One of the frustrations with Author-it AfterPublish macros is debugging them. Especially if you have a large number of macros. Something goes wrong, but you do not know what the macro was doing at the time it died. Or you are just getting unexpected results and you suspect maybe a variable is set incorrectly.

If you are writing a macro to run over a normal Word document (for example, by clicking a button on the toolbar), it is fine to just put debugging messages throughout the code using the MsgBox function. For example:

MsgBox ("Number of pages in document: " &
ActiveDocument.Range.Information(wdNumberOfPagesInDocument))

However, when running Author-it AfterPublish macros, you do not want message boxes popping up during publishing (especially if you have set up automated publishing jobs).

The solution I have come up with for this problem is a couple of simple macros that output debugging messages to a log file. You simply call a macro with the debugging message as the parameter. Using the example from above you would use:

Logs.WriteLog ("Number of pages in document: " & 
ActiveDocument.Range.Information(wdNumberOfPagesInDocument))

The WriteLog macro writes the message passed to the macro to the log file and prefixes it with the current date and time. By default, the log file is written to the publishing folder and has the same name as the published Word document with a .log extension (although this can be overridden).

Installing and getting it working

To install the log file macros:

1. Download the Logs.bas VBA module from here.
2. Open your Word publishing template.
3. Open the VBA editor (in Word 2007/2010, on the Developer tab click the Visual Basic button).
4. From the File menu select Import File...
5. Browse to and select the Logs.bas file downloaded in step 1.
6. Save your template.

You are now ready to write to log files. As shown above, call the Logs.WriteLog macro and pass any string as the parameter. For example:

The resultant log file will look something like this:

Notes:

• Writing to log files can degrade the performance of AfterPublish macros (because it increases the number of file I/O operations). You can turn logging off by setting the LogActive constant (near the top of the Logs module) to 'False':

Public Const LogActive = False

• You can change the name of the log file by calling SetLogFileName and passing the new file name (you must also include the full path). For example:

Logs.SetLogFileName (ActiveDocument.Path & "\" & "AfterPublish.log")

I am re-running my free 'Bending Author-it' webinar for the American/New Zealand timezones.

This FREE webinar will be held at the following times:

• 0600 Australia EST Wednesday 12 October 2011
• 0900 New Zealand NZDT Wednesday 12 October 2011
• 1300 North America PDT Tuesday 11 October 2011
• 1600 North America EDT Tuesday 11 October 2011
• 2100 United Kingdom BST Tuesday 11 October 2011

Register here.

Details of the webinar below.

Out of the box, Author-it revolutionises your authoring environment and gives you so many more delivery options. But, if you dig a little deeper and get your hands dirty, you can really make Author-it work for you; give your output a unique look, effectively manage and manipulate your content, and streamline your publishing processes. 

Join me for the free 'Bending Author-it' webinar where I will show you how to 'hack' Author-it and bend it to your will. Topics include:

• Custom titles pages
• XML hacks
• AfterPublish Macros.

This webinar is for anyone who is interested in seeing how to push beyond Author-it's out-of-the box functionality. However, to do the 'hacks' yourself, you will be a reasonably experienced Author-it user who has intermediate Author-it configuration skills and some technical aptitude.

This is a repeat of my 'Author-it Hacks' webinar that I delivered earlier this year. I am repeating it for the North American and New Zealand timezones.

My latest tech fetish is GPS. I know I am a little late in the game for this, but I recently had to put together a training course for GPS devices (Trimble Nomad and Yumas) and it peaked my interest. That, coupled with me getting my first real smart phone, has meant that I have been obsessed with any app that has some kind of location-aware feature.

One of the first apps I found on the Google Marketplace was My Tracks. Basically, before you go for a run, bike ride, or drive you fire up the app and start recording your 'tracks'.

En-route, it can either sit silently in the background or you can view your location and the path you are taking. You can also look at aggregated statistics for your journey (for example, average speed, total moving time, total distance travelled), insert points that record the aggregated statistics up until that point, or view some of the stats in graph form.

