Today we are proud to announce Helpinator 2.0 Beta.
You can download it here: http://www.helpinator.com/downloads/helpinatorfreebeta.zip
Main features of Helpinator:
1. Multiple languages in one project file.
2. Generates CHM, PDF, RTF and websites.
3. Conditional compilation
4. Template engine with HTML template builder.
5. Import/Export RTF and HTML
6. Library images and text snippets.
7. Simple image editor with shapes to annotate screenshots and create diagrams.
8. Tasks.
9. Console version for batch processing.
More detailed explanation of features:
1. Multiple languages in one project file. It’s a hard job to maintain documentation for a multilingual application. If you have separate projects you need to keep structure and context id’s synchronized. Helpinator stores multiple languages in the same project file, project structure and topic context id’s remain the same across all project languages. One language is basic, you can add as many languages as you like at any time.
2. Generates CHM, PDF, RTF and websites from the same project. You don’t have to do additional work to provide documentation in different formats.
3. Conditional compilation. It’s a common issue when the same product has different editions with different set of features. But most of the features overlap. Of course you can have separate project for each edition but as with multiple languages you need to keep them synchronized though making double work maintaining same features. Helpinator has conditional compilation feature to solve this issue. First, Helpinator has project variables. Second, Helpinator has conditional directives that can evaluate variable values and skip parts of topic text when condition is false. You can even control entire topic inclusion/exclusion based on condition. You can group variables into named “presets”. Each preset has it’s own variable values. You can select preset before compilation to control compilator behavior through directives.
4. Template engine. Templates allow you to change the way your documentation looks. Helpinator supports two types of templates – HTML and RTF. HTML Templates are used to generate CHM and website, RTF templates for RTF and PDF documentation. You can have different templates for different languages and even every topic can have it’s own template. “Template builder “ feature allows you to create your own HTML template without any HTML/CSS knowledge.
5. Import/Export RTF and HTML. First of all, you can import existing RTF and HTML documents into Helpinator project. Second you can export topics, snippets and keywords with some additional structure info. This feature allows you to translate your documentation into foreign languages easily. Translated project can be imported back to selected language and project structure will remain the same.
6. Library images and snippets. When you create documentation for a software product you often use the same image or screenshot to illustrate different topics. When interface changes you need to browse through all the topics to find where images need to be changed. Or you can use Helpinator image library feature. All library images are available under “Images” node of project tree view. When you need to include image into topic – just place a link to library image. When library image changes it will appear in it’s new form in all topics that reference it. Text snippets are similar to library images except they are named blocks of text.
7. Simple image editor with shapes for annotating screenshots and creating simple diagrams. Image editor allows you to add different shapes, text and arrows to your screenshots. Also sometimes it is worth to create a small flow chart to show users what they need to do. Just add empty blank image and use shaped to create diagram.
8. Tasks. You can assign simple to-do items to topics and entire project. When you edit a topic, list of all tasks assigned to it is shown at the bottom of the editor. When you select “Tasks” node in the project tree view – all tasks in the project are shown. You can select tasks and move to the topic it is assigned to.
9. Helpinator has console app chelpinator.exe that you can use in your batch files to compile project.