Archive for the 'Documentation' Category

The software improvement advice, techniques and ideas that I post here are taken from our real practice. I try to keep this blog practical and hype free. This post is a rare case (the previous one was about 9 months ago) when I’d like to tell a little about our own products.
During the recent months we have been working actively to make new versions of our existing products and to develop a new product as well. Recently we have released two new products.

Dr.Explain 3.0

Dr.Explain v.3.0 ( http://www.drexplain.com ) is an innovative software documentation tool. Thanks to unique technology, with Dr.Explain you can produce attractive and professional looking help files just in a few hours, not in days.

The Dr.Explain captures windows, dialogs, and forms from live application and web pages, makes screenshots, and automatically adds interactive references to all controls. You have not to spend hours annotating your software GUI. Focus on your content - Dr.Explain will do all the tedious work for you. The program can produce CHM, RTF and HTML help files with annotated screenshots, live menus, cross-references, and navigation from a single source file.


Dr.Explain concept

What’s new in v.3.0

  • The new capturing engine captures and automatically documents windows, menus, GUI elements, web pages, and even flash applications
  • Revamped text editor allows pictures, tables, lists, fonts, multibyte encoding, RTL mode, etc…
  • Enhanced topic management supports topic statuses, marking and locking\unlocking
  • Lots of other improvements including optimized export routines, Google sitemap generator, predefined macro variables, and many more improvements and tweaks.

The new version download: http://www.drexplain.com/download

TBS Cover Editor

TBS Cover Editor ( http://www.trueboxshot.com ) is a full featured software box cover creator with 3D rendering and template library. We accomplished the project in partnership with True BoxShot Software.

With the TBS Cover Editor you can create your 3D box shot design in a single flat worksheet. Say goodbye to separate designs for each side; no more design slices in many image files. The single-sheet concept of the TBS Cover Editor allows you editing of all box sides on a single screen. The real time 3D preview immediately shows how your 3D box shot output image looks like without switching between different windows or applications.


TBS Cover Editor Box shot template library TBS Cover Editor box shot

With the TBS Cover Editor no additional expensive third party tools are required. The program supports all the steps of box shot creation: from drafting and design, to 3D scene setting and image rendering. You can create professional-quality 3D box shots with no extra expense in a single program. The TBS Cover Editor comes with a brilliant collection of software cover design templates for various types of software. You can make a box cover in less than two minutes.

The TBS Cover Editor has a powerful rendering engine that produces realistic 3D box shots by applying original 3D rendering and ray casting algorithms. Your every box shot will look as if it is made by a studio.

More details: http://www.trueboxshot.com

Both these products will automate the most tedious and time consuming routines of your software business – software help and documentation writing, and graphical design. The Dr.Explain and TBS Cover Editor will help you present your software product in a professional manner with minimal efforts. As a software vendor you may focus on your business growth and leave the dull operations to the specialized systems.

During the last months I tried not to aggressively promote our flagship application Dr.Explain in this blog. I’d like the ISV Kaizen Blog to be not an advertorial but a collection of simple tips and tricks useful for most of ISV and mISV.

This post is an exception because today we have a good news. Indigo Byte Systems officially released Dr.Explain 2.6. There are about 25 new features and enhancements in the new version. So, I’d like to tell you a bit more about the Dr.Explain today.

What is Dr.Explain:
Dr.Explain v.2.6 is an innovative software documentation tool.
It sounds boring, doesn’t it? So …

What benefits will Dr.Explain bring to your ISV business process:
Thanks to unique technology, with Dr.Explain you can produce attractive and professional looking help files just in a few hours. That would otherwise take days to create them manually.

The Dr.Explain captures windows, dialogs, and forms from live application, makes screenshots, and automatically adds interactive references to all controls. You have not to spend hours annotating your screenshots. Focus on your content - Dr.Explain will do all the tedious work for you.

The program can produce CHM, RTF and HTML help files with annotated screenshots, live menus, cross-references, and navigation from a single source file.

You can read more about Dr.Explain and download a free trial on http://www.drexplain.com

What new benefits does the version 2.6 bring to users:
Let’s name just the most important:
* Better recognition of Delphi and other programming languages controls
* Many usability improvements
* More Hot Keys
* Better keywords management
* Optimized output routines
There are 25 new features in the update.

I think you may also be interested in the Dr.Explain featured reviews and user testimonials.

One more good news from Dr.Explain
Nowadays, Dr.Explain and True BoxShot run the mutual discount program. If you order either Dr.Explain or True BoxShot software you will receive $15 discount for the second product. Now you may add two useful products to your ISV toolbox and save money.
More info: http://www.drexplain.com/order

From Kaizen point of view, Dr.Explain will save many hours of your valuable time that you may better spend on product development and promotion rather than on boring documentation writing. The tool will easily pay for itself on the first project.

There are many situations when you have an application but there is no help file with it, and you have no time to write complete documentation yourself. At the same time you have no budget to hire a professional technical writer who can do this tedious work for you. The situations come up fairly often and the cost-effective approach is best.

Read our new white papers: Writing Cost-Effective Documentation for Software Systems

If you deal with software development business then you likely have ever dealt with software documentation writing. Next time, when you are about to create or revamp a help system for your software start from this free on-line tool, Software Help Planner. It will advise the most suitable help system architecture for your software product.

Once you specify the key details of your software the tool will advise which help format to choose and what topics should be included in the documentation.

Please consider this amusing tool like a little joke that makes your life easier.