After you have completed your journey, you can easily upload it to your Google Maps account or review it on your phone. Or you can tell the world about your trip by sharing it on Twitter (and it has its own hash tag #MyTracks).

My Tracks, is an amazingly feature rich application, especially considering it is free. And it ticks another of my software 'boxes' by being open source.

I do wonder how long I will continue to use it (that is, how long my GPS fetish will last) but I can see it becoming part of my (lately, somewhat hap hazard) fitness regime.

Out of the box, Author-it revolutionises your authoring environment and gives you so many more delivery options. But, if you dig a little deeper and get your hands dirty, you can really make Author-it work for you; give your output a unique look, effectively manage and manipulate your content, and streamline your publishing processes. 

Join me for the free 'Bend Author-it' webinar where I will show you how to 'hack' Author-it and bend it to your will. Topics include:

• Custom Titles pages
• XML hacks
• AfterPublish Macros.

This webinar is for anyone who is interested in seeing how to push beyond Author-it's out-of-the box functionality. However, to do the 'hacks' yourself, you will be a reasonably experienced Author-it user who has intermediate Author-it configuration skills and some technical aptitude.

This is a repeat of my 'Author-it Hacks' webinar that I delivered earlier this year. I am repeating it for the Asia Pacific/Middle East/European timezones.

This FREE webinar will be held on Wednesday, 14 September at:

• 0900 GMT
• 1200 Gulf Standard Time
• 1330 India Standard Time
• 1600 Australia WST
• 1800 Australia EST

Register here.

I have always liked to keep lists. Whether it is for work using a ticketing system or at home on the back of an envelope, I need a system of some sort that tracks what I need do to.

When it comes to organising the jobs for my one-person consultancy I need something in between. As much as I'd love to have a full-blown work request system (and don't think that I haven't considered it), somewhere in between that and an envelope is required.

Enter Task Coach.

Task Coach is ideal to organise one person's jobs. You can set up tasks giving them start dates, end dates, and priorities. This means you can easily organise your work and see the deadlines approaching and where you should concentrate your efforts. Tasks can also be assigned to multiple categories, so, for example, you can separate out billable and non-billable tasks or have a different category for each client.

Another big feature that I use is effort tracking to record the amount of time I spend on each job. I can start tracking by clicking the Task Coach icon in the system tray and selecting the job. You can also manually enter time against a job (if you forget to start tracking).

It is dead easy to get started with it, but has loads of features that you discover along the way. Others include, setting task prerequisites, recurring tasks, and attachments (although I haven't figured out exactly how this feature is meant to work). There are also a myriad of ways to display the task information (timeline, calendar, and even a task map).

My basic workflow with Task Coach is:

• As I hear about an opportunity I create a task. I tag it with a 'Lead' category so I can easily go back and see what opportunities I need to follow up. I also record any time against the task during this stage (to track how much time I spend on business development and help cost that into the job, if it comes though).
• Before I start the work, I do my estimate and enter the budget.
• As I work on the job I use the in-built timer to track my effort. It is also a good way to keep notes about what I have done – which can then be used on the invoice.
• When I am invoicing I look at the tracked effort and either use the total hours to invoice (if billing by the hour) or review how good my estimation was (if doing a fixed quote).

Overall, it fits well with my small-time operation and personal workflow.

Task Coach is free, can run off a USB drive, and is regularly updated by its developers Frank Niessink and Jérôme Laheurte (and a bunch of translators). It is available on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and even on the iPhone. I wonder when the Android version is coming ;)

Out of the box, Author-it revolutionises your authoring environment and gives you so many more delivery options. But, if you dig a little deeper and get your hands dirty, you can really make Author-it work for you; give your output a unique look, effectively manage and manipulate your content, and streamline your publishing processes. 

Join me for the 'Author-it: Making Magic Happen' 'Author-it Hacks' webinar where I will show you how to 'work some magic' with 'hack' Author-it and bend it to your will. Topics include:

• Custom Titles pages
• XML hacