Four Js Development Tools Forum

Hi,

Having just taken delivery of a shiny new ebook reader I was wondering if it was possible that the development docs www.4js.com/techdocs (https://4js.com/techdocs) could be made available in PDF format?

I also notice that the lastest docs v2.21 are not available in PDF format whereas the previous versions were. Hopefully this is just an oversight...?

Cheers,

David

I brought up the same issue at a FourJs conference over a year ago.

This REALLY needs to happen.

Thanks,
Tom

Our apologies - the process we had been using to create PDF documents from the HTML documentation ceased to function properly. We are now actively working to correct this issue.

Scott Barney, Four J's

Thanks Scott.

Once you have corrected that issue will you also be able to produce a PDF versions of the dev techdocs?

Thanks,

David

Hi David,

The dev techdocs are subject of changes every day, I would not produce a PDF from this version of the manuals!!!

Seb

Hi Seb,

I was hoping you might be able to setup an automated overnight job to build the latest PDF version of the doc, but I guess that depends on what toolset you are using and if you maintain a single set of help sources for all the various formats...

David

Hi David,
just curious, why do you prefer the pdf version ?

I had several times to remove some nice stuff from the html doc because it was completely unreadable with the pdf version, so I'm just curious about this choice (it's always frustrating to review completely the way you would like to explain something just because it must be readable in a A4 format...)

thanks,
regards,
Pierre-Nicolas

Pierre-Nicolas,

Have a look back at the first post in the thread.

Feedback from my users is that they like the PDF because you can search (Ctrl-F), which you don't get with HTML.  From a support perspective I like the HTML because I can send a link to the appropriate section when answering questions.  


Reuben

If I'm at work I'm happy enough using the HTML version.

When I'm out of work and wanting to learn about say a new feature, I prefer to read using a printed copy. As I now have an ebook reader this saves me wasting the odd tree, plus I can search etc, so PDF is my preferred format unless you can produce a ebook format which would be even better! :-)

I'm using google:
for instance (I tried some times ago Google Custom Search, but was not working as I expected)...
And I'm hearing from the support team that a search facility is planned for our web site, so when it's online it should also facilitate documentation search.

We have now created PDF versions of the 2.21 documents and they are available on our web site (the GAS manual will be posted shortly).

There is a known issue with the "Back to Contents" link not working at the top of a topic page. This link normally takes you back to the table of contents page. This should not cause a problem, you can easily access this page by clicking on any of the section header bookmarks in the tree view.  All other links should work as expected.

I wanted to return to the original request - which talked of creating PDFs for the documents on www.4js.com/techdocs. This page contains "early-release" documentation -- the documentation that has been developed to-date for the products in the Early Access Programs (EAP) / Beta Releases.

At this time, we don't have plans for creating the PDFs for these early-release documents.
- As Sebastien stated below, these documents are actively being updated / in flux, and we are hesitant to create PDF versions of these changing materials - the PDF becomes out-of-date quite quickly.
- Also, we are still working on the process that will auto-generate the PDF documents from the documentation source files - until we have this resolved, we can't rely on an unattended tool to generate PDFs of the EAP docs each night.

However, we hear of your want for PDFs to read about new features off-line and to provide search-like functionality within the EAP documentation. As we look into how we handle documentation within our EAP and GA releases, we will keep these wants in mind.

Scott Barney, Four J's.

Thanks for the update Scott.

RE: the PDF versions of the manuals. Please could you have a look at altering the "Back to contents" link. Currently this points to a URL in the online documentation on www.4js.com (https://4js.com). I'd much prefer it if it just jumped me back to page 1 of the PDF manual I was reading...!

Cheers,

David

David, as I mention earlier within this topic, we realize there was an issue with the "Back to Contents" link. We do not have a workaround at this time. We hope to find this rectified for the 2.30 manuals release.

Sorry Scott, I'd forgotten you'd mentioned that already...

No problem David. I did spend a couple of days trying to figure out how to get the Back to Contents to jump back to page 1, or remove the URL link all together - it was the single item that my PDFMaker refused to do.  The frustrating thing is that it DID do it in the past - then the PDFMaker product "tweaked" how it takes HTML and creates a PDF. I'm hoping that we can get a solution before 2.30 comes out.