MADCAP SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES ANOTHER FIRST
MadCap Help Viewer - The first multi-purpose, embedded Help viewer.San Diego, CA, USA – October 17, 2006
— MadCap Software today announced the release of the MadCap Help Viewer—a freely redistributable content viewer that is based on Microsoft’s (NasdaqNM: MSFT) .NET framework. This latest product release is a continuation of the burgeoning partnership between the software giant and MadCap, the experts in Help authoring. Last month the two companies conducted a joint seminar in the United Kingdom on the challenges of delivering online user assistance in a changing software world. MadCap followed this with the much-anticipated release of Flare™ V2, the first true single-sourcing Help authoring tool ever developed. MadCap promises even more “firsts,” starting with the new MadCap Help Viewer.“It’s the first-ever combined Help and movie viewer,” said Bjorn Backlund, CTO of MadCap Software. “That has never been available, until now. Authors can create DotNet Help systems using Flare and they can create state-of-the-art software tutorials using Mimic, our new software-simulation tool that will be released soon. And users can view it all on the free MadCap Help Viewer. It is truly the cutting edge of Help authoring technology.”
DotNet Help, a new format developed by MadCap Software, supports .NET applications and was designed to include the best attributes of Microsoft HTML Help and WebHelp. With a customizable interface that is much more modern looking than the aging HTML Help, DotNet Help will blend easily into a modern Vista environment. DotNet Help is also not burdened by the security warnings and limitations that are often encountered with other formats. In addition, DotNet Help lets authors include features (such as browse sequences and search filters) not available with HTML Help.
Another first offered with the MadCap Help Viewer is embedded context-sensitive Help. Not only can software developers and Help authors use traditional methods for “connecting” their applications to their Help systems, but they can now easily integrate them in a way not possible before. Because of the DotNet Help output that can be produced with Flare and the tight integration of all MadCap products, authors can now actually make their Help systems part of the software applications that they are documenting. Perhaps the most innovative aspect of this new technology is a feature called “Dynamic Help.”
“Dynamic Help is truly eye-popping,” said Backlund. “It is a type of context-sensitive Help that follows the user’s actions in an application. As a user works in a program, the Help content dynamically changes to reflect what the person is doing. This way, the user doesn’t have to go looking for the Help. The proper Help content is always right there when the user needs it. We implemented this with our own online Help in Flare V1, and now with the MadCap Help Viewer, our customers can also do it with their Help. An author can show his manager the Dynamic Help in Flare’s online Help and say, ‘We can do this too!’”
MadCap Software vows to keep the string of “firsts” coming, beginning with the upcoming product releases of Capture™, Mimic™, and Blaze™. Capture is a single-source screen capture and image editing system. Mimic is a powerful movie-making software program that lets users produce movie content, such as video tutorials, to be displayed in the new Help Viewer. And Blaze is an XML-based alternative to Adobe® (Nasdaq: ADBE) FrameMaker®, designed for producing lengthy print documents. It is all part of MadCap Software’s vision of an integrated “dream suite” of Help and documentation products for its customers.
About MadCap Software
MadCap Software is just a new name for a group of familiar faces that have been leading the technical writing community for over a decade. MadCap is home to some of the most experienced software architects and product experts in the industry, including many former core members of eHelp Corporation, creators of RoboHelp. With its flagship product, MadCap Flare, MadCap Software is leading the technical communications industry into the future. Learn more about MadCap Software and Flare at www.madcapsoftware.com.
