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Recent Posts

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26
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Helpinator (a tool to make help files) Discounts
« Last post by DmitriPopov on March 18, 2013, 11:37 PM »
Hello, everybody!

Helpinator will be featured on BitsDuJour this Friday (03/22/2012) with 60% off.
Note that the current version (3.10) adds support of WordPress CMS and OracleHelp (for Java and Web).

http://www.bitsdujou.../software/helpinator
27
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Helpinator 3.10: Publish Online Documentation to WordPress
« Last post by DmitriPopov on March 06, 2013, 05:38 AM »
Hello, Everybody!

My name is Dmitri Popov, I am the author of Helpinator.

WordPress is so popular now that even my cat knows how to install and use it.
It has tons of themes and plugins and a very active community.
Well, it's not perfect, but if you create an app - you can get your site up and running in minutes and there are a lot of inexpensive themes to make it look professional.

Online documentation (or WebHelp) for your product is another good idea - it's SEO-friendly, easy to update and access. But authoring online documentation in WordPress editor or a post-oriented desktop client is a kind of tedious work. This is where Helpinator helpinates your problems. It's a specialized help authoring tool, you can capture screenshots, annotate them, create step-by-step guides, write topics in WYSIWYG editor and then publish to WordPress with a single mouse click!

This post on our blog shows how easy it is to connect Helpinator and WordPress:

http://www.helpinato...ublish-to-wordpress/

Thank you for reading this :)
28
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Helpinator (a tool to make help files) Discounts
« Last post by DmitriPopov on January 22, 2013, 10:25 AM »
Hello, it's me again!

Recently we added support for a number of output formats:
  • QtHelp
  • JavaHelp
  • EPUB
  • MOBI

To celebrate it we offer 15% discount that expires on 31/01/2013.
Coupon Code: QTHELPINTRO
29
Living Room / Re: Humour And A "Serious" Product - Opinions Needed
« Last post by DmitriPopov on June 21, 2012, 06:54 AM »
However, do take me with a grain of salt as I have a bit of a twisted sense of humour!
-Renegade (June 20, 2012, 12:51 PM)

It seems to me your sense of humor is as twisted as mine :)

On that note...I wouldn't use it...Mainly cause I like satan being inside my computer.
-Stephen66515 (June 20, 2012, 12:56 PM)

Believe me, my Helpinator will bring even more Satan into it :)

With a name like helpinator, you might consider changing the current smilie figure with one that resembles Schwarzenegger?
-Shades (June 20, 2012, 01:11 PM)

I was thinking about it as a theme for program's logo, but turned it down because a lot of other help authoring tools use robots as mascots.

I wonder, too, how much focus you will get on the content alone versus the application.
-cranioscopical (June 20, 2012, 02:52 PM)

I thought initial reaction will make people to stop by and read. And I didn't thought of it in a religious way since Christian Satan is more pop culture character than scary religious figure it supposed to be.

It's a refreshing change for the typical (snooze fest) dry as a desert parched bone technical writing.
-Stoic Joker (June 21, 2012, 06:34 AM)

Thank you! This is what it is for.
30
Living Room / Humour And A "Serious" Product - Opinions Needed
« Last post by DmitriPopov on June 20, 2012, 12:39 PM »
Hello!

I develop and sell a help authoring tool - a kind of product that is by default "serious" and even boring. But as a micropreneur I should always think of making things different from my competitors.  8) Their sites are, you know, really serious and corporative, so I decided to do a little twist and create something offbeat on my website. So here we go, my "Tutorial":   :-[

http://www.helpinator.com/tutorial.html

But now I'm in doubt - is it funny at all? Or just harms my reputation without any good. :D Please take a look and tell me what was the first thing on your mind? Was it "Wow!", "WTF?!" or "I'd better close it right away!"  :)
31
Found Deals and Discounts / Helpinator (user manual and software documentation writing tool) Discounts
« Last post by DmitriPopov on June 20, 2012, 12:14 PM »
Hello!

I am the author of Helpinator (help authoring tool). Just a couple of links to show what it's about:
Informal features review: https://www.helpinator.com/blog/2019/09/18/recommended-reading/
Story of Helpinator on my blog: https://www.dmitripopov.com/why-i-like-what-i-created-and-hopefully-you-will-like-it-too-part-1/
Tour: http://www.helpinator.com/helpinator.html
Benefits: http://www.helpinator.com/benefits.html


UPD 2019/12/24: 2-day BitsDuJour sale, lifetime license for the price of a yearly subscription: https://www.bitsdujo...elpinator/saf=510203
32
Living Room / Looking for people to follow on Twitter
« Last post by DmitriPopov on May 08, 2012, 06:02 AM »
Hello, everybody!

