We continue to enhance and improve TechWriter through a series of minor releases that allow us to respond quickly to customer feedback without having to wait until the next major release. This list represents all of the enhancements to TechWriter since the 2009 release.

Release 6.0 - October 10, 2011

Release 6 added the following new capabilities:

• 'Select All' and 'Clear All' buttons
  New buttons added to the Options tab.
   
• New Build Menu option
  Option for opening the output folder after the build.
   
• Improved MySQL Support (TechWriter for Databases)
  MySQL Connector/NET dependencies eliminated.
   
• REST Services that use HTTP Headers (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Support for setting HTTP headers added to REST web service settings.
   
• Local Sub-Elements (TechWriter for Web Services)
  New option for including local sub-elements in content model.
   
• Merge Across Services (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Ability to merge topics across multiple services.
   
• Merge Annotations into XSDs (TechWriter for Web Services and XML Schemas)
  Ability to merge your annotations back into your XSDs.
   

Release 5.0 - July 22, 2011

Release 5 added the following new capabilities:

• Topic Merging
  Options for merging topics in order to reduce the overall page count.
   
• Friendly Topic Page Names
  Web output now uses friendly names for topic pages.
   
• Shared Types (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Ability to create a single set of topics for types shared across multiple web services.
   
• Authenticated REST (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Support for Basic Authentication added to REST web service settings
   
• Project-relative Files (TechWriter for Web Services and XML Schemas)
  Support for maintaining references to XSD and WSDL files that are relative to the project file
   

Release 4.0 - December 8, 2010

Release 4 added the following new capabilities:

• Customizable header, footer and cover page.
  You can now customize and format what appears on headers, footers and the cover page of your documentation.
   
• External Stylesheets
  Support for external stylesheet to control font styles for all output types is now included.
   
• Formatting Enhancements
  Support for subscripts, superscripts, styles, alignment and number list types is now included.
   
• Field Codes
  Support for field codes including current date, time, page number, page count and document title has been added.
   
• Page Size
  New page size option for PDF, XPS and RTF/Word output formats is now available.
   
• Encoded JavaDoc Tags
  Support for encoded JavaDoc tags is now available as a comment model setting.
   
• Expanded Database Comments (TechWriter for Databases)
  Support for database, index, foreign key and constraint comments is now included.
   
• Examples (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Support for documenting examples is now included.
   
• XSD nil attribute (TechWriter for Web Services and XML Schemas)
  Support for documenting nil attribute on XSDs is now included.
   
• DTD Attribute Definitions (TechWriter for XML Schemas)
  Support for documenting DTD attribute definitions is now included.
   
• Website Authentication (TechWriter for Websites)
  Support for basic and forms-based authenticated websites is now included.
   

Release 3.0 - July 20, 2010

Release 3 added the following new capabilities:

• Image Support
  The rich formatting in TechWriter now includes support for images in embedded comments and through the annotation editor.
   
• REST Services (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Support for documenting REST web services is now included.
   
• MySQL Databases (TechWriter for Databases)
  Support for documenting MySQL databases is now included.
   
• SQL Server Compact Databases (TechWriter for Databases)
  Support for documenting SQL Server Compact databases is now included.
   
• JSON Instances (TechWriter for XML Schemas)
  Support for documenting schemas derived from JSON instances is now included.
   
• XPS Output
  In addition to the many different output formats supported by TechWriter, you can now generate XML Paper Specification (XPS) documents.
   

Release 2.0 - April 14, 2010

Release 2 added the following new capabilities:

• Table Support
  The rich formatting in TechWriter now includes support for formatting tables in embedded comments and through the annotation editor.
   
• XML/DocBook Output
  In addition to the many different output formats supported by TechWriter, you can now generate XML that conforms to the DocBook 5.0 standard.
   
• Internal Links in RTF Output
  The RTF output format now includes support for internal links through the use of bookmarks that can be used to navigate between topics.
   
• Support for documenting faults (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Web Service method faults can now be documented using embedded comments or annotations and included in the generated documentation.
   
• Namespace Prefixes (TechWriter for Web Services)
  Namespace prefixes for elements, attributes and types can now be omitted from the generated documentation.
   

Initial Release - November 11, 2009

This major release included the following new capabilities:

• WYSIWYG Annotation Editor
  The Annotation Tab includes a WYSIWYG annotation editor for editing your database comments. The editor supports bold and italic font formatting, numbered and bulleted lists and hyperlinks.
   
• XHTML and XML Comments Tagging
  TechWriter 2007 supported a subset of JavaDoc tagging that could be used to tag database comments. TechWriter 2009 not only expands the JavaDoc support to include all of the formatting options available in the annotation editor, it also includes support for using XHTML and XML Comments for tagging your comments.
   
• Remarks Section
  TechWriter 2009 allows you to create more detailed documentation for your database by including support for a Remarks section that can be embedded as part of your database comments or annotated.
   
• Table Cell Borders in PDF an RTF/Word output formats
  In TechWriter 2007, summary tables did not include borders around each cell. With TechWriter 2009 you have the option to turn these borders on from the Output tab.
   
• HTML (single-page) Output Type
  In addition to the Web Site (multi-page) output type, TechWriter 2009 also includes the HTML output type that represents the documentation in a single HTML page.
   
• Line Breaks in Annotations
  TechWriter 2007 recognized blank lines (double line breaks) as paragraph delimiters and ignored single line breaks. TechWriter 2009 now recognizes and preserves single line breaks, treating them like the HTML <BR> tag.
   
• SAS Datasets (TechWriter for Databases)
  You can now document your SAS datasets with TechWriter. TechWriter 2009 supports SAS 9.0, 9.1 or 9.2. You do not need SAS installed in order to use TechWriter with a SAS dataset, but you do need to have the SAS Local Data Provider installed. You can download this component for free from the SAS website. Click on SAS Providers for OLE DB.
   
• Optional Table Definitions (TechWriter for Databases)
  You now have the option to include the CREATE TABLE definition statement for each table in your documentation. This option can be turned on and off from the Options tab.
   
• Table Row Counts (TechWriter for Databases)
  You now have the option to include the number of rows in each table in your documentation. This option can be turned on and off from the Options tab.
   
• Accessing Web Services via Proxy (TechWriter for Web Services)
  TechWriter now supports accessing web service definitions from behind a Proxy/Firewall LAN setup. TechWriter automatically passes your credentials to the proxy server to allow access to the web service definitions.
   
• XML Instances (TechWriter for XML Schemas)
  You can now document the structure of an XML instance with TechWriter even if you don't have an XSD or DTD for it. Just add the XML instance to your project and TechWriter 2009 will automatically derive the schema.
   
• Optional Namespace Prefixes (TechWriter for XML Schemas)
  Including namespace prefixes on references to elements, attributes and types is now optional in TechWriter 2009. This option can be turned on and off from the Options tab.