As of this morning the latest releases of both Flare and Blaze are now out. New content on the web site, the download and trial version links have been updated, and our email engine is working non-stop sending out download/upgrade links to our maintenance customers. The short, overview list of what is new:
- Seamless DITA Support — no Open Toolkit, no Java development required!
- Import DITA Maps and documents
- Single/Multiple DITA file import
- Conversion Styles Wizard for full conversion control
- Preservation of image maps, CSH, tables, lists and more
- Relationship Tables maintained
- Single-source DITA projects to print and web
- DITA Single-sourcing and Export
- Generate DITA from existing Flare projects
- Specify topic output types using Topic Properties
- Publish DITA content in any other output type such as Microsoft® XPS and Word™, Adobe® PDF and FrameMaker®, WebHelp, etc.
- Import DITA Maps and documents
- Built-in Relationship table support for all Flare content
- New text editor with support for line numbering, color coding and more
- Automatic Thumbnail image support
- Enhanced cross-product integration with support for Mimic and Capture condition tags
- Advanced Global Project Linking with condition tag support for project files
- Enhanced JPEG compression and PDF Support
- Text Redaction — conceal sensitive information from a document before distribution
Much more detail can be found:
Flare – http://madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/whatsnew.aspx
Blaze – http://madcapsoftware.com/products/blaze/whatsnew.aspx
Also, for those interested, over the next month or so I will be doing some special live web demos that focus specifically on the new functionality in this release. To sign up just hop on over to our demos page at
http://madcapsoftware.com/demos/product.aspx and by the time you read this, there will be a new category of demos specifically for What’s New sessions.
There has already been some public comment on the new release as well, for an early review check out a blog entry posted by Paul Pehrson at http://blog.paulpehrson.com/2009/06/03/pre-release-review-of-flare-v5/ .
Cheers,
Mike





