Users from Russia and CIS countries, apply for discounts!

Если вы, или компания, в которой вы работаете, находитесь в России или странах СНГ, сейчас - наилучшее время для приобретения наших продуктов. Для получения значительной скидки на один из них отправьте нам e-mail с информацией, позволяющей нам определить ваш аккунт на x-tensive.com, а так же наименования продуктов, которые вам интересны.

Предложение актуально до 15 июля 2010 г.

In English:

If you (or a company you work for) are from Russia or one of CIS countries, it's a perfect time to purchase our products. Apply for a discount by sending us e-mail allowing to identity your account at x-tensive.com and list products you are planning to purchase to gain a significant discount.

The proposal remains intact till July 15th, 2010.

Free licenses for DataObjects.Net and Help Server for bloggers, article writers and user group speakers

We offer free licenses for DataObjects.Net and Help Server for bloggers, article writers and user group speakers.

The rules:

• We give promotional points for each publication or talk related to DataObjects.Net.
• The idea and content of publication or talk must be previously approved by us to apply for points, although there can be exceptions. So you can apply for points after the publicaiton or talk, but we don't guarantee they'll be provided in this case.
• Exact count of promotional points in each particular case is determined by the scoring rules described below. Scoring rules might change later.
• Each point is equal to 1 EUR.
• You may acquire our licenses, upgrades and support subscriptions for your promotional points, or get a discount for the same amount of EUR. If item is priced in other currency (e.g. USD), the conversion rate for your points is determined by this way: http://www.google.com/search?q=1+eur+in+usd
• Unfortunately, promotional points aren't convertable to real money :)

Scoring:

• Publication in your own blog: PointsYouGet = 100 + 2 * CountOfVisitorsCameToUsFromArticlePageDuring1stMonth.
  Publication of technical article on specialized site (CodeProject.com, etc.): PointsYouGet = 300 + 2 * CountOfVisitorsCameToUsFromArticlePageDuring1stMonth.
• Publication of short article / announcement on social link exchange resource (reddit.com, stumbleupon.com, webresourcesdepot.com, etc.): PointsYouGet = 0.3 * CountOfVisitorsCameToUsFromArticlePageDuring1stMonth.
• Talk @ .NET UG / ALT.NET UG or similar event: PointsYouGet = 300 + 20 * CountOfListeners.
• Additionally, we provide 1 Standard Edition license (of either DataObjects.Net or Help Server) to be gifted to a participant that:
  a) Will take active part in discussions;
  b) Will really need the license.
• Placing logo of one of our products with link to us at your web site: PointsYouGet = 0.5 * CountOfVisitorsCameToUs. New points are calculated each month.
• Something else, that might be interesting for us: we're open for any interesting suggestions, so please send us your proposal by e-mail. This includes writing a sample for us, adding some missing functionality, improving our documentatiuon and so on. 

Remarks:

• CountOfVisitorsCameToUsFromArticlePageDuring1stMonth is determined by our Google Analytics counters installed at x-tensive.com. We'll send you a screenshot (or a set of them) approving the info.
• CountOfListeners is determined by your photos or video.

So hopefully, some of you will like this idea. By heping us to promote our products, you're getting indirect advantage as well: better sales usually imply faster development.

"Guess, who" quest

Our designer just shared the photos of our team members that, by his optinion, express their characters best of all. Definitely a "must see" page, if you'd like to know "who is who" @ our team ;)

Dmitri Maximov talks about our new "Envy" project

Here is the whole story. If you'd like the idea, don't forget to leave a comment there. AFAIK, they spent a lot of time on planning and discussions.

15% discount on Help Server till the end of March

Enter 2010.03 coupon code after following any of "Buy now" links on this page to get it.

"Can ORM make your application faster?" series

In March I started to write a series of posts called "Can ORM make your application faster?". 6 posts are already there, although the whole sequence isn't finished yet (planning to do this in two weeks).

I hope it will be interesting for anyone who uses ORM tools or considers this.

