Manula Changelog: What's New in the Manula software (Page 3)

In the Manula Account settings, you can set your own Google Analytics ID, so that you can track page views for your online manuals in your own Analytics account.

However, when doing so, the live manual pages also include *our* Manula Analytics ID, so that we can keep track of page views across all client manuals.

If, for any reason, you would prefer not to have our tracking ID in your manual pages, it is now possible to switch that off, with a new setting under Account Settings, called

[x] Allow inclusion of Manula Analytics ID

which is switched ON by default.

A few weeks ago, Manula user Joe asked:

Is there a way that you can access the library of images, videos and files etc…….. rather than having to access from a topic when inserting?

I would like to upload all the files, videos etc in advance so that I can use them across all the different topics if required. Or, if I need to replace an image, I don’t want to have to go back into the topic editor to do so.

Excellent point, Joe!

So as of today, there is new Media Manager item in the menu, even at the account level, that lets you go straight to the Image, Video and Document managers:

Another nice addition suggested by one of our clients (thanks Nick!):

It is now possible to include the Next and Previous topic links at the TOP. Or at the bottom. Or both. Or just not have them at all. You choose!

This setting can be found on the Customization tab of the Manual Settings screen:

Previous/Next Topic links showing at the top of a topic:

Enjoy and stay safe!

We’re always looking to improve the loading speed of the online manuals, to make navigating them as “snappy” as possible.

The next step we made in this area is the “lazy loading” of all included images. Images are now only loaded as they come into view. In other words, images at the top of the image (and in view) and loaded instantly, but others further down the page are only loaded “as needed”, when they are scrolled into view.

This makes the navigating between topics even snappier than before, especially on mobile devices and on slower connections.

In the past few weeks, we have been working on a major overhaul of the code that renders the live online manuals, to make them faster and to resolve the most commonly reported user interface annoyance.

These changes will make browsing the online manuals a much faster and more pleasant experience.

Faster browsing of the online manuals

Basically, the main change here is that when clicking a link to a different topic (either from the Table of Contents of using a link inside topic contents), it does not do a full page re-load anymore. It now only loads the content of the new topic into the content panel on the right.

Because of this change, the ToC does not have to be 1. re-generated by our server and 2. downloaded to your browser, making the loading of the new topic much faster, especially for manuals with lots of topics. Another big advantage of this is change is that you don’t lose your place / scroll position in the ToC.

Table of Contents panel can now be scrolled separately

Up till now, the ToC panel has always been “locked” to the content panel, always scrolling together. With this overhaul, we finally resolved that common complaint.

The Table of Contents panel can now be scrolled independently of the topic content AND it retains its scroll position when navigating to a different topic!

Enjoy!

Through Manula’s Custom CSS feature, basically everything could be customized. And most Manula users are using Custom CSS to change the styling of their manual.

However, by far the most common thing our users are using Custom CSS for are:

• to customize font styles, sizes and colors, for both body content and headers
• to customize the page width (limited to 1024 px by default)

So to make it easier for everyone, it is now possible to do these customizations from the Customization tab of the Manual Settings screen:

Previously, none of the Custom CSS styling you implemented was visible in the Preview tab within the Manual admin system. To see the effect of Custom CSS, you have to View your manual Live.

Not anymore! Your Preview tab now shows your topic with your Custom CSS applied. This should make it easier to make and preview your topic changes!

Enjoy!

Last week, we received a great suggestion from one of our clients.
She requested the ability for a manual language to be there but still still hidden/unlisted. This would enable them to add a Language to their manual and work on it, but NOT have the new Language appear in the Language Selector of their live manual yet.

That made enormous sense. In fact, why did we not add this years ago?
So we figured, let’s implement this immediately. And here it is today!

Thanks for the suggestion, Fiona!

Under Account Settings, 2 new settings have been introduced, to control the way dates and times are shown.

Date Format

Available options:

• 31 Dec 2020
• December 31, 2020
• Dec 31, 2020
• 31/12/2020
• 31/12/20
• 12/31/2020
• 12/31/20
• 2020-12-31

Time Format

• 15:15
• 3:15 PM

These settings affect the display of

• the Created and Modified timestamps at the bottom of the topic editor.
• the Last Modified timestamps in the Revision Manager
• the Last Modified timestamps at the bottom of topics in the live manuals.
• the Last Update timestamp in the Generate PDF screen and in the PDF itself.
• the Created timestamps in the Image, Video and Document Managers.

Last week, we expanded the Backup feature with the ability to backup only selected manuals. However, some users missed the easy one-click Backup button to backup all manuals, without having to checkbox all manuals first.

No problem at all! We have now re-introduced a Backup Full Account button and have also expanded this full backup with all account level customization images and CSS files.