Version

Released

3.2.0.0

22-Mar-2004

Import Html Files: This is a new option on the File menu that allows you to import multiple html files into your current Project or optionally into a new Project.

Full Text Search for Website Help: There is a new file in your Templates folder called "ExcludeWordList.txt". When you compile your website and the "Full Text Search" option is checked, if this text file is not found in your existing Website folder it is copied from the Templates folder. This file contains a simple list of common words to ignore when generating the Full Text Search. You can now effectively search on any word in your Website help with great speed.

Website Help can now be displayed Context Sensitively. You can now pass a Contents Index number when displaying your Website Help and the contents will automatically synchronize and display the relevant page. For full details click here.

Bookmarks in PDF. The PDF Options screen now has two new options on the Preferences tab, "Add Bookmarks" and "Expand Bookmarks". The first option adds a clickable Table of Contents to your PDF file and the second option controls whether the Table of Contents is expanded or not. You may want to check the "Outlines" option so that the Table of Contents is initially visible.

Topic Keywords Tab. On the Properties tab, below the editor, there is a new Keywords tab. This is similar to what you see on the Index tab, but is more intuitive because it shows you a list of all the keywords that the current Topic uses. You can also add and delete keywords from this tab.

Hints for Links: If you now pass your mouse over a link it will display a hint window showing where it links to.

Go To Topic Number: This is a new option on the Edit menu. The WinHelp Error Log sometimes refers to an error in a Topic number. You can now type in this number and Fast-Help will go directly to that Topic.

First Time Help: To help explain some features the very first time they are chosen, a help screen will appear explaining what this feature does. This help screen will only appear once but can be accessed again from the First Time Help section of the FAQ heading in the help system.

Display URL in a New Window - when you create or edit an Internet link there is a new Check box on the Advanced tab called "Display URL in a New Window". If checked, your link will open in your default browser, if un-checked the link will display within your HtmlHelp window as normal.

The "Cascade" screen for Translations has a new option "Update Images". During cascade the images in your Project's "Images" folder are checked to see if they exist in the "Images" folder of your translation. Any that are not found are copied there. If an image is found, then the date and time is compared with the base language image. If the base language image is newer, and the "Update Images" option is checked, then the image in the Translation "Images" folder will be over-written. If this option is un-checked then existing files will not be over-written.

Documentation: There are several major changes in this release, so please read this section carefully.

MS Word: The Macro option caused some problems on people's machines so this was removed and replaced by a new Table of Contents and Indexing mechanism. There is also a new option on the compile screen called "Store Images Externally". This makes your rtf document very small but referring to images rather than embedding them in the document. However, if you are distributing your rtf document then you will need to uncheck this option so that you can ship a single document. All page numbers now use MS Word fields which unfortunately don't automatically update, so the very first time your document loads you can update the page numbers by either selecting Print Preview or Ctrl+A followed by F9. Page numbers in the Table of contents and Index entries are now hyperlinks and clicking them will bring you to that page.

General: Indexes are now single column, whereas they used to be two column. Moving to single column removes previous page number and formatting issues. Table of Contents no longer uses trailing dots before page numbers as this could cause problems with alignment. The new Table of Contents and index are now completely consistent.

Storage of Images: Previously, a copy of images was stored within the project and compared to the corresponding image in the "Images" folder and updated if necessary. Although this speeded up some operations it bloated the Project database when large images were used and thus was counter-productive. This has now been changed so that all images are stored externally.

HtmlHelp Compile and Lists: When saving a bulleted or numbered list, custom bullets are not always saved. This is due to a limitation in Html. However, an option has been added to the ini file that will allow you to enable an option where custom bullets are saved. To do this, edit the HelpSettings.ini file, and in [Preferences] set the following option, "SaveListsAsText=1". Be warned though that this option causes the first line of bullets to not be indented in the same indent as successive lines, which is why this option is not enabled by default.

The PDF Compile screen now has some helpful text indicating that the Documentation Options are common to both documentation and PDF file creation. Two new buttons to access these options have been added to make this more intuitive.

When loading your help text, Fast-Help now checks to see if an image has been updated since it was last used. If it has, then the image is automatically updated, including the new dimensions.

PDF now supports Unicode directly.

Ghost Topics are now ignored in the Browse Sequences in HtmlHelp and Website Help.

Website Help has been updated to support Netscape, Mozilla and Opera browsers. Although these browsers do not support the concept of a fully nonscrollable area, the presentation has now been improved so that the contents is always visible.

Several extra reserved variables have been added to enable the customization of the buttons and text in Website Help. Click here to see the full details.

Tasks - when entering a date in the Tasks tab an ellipsis button now gives you the ability to select a date from a calendar.

Merging multiple CHM files had a bug in the Contents handling. This has been fixed.

Compiling Websites in Korean and Portuguese now represents the Titles and search options correctly.

Deleting a topic at the end of the Contents list did not always refresh the list immediately. This has been fixed.

Website compile: Search results showed "..." for pages that had text less than 100 chars and not all keywords were included. Fixed.

Page numbers in large documents could be incorrect. This has been fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience this caused.

Website Help has now been made more compatible with Mozilla, Netscape and Opera browsers. None of these browsers fully supports the concept of nonscroll regions, but the presentation has been updated so that now the contents will always be visible.