexander Halser]

Where in the build process does this error occur? Can you post the compiler log?

[Darren Rose]

the error appears at the point it tries to run the UPX packing - as I said it was because in the saved configuration it had remember old path for ebook compiler which had beta 10 in title, so when I installed beta 13 it was looking in wrong folder for UPX.exe - amended path manually and then worked fine

[Eric]

Trivial file name bug. Well, not a bug so much as a minor improvement.

On Source tab of main e-Writer screen, I set the Output File as
"c:\temp\ChartNet 5.61 Help"

The created output file was
"c:\temp\ChartNet 5.exe"

The period embedded in my specified file name apparently being misinterpreted as the start of the file extension.

I checked the eWriter.chm help, and it does specify that the filename must have the extension .exe. And of course when I include the .exe extension ( "c:\temp\ChartNet 5.61 Help.exe"), it works correctly.

However, in actual practice that will likely be ignored (by knuckleheads like me). Perhaps a better approach might be to examine the apparent extension (which in this case would have been ".61 Help"), and if it's not ".exe", append the .exe extension.

[Murray Phillips]

Hi Mike
I have just checked and yes both the CHM and e-book are just over a megabyte each, almost the same size. The vast bulk of this is simply the videos. I don’t claim to be an expert in video production but when I first started I spent significant time experimenting (I use Camtasia) with various video types, dimensions and production settings. I would not stake my life on it but I think the parameters I am currently using a probably about as efficient as I can get to convey the sort of information that needs to be conveyed in these videos.
Murray

[Karsten Strobel]

Hi! I just tried the new eWriter compiler. What I did is I exported a h&m project to html and used that as input for the compiler. Very handy. Useful to have a single exe from it.

Two things I'd like to suggest:
1) On the left side there's a region titled "Contents|Index|Search". When I have a longer list under this title and scroll down, the title scrolls out of view. I need to scroll back all the way in order to - for example - change from Index to Contents. It would be better to keep the Title links on top when scrolling in the list.
2) In the Index list, I'd like to type the starting characters to quickly find an entry. (In a list with cities I'd like to find Paris by typing P and A.)

Karlo

[Mike Linacre]

Tim & Alexander, thank you for this great endeavor

eWriter.chm says: "You can package any HTML files or websites as an e-Writer eBook"

1. Converting one HTML webpage to an eBook: eWriter-Beta-13 reported "Invalid data"
Here is the text of the webpage:
<html><head><title>title</title></head><body>body</body></html>

2. Converting a folder containing hundreds of relatively linked webpages - it is online at http://www.rasch.org/rmt/index.htm
The eBook compiled and the starting page displayed, but there are no Tabs, no table of contents, the forward arrow is inactive, and there appears to be no way to page sequentially through the eBook. So, to get to a particular eBook page, one must navigate through the relative links from page to page hoping ultimately to reach the desired page.
Suggestion: an (optional?) automatic "next page" capability - just like a printed book
- and how about (optional?) page numbers too?

[fjrohlf]

The beta seems to work fine on my help files. Will there be a way for software to directly load a specific page in the ebook? I was also wondering about the logfile display at the bottom of the window. Is there an option to make that go away?

Jim