DataObjects.Net: upcoming changes and plans

Recently I made two important posts related to DataObjects.Net future:

• Upcoming changes
• Plans for v4.3 and future goals

Please read them, if you're using this product or planning to use it.

Discount and subscriptions on DataObjects.Net

We updated "License" page in DataObjects.Net Wiki - now it reflects some changes we're planning to implement. There are:

• Discounts: right now we offer 15% discount for new orders, and 10% - for subscription prolongations. The offer is intact till March 31, 2010.
• Subscriptions: now you can pay for SMB and Enterprise licenses by ordering a subscription with 2-month billing period. So totally there are 6 payments, 20% of pay-at-once license cost each, thus total license cost is about 20%. But imagine: 99 USD per month - it's cheaper than VPS, and there is 15% discount! Conditions will never be more attractive. I wrote we'll adjust the prices in June, mainly to properly position the product relatively to its competitors. Check out e.g. this one, and think which of such functional can be covered by DO4 with DisconnectedState.
• Internal license is not available now.

New posts in blogs

Alex Yakunin's blog:

• Simple audit logging with DO4: code + some analysis of DO4 brains :)
• Default logging mode in DO4 is changed
• Thoughts: what must be done ASAP to improve v.4.2?
• Link: "Volatile keyword in C# – memory model explained"
• DataObjects.Net v4.2 is released!
• Help Server v3.0.1 is released!
• News & links to new topics in furum
• Alternative DataObjects.Net download location
• Versions and locking tests (code samples for Manual): the links
• DataObjects.Net v4.2 RC2 is available
• My Google Buzz feed
• X-tensive.com is updated (warning: beta version!)
• DataObjects.Net v4.2 RC is available
• Test pass results
• Support for connection strings and new way of setting default schema
• I'm back ;)
• The purpose of ProxyKeyGenerator
• Quest of the day
• New chapter in Manual: "Hacker's guide to DataObjects.Net"
• One more Manual update
• Why there is no [DebuggerSkipThrownException(typeof(...))]?
• Preliminary version of DataObjects.Net Manual in PDF
• DisconnectedState, OperationSet, events and operation logging
• Happy New Year!
• LINQ is nice: the same problem solved by different LINQ queries
• Testing new version of Help Server

Dmitri Maximov's blog:

• Denis Krjuchkov vs. Oracle
• DataObjects.Net 4.2 RC’s health status
• Google URL shortener for everyone
• Microsoft Sql Server CE 3.5 provider for DataObjects.Net 4
• File sync problem and possible solutions
• A code quality assessment concept
• Ayende on Dependency Injection
• Updates on the development process
• A frank confession
• Query preprocessors, Inversion of control & Localization support LINQ translator extension
• Logging, part 3. Configuring logging through log4net
• Logging, part 2. Architecture & configuration
• Logging, part 1. Introduction

Alex Kofman's blog:

• Persistent Hierarchies and Key Generators
• New WPF sample
• WPF applications and DataObjects.Net

Denis Krjuchkov's blog (new!):

• LINQ
• Unified storage level exceptions
• PostSharp is going closed source
• Practice of functional programming
• Oracle challenge
• Yep, I'm here

Alex Ilyin's blog (new!):

• WPF Resources
• CSLA – First impression
• Code quality test
• Inventing Log module
• Web forms and ASP.NET MVC
• Between Tirany and Democracy

P.S. Guys, sorry, but I just decided to share your Skype pics here - people should know your real nature :)

// Actually I did this just to add some colors. And I know they don't read comments.

Online web help: industry standards, help browsers \ converters and help authoring tools

Abstract: this article might be helpful for you, if you ever considered publishing product help on the web. It provides a short review of online help browsers used by market leaders, as well as widely adopted  commercial and freeware solutions allowing to publish product help on the web. So if you're planning to publish help files for your product on the web, you'll be aware of all the options, as well as of standard user expectations.

Disclaimer: since my company has its own product in this category, I can't pretend to provide fully independent review of various help browsers. But I'll try to.

