Since its initial release in November 2024, ePublisher 2024.1 has undergone numerous refinements and enhancements. We're excited to announce that the latest builds include substantial improvements to Reverb 2.0's search capabilities, along with various other optimizations that enhance the overall documentation workflow experience.
Significant Improvements to Reverb 2.0 Search Capabilities
The primary focus of recent updates has been on strengthening Reverb 2.0's search functionality, making it more powerful, accurate, and user-friendly. These improvements include:
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Enhanced Phrase Searching: We've significantly improved how search handles phrases containing stop words, ensuring more accurate and relevant results when users search for specific phrases (EPUB2598, build 4585).
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Improved Search Result Highlighting: Fixed issues with search term highlighting after selecting search results, providing a more seamless and intuitive search experience for your documentation users (EPUB2596, build 4579).
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Better Special Character Handling: Index terms with special characters like ampersands ("&") now display correctly instead of showing as encoded HTML entities like "&" (EPUB2600, build 4585).
These enhancements collectively deliver a more robust search experience, allowing your users to find the exact information they need more efficiently. The improved search capabilities help increase content discoverability, reduce user frustration, and ultimately enhance the overall value of your documentation.
Important Notice for Users with Reverb 2.0 Customizations
Attention: If you have implemented advanced customizations for Reverb 2.0, please be aware that the 2024.1 release contains changes that may affect your custom implementations.
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Custom Page.asp Implementations: Users with custom Page.asp files should review the solution document available at EPUB2596 - Fix Custom Page.asp before upgrading to ensure compatibility with the search highlighting improvements.
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Corporate Skin Users: After upgrading to build 4548 or later, you must unset the WebWorks Reverb 2.0 skin target setting and then set it back to Corporate.weplugin to ensure proper functionality (EPUB2554).
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Adobe FrameMaker 2022 Users: If you're experiencing
Error: Cannot initialize API client ...Webworks.FrameMaker2022.Client.x64.DLL, you need to upgrade Adobe FrameMaker 2022 to Update 4 or later. This is a requirement for compatibility with ePublisher 2024.1.
We strongly recommend reviewing the complete release notes and release information page before upgrading, especially if you have customized your Reverb 2.0 implementation.
Additional Key Improvements
Beyond the search enhancements, ePublisher 2024.1 has received several other significant improvements:
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Pop-up Support in Reverb 2.0: The release introduces powerful popup capabilities with unmatched flexibility across formats like Markdown++, FrameMaker, Word, and DITA. Authors now have complete control over popup content in the source, while ePublisher provides extensive styling options to customize the presentation.
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Enhanced Long Path Handling: Extended Windows Long Path Support removes the 260-character path limit, allowing seamless work with deeply nested directories.
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Improved File Organization: Better organization of files in the generated output, making maintenance and navigation more straightforward.
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Memory Management Optimizations: Significant improvements to conversion times affected by memory management (EPUB2524, build 4573), making your documentation generation process more efficient.
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PDF - XSL-FO Enhancements: Multiple improvements to PDF output handling, including better title page formatting, improved pagination properties, and more intuitive layout settings.
Evolution Through Multiple Builds
ePublisher 2024.1 has evolved steadily through multiple builds since its initial release:
- Build 4548: Initial fixes including Corporate skin loading issues
- Build 4552: Security improvements and WebWorks Help API updates
- Build 4564-4567: Extensive PDF-XSL-FO improvements and Reverb 2.0 enhancements
- Build 4573: Memory management optimizations
- Build 4577-4579: Updated wwFDK.dll and search highlighting fixes
- Build 4585: Latest improvements to search functionality, including phrase handling and special character display
This consistent progression demonstrates our commitment to continuously refining and enhancing ePublisher based on user feedback and thorough quality assurance processes.
Conclusion
The latest iteration of ePublisher 2024.1 represents a significant step forward in documentation workflow efficiency, particularly in how users search for and discover content. With these enhancements, especially to Reverb 2.0's search capabilities, your technical documentation becomes more accessible, more useful, and more valuable to your audience.
We encourage all users to update to the latest build to benefit from these improvements. Visit our download page to get the latest version, and refer to the comprehensive release notes for detailed information on all changes.
As always, we remain committed to enhancing ePublisher's capabilities and responding to your needs. Stay tuned for future updates as we continue to build the documentation workflow of the future.