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Whats New in Innovasys HelpStudio v3

HelpStudio 3 introduces a range of new features and functionality that make it easier than ever to author great professional quality Help systems for your solutions.

New Features

Multiple Language Authoring

HelpStudio is the only mainstream Help Authoring Tool to allow you author multiple languages within a single project.

Define your Topics, Table of Contents, Index Keywords once and manage each language you wish to localize to within the same project. Easily switch between locales, open the same Topic in different locales and track localization tasks all from within HelpStudio.

Use the enhanced XML Import / Export wizard if you need to send content for localization. Content timestamps ensure that you are always on top of what content requires localization.

Widgets

Widgets are a revolutionary concept in help content authoring, unique to HelpStudio. Widgets allow you to create and edit complex content (such as drop down sections, expand-in-place images, note boxes, includes etc.). Widgets are stored as XML but are edited in a WYSIWYG environment.

Widgets reduce authoring effort, encourage consistency and allow you to easily enhance or adjust content over time without requiring rework. Widgets can be defined or modified at the template, project or Build Profile level, providing the ultimate in authoring flexbility and productivity.

Feedback

HelpStudio includes comprehensive support for gathering and analyzing feedback from the users of your help system. The standard templates include the ability to generate a feedback form within your Topics, which works in combination with a .NET web application (a license for which is included with HelpStudio) to allow users to provide rating and feedback information directly from the help system.

Source Control

Team Foundation Server and SourceGear Vault are now natively supported, along with generic support for MSSCCI providers including Subversion and Perforce.

Working with Styles

Style Editor: Integrated Style editor dialog provides a rich UI for creating and editing style information.

Style Picker: A new Style Picker window provides a WYSIWYG preview of the available styles for the current selection. Simply click on a style to apply it to the current selection.

Stylesheet Editor: A fully integrated Stylesheet editor is now included.

Topic Editor

Page Map: Selecting, moving and manipulating content elements in HTML editors can be fiddly and frustrating. The page map has been designed to provide a clear visual indication of the elements in the page being edited, together with quick and simple ways of selecting and manipulating each element. The position of the elements in the page map corresponds with their position in the page, thereby providing a map of how content is structured, with the current element highlighted. Elements in the page map can be moved using drag and drop, and a context menu provides simple access to element properties, Cut/Copy/Paste, Remove functionality and editing of the elements HTML source.

Element Bar: The Element Bar provides a view of the current selections element hierarchy in the content editor. Elements that appear in the Element bar can be selected, edited and manipulated using a right-click context menu.

HTML Source Intellisense: The HTML source editor now includes basic intellisense for tags and attributes.

Undo / Redo history preserved: Undo / Redo history is preserved (where possible) when switching between Visual, HTML edit and Preview modes.

Convert Row to Header: A new table command has been added to allow a table row to be converted to a table header row with one click.

See Also Links

Auto See Also Links: See Also links can be defined as derived from Topic Categories (a See Also link for each member of a category) or other Topics (a See Also link created for each link defined in a particular other Topic.

Auto See Also Category: See Also links can be set to automatically use the Topic Category assigned to the target topic, to reduce maintenance if categorizations change over time.

Topic Properties

Custom Topic Properties: Can be defined to allow non content information to be tracked against Topics.

Custom Topic Status Codes: The options dialog now includes a page to allow Topic Status codes to be customized.

Property Filters: The Node Properties, Topic Properties and Booklet Properties grids now include a toolbar to allow the displayed properties to be filtered. This feature allows you to conserve screen space and focus on the properties that you are working with at a particular point in time.

Help 2.x XML Island: A new property and editor for defining Help 2.x attributes in Topics has been added to the Topic Properties when working in a project containing at least one Help 2.x build profile.

Hyperlink Designer

Hyperlink Title Synchronization: Hyperlinks can now automatically synchronize the caption with the target Topic title. A new option has been added to the hyperlink dialog - 'Automatically synchronize link caption with target Topic title'. This option ensures that the link caption is always the same as the target Topic title, avoiding having to update links when the target Topic changes.

Help 2.x link designer: A redesigned Help 2.x link designer allows you to view and click on the Table of Contents of any installed Help 2.x namespace to choose the link target. The link designer will suggest the link type (URL or associative keyword) depending on the content of the target topic.

Document! X Filtering: Document! X items that have been excluded from the Included Modules list in the Document! X project are now excluded from the tree in the hyperlink designer dialog.

Booklets

Booklet Index: PDF Booklets can now contain a full Index.

Booklet Glossary: PDF Booklets can now contain the Glossary.

New Booklet Templates: 2 new Booklet Templates have been added to provide a range of different booklet styles.

Output

Breadcrumbs: The default templates now include a Breadcrumbs Bar. The Breadcrumbs Bar is a line of text below the title banner identifying the current Topics parent nodes in the Table of Contents.

Browser Help Toolbar: A toolbar is now included in Browser Help output providing access to new functionality including quick search, print, refresh, back, and forward as well as quick access to the Table of Contents, Index, Full Text Search and Favorites.

Browser Help Index Search: The index can now be searched by typing a term into a text box at the head of the Index page.

Browser Help Search Highlight: Search terms can be highlighted when navigating to the results of a full text search in Browser Help output.

XHTML Output: An option has been added to the Build Profile to allow the generation of XHTML output.

New Project Tools

Glossary Preview: The Glossary can now be previewed without having to build the output.

Project Index Editor: Allows Index Keywords to be edited from a project wide viewpoint. Keywords can still be created, edited and removed from the Topic Index Keywords window when working with a particular Topic.

Unused Images Tool: A new Tool has been added to allow the identification of images that are included in the Project Explorer but are no longer used in the project content.

Project Explorer

Clone Topics, Build Profiles and Booklets: A new clone command has been added to the Project Explorer toolbar to make it quick and easy to create new items based on an existing item.

Topic Caption: A new option has been added to allow the caption used for Topics on the Project Explorer to be customized.

Filter: The Project Explorer can now be filtered on Build Profile and / or Topic Status. The filter can also be used to show only Topics that have not been included in the Table of Contents.

Other New Features

Runtime merge: Support for runtime merging multiple help files, both in HTML Help 1.x and Help 2.x.

Print Topic: A Print command has been added to allow Topics to be printed from HelpStudio when in preview mode.

Thumbnail Options: An options dialog is now displayed when 'Convert to Thumbnail' is used, allowing the thumbnail and drop shadow options to be confirmed or modified.

Regular expressions in Find and Replace: Project Find and Replace now supports the use of Regular Expressions, as does the Find and Replace box (in HTML source mode).

Build Flags for Other Files: It is now possible to apply build flags to other files (images, stylesheets etc.) to avoid including them in a particular output.

Build Flags against Keywords and See Also links: Build flags can now be assigned to individual Index Keywords or See Also links.