What is really important for your potential (or existing) customers browsing your help? There are many factors (documentation quality itself, usability, design), but finally all of them can be expressed as overall user experience in comparison to widely known help browsers on the market, such as online MSDN Library web site or Visual Studio .NET Help.

Online help browsers used by market leaders

Microsoft MSDN Library
URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.aspx

Nice features:

• 3 versions – Classic, Lightweight Beta, ScriptFree
• Search with hints, but only in Classic version!
• Good URLs
• Good print version
• Community content (comments), "Rate the article".

Notes:

• No index - likely, because it must be incredibly large there
• I don't understand why it always reload the whole page. In general, this makes impression of slower operation.
• Open TOC nodes get closed on navigation (except the ones in current navigation path).

Summary: really good browser for such a large help collection.

Adobe Online Help
URL: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/9.0/Professional/index.html - for Adobe Acrobat

Nice features:

• Comments, rating - with RSS
• Good design
• Good URLs (but see the notes below - it looks like plain HTML everywhere)
• No need for Print button :)

Issues:

• TOC disappears when you click on a TOC link
• TOC always gets completely loaded.

Notes:

• No AJAX, no frames
• No index
• Search there relies on global search at Adobe.com.

Summary: this is mainly plain HTML (except comments), with all the limitations. The same approach won't work for large help collections (references, etc.). But Adobe team made really a good job - all the exposed documentation there is relatively short.

Autodesk Online Help

URL: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2010help/ - for Maya

Issues:

• Top frame URL does not change. It seems there is no way to get link to current page.
• Keyword and search indexes are fully loaded into the browser on navigation to corresponding tabs. Chrome process immediately eats ~ 200Mb.
• It seems search is implemented in JavaScript.
• No "Print" button.
• Buggy splitter (IE8, Chrome, Firefox 3.6).
• I'd say, design looks a bit ancient ;)

Summary: an attempt to provide Windows Help user experience there looks at least as unfinished.

JetBrains WebHelp
URL: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/webhelp/ - for ReSharper

Nice features:

• AJAX TOC with sync on navigation
• Search on the right is good solution for wide screen (now it is the most frequent case, especially for developers).

Issues:

• No URLs. Permalinks are available, but they lead to pages without header, TOC and Search.
• No highlighting of search results
• No index (probably, JetBrains help does not contain it)
• No "Print" button, but permalinks bring you to pages that are ideal for printing.

Notes:

• Built with ExtJS.

Summary: very good, especially for API references. Good UX, as at the whole JetBrains' web site.

ComponentOne NetHelp
URL: http://helpcentral.componentone.com/Documentation.aspx - for all C1 products

Nice features:

• "Previous page" and "Next page" buttons available at toolbar.

Issues:

• Top frame URL does not change. It seems there is no way to get link to current page.
• TOC, keyword and search indexes are fully loaded into the browser on navigation to corresponding tabs.
• Most likely, search is implemented in JavaScript.

Summary: visually better than Autodesk Online Help, but UX is very similar.

Oracle Help Technologies

URL: http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/java/help/index.html - there is a link to demo.

Nice features:

• All the features I expect to see (based on e.g. MSDN library experience) are available there.

Issues:

• No good URLs, but there are permalinks.

Notes:

• Animation of left pane is slooow... Completely unclear, why they use it at all there.
• Design must be improved (my own opinion = very subjective).

Resume: one of the most featured help browser among the others. The only lacks I'd list is its design & slow animation.

Eclipse Documentation
URL: http://help.eclipse.org/galileo/index.jsp

Nice features:

• All the  features I expect to see are available there. 
• Good search results (with quotations).

Issues:

• No URLs, no permalinks.

Notes:

• Index search returns paged results. Looks a bit strange from the point of UX.
• Really ancient design.

Resume: one of the most featured help browser among others here, although I think its design must be improved as well.

Mono Documentation
URL: http://www.go-mono.com/docs/index.aspx

Nice features:

• AJAX TOC
• It works noticeably faster than other help browsers - at least, from our office. Most likely, they properly tuned up content caching headers there.