I never believed that Twitter will become so big, and for years I just avoided it. But now it seems to me that I am missing something and a lot of things go by just because I'm not involved. I tried to browse and search for people to follow, but there are TONS of information and I quickly get tired choosing right people - some accounts are long dead, other post things not related to their interests, or you need to follow those crazy shortlinks before you figure out what the tweet was about... Insanely ineffective. And I decided to go another way - just call for people with similar interests in a place more compatible with my brainware.

So, if you are living active Twitter life, interested in Delphi/C#/ASP.NET/Android programming and microISV business / web startups, then follow me and I'll follow you back, or post a link to your twitter account here in case you want other donationcoders to follow you.

https://twitter.com/#!/DmitriPopov

In case you know someone I should definitely follow, post them too.
33
Developer's Corner / Re: Ribbon UI - is it really THAT good?
« Last post by DmitriPopov on December 01, 2011, 02:03 AM »
Thank you all for your opinions and useful links. To sum it all up, I need Ribbon because it's a marketing trend, but if I fail to do it right it will ruin everything :) Perhaps I should create a series of demo/test versions to test the idea first... It's a long way to go.
34
Developer's Corner / Re: Ribbon UI - is it really THAT good?
« Last post by DmitriPopov on November 29, 2011, 03:47 AM »
You might want to make it a very prominent choice by actually putting a toggle menu item for it in the menu itself. By making it obvious, you won't end up with people used to the old UI screaming, "Oh man... the new version blows hard chunks of whale vomit..."
-Renegade (November 29, 2011, 01:15 AM)

I don't like this approach, from the developer point of view any duplication means double work and possible inconsistency. But of course it's the most suitable way of UI change from the user's point of view (opposite to what Microsoft did).

Is the application document-oriented, like Word or Excel, (or help-authoring for that matter) then a Ribbon can be quite productive.
-Ath (November 29, 2011, 01:45 AM)

I've heard a lot of people saying things like that, but I haven't seen any operations that could be done faster with Ribbon. Actually in my app all the required controls are always in the field of view and the number of controls shown depends on context. In fact, I did Ribbon-style UI without Ribbon :)

Thank you very much for the MSDN links  :Thmbsup:
35
Developer's Corner / Ribbon UI - is it really THAT good?
« Last post by DmitriPopov on November 29, 2011, 12:45 AM »
Hello, everybody!

As you might know I develop and sell a help authoring tool targeted at software developers that document their creations themselves (tech writers usually use more complicated and expensive tools).

The big problem I have right now is what UI concept I should follow. For years my tool had "classic" text processor UI, defined by MS Word versions prior to 2007. But then it was switched to the Ribbon (which I personally hate a lot) and it became a new standard for word processors. Users of my program are divided almost equally into 2 groups - those who like classic UI and say that it is my competitive advantage, and the other group that says they miss Ribbon very much.

I'm afraid that absence of Ribbon becomes a more significant disadvantage over time, because it becomes more and more popular and widespread thing. Redesigning UI will take a lot of time and I'm not sure right now that it will pay back.

So, what do you think? I know, it's a controversial thing, but I just need to hear what other developers think.
36
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Helpinator 3.5 - feedback required
« Last post by DmitriPopov on August 28, 2011, 10:15 AM »
Ath, thank you! Comparison matrix is somewhat hidden indeed, it's available only from Free edition UI. I'll add a link to the download page.
37
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Helpinator 3.5 - feedback required
« Last post by DmitriPopov on August 26, 2011, 09:06 AM »
Hello everyone!

Short intro: Helpinator is a single source / multi-language/ multi-format help authoring tool. And it is my creation :)

In the new release we've added a new feature called "Step-by-step Guides". Generally it's a tool to create tutorials from images in Helpinator project "Image library". Each step has assigned image, title and textual description. When you compile CHM/Web help embedded guide turns into a Javascript slideshow and in PDF/RTF mode - into a sequence of images with titles and descriptions. Here's our blog post about this feature:

http://www.helpinator.com/blog/2011/08/26/step-by-step-guides/

Main ideas:
1. Explaining even complex actions becomes simple when you split it into steps and illustrate with annotated images and little text.
2. Guide exports into all supported formats without any actions from user side.

Are we going in the right direction? Did we miss something important? I'll be glad to hear from you, even hard criticism :)
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