Issues:

• No search
• No index
• No URLs
• Clicking on "permalink" closes all the nodes in TOC
• 1px splitter  - I noticed it only by occasion :)

Resume: search feature must definitely be added there. Generally, it must be better, since Mono is positioned as free alternative to Microsoft .NET. The only fact partially "saving" them now is that people can use Microsoft .NET help instead of this one (although Mono has a set of unique assemblies).

Other examples:

• PHP Help: http://www.php.net/manual/en/
• MySQL Help: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/
• Maple Help: http://www.maplesoft.com/support/help/AddOns/view.aspx?path=MaplePortal

Online help browsers available on the market

This part contains just a list of them: usually product web site provides all the necessary information (supported features, browsers, etc.).

Supported help formats (.CHM, .HxS, etc.) and server platforms are mentioned here. Products are listed alphabetically.

A!K Research Labs chm2web
Product page: http://chm2web.aklabs.com/
Online demo: http://chm2web.aklabs.com/helpfr/

Supported help file formats: .CHM
Supported server platform: any (generated web sites use only HTML and JavaScript).

Herd Software Development WinhelpCGI
Product page: http://www.herdsoft.com/linux/produkte/winhelpcgi.html
Online demo: http://www.herdsoft.com/ti/winhelpcgi/

Supported help file formats: WinHelp (.HLP)

Supported server platform: Linux, web server with CGI support is required.

Oracle Help Technologies
URL: http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/java/help/index.html - there is a link to demo.

This tool was described above.

Supported help file formats: Oracle Help

Supported server platform: cross-platform (viewer is implemented in Java),

X-tensive.com Help Server

Product page: http://www.x-tensive.com/Products/HS/

Online demo: http://help.x-tensive.com/

Supported help file formats: Microsoft Help 1.x (.CHM) and 2.x (.HxS), plain HTML
Supported server platform: Windows, IIS 6.0/7.0 with ASP.NET 3.5.

Help authoring/generation tools supporting web help (website) output

Tools listed below are capable to generate web site from help project. They do not support standard help formats, but if you're building a documentation using one of these tools, it can can be converted to a website exposing it on the web.

Adobe RoboHelp
Product page: http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/

There are two ways of building web-based documentation in RoboHelp:

• Using FlashHelp output format. An example is here (official).
• Using WebHelp output format. An example is here (not official - unfortunately, I was unable to find an official one at Adobe.com, so I took one from this list).

ComponentOne NetHelp in Doc2Help

Product page: http://www.componentone.com/SuperProducts/DocToHelp/

Web help example: http://helpcentral.componentone.com/Documentation.aspx

This tool was described above.

Supported server platform: any (generated web sites use only HTML and JavaScript).

ExtremeEase HelpConsole

Product page: http://www.extremeease.com/HelpConsole_2008_Overview.htm

Web help example: http://www.extremeease.com/help/demo%20help%20system/default.aspx

Supported server platform: any (generated web sites use only HTML and JavaScript).

Helixoft VSdocman and VBdocman

Product page: http://www.helixoft.com/vsdocman/overview.html

Web help example: http://www.helixoft.com/images/stories/vsdocman/help/

Supported server platform: any (generated web sites use only HTML and JavaScript).

Microsoft Sandcastle

Product page: http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle

Sandcastle is general purpose documentation generator using XML comments in C# \ VB.NET files to build it. There are two ways of building web-based documentation using it:

• Using DocSite Templates for Docproject. Example output screenshots are here (I couldn't find real web site, so there are just screenshots). Generated web site requires IIS 6.0 with ASP.NET 2.0 to run.
• Using Sandcastle Website output. Examples of such documentation: first, second, third (not official, Sandcastle authors currently don't maintain official example site).

NDoc

Product page: http://ndoc.sourceforge.net/

Web help example: http://ndoc.sourceforge.net/reference/

Discontinued, although you still can use this tool to build documentation for .NET 1.1 projects.

Supported server platform: any (generated web sites use only HTML and JavaScript).

Links

• Wikipedia: Comparison of documentation generators
• Wikipedia: Help authoring tools

P.S. Please leave a comment here, if you'll find a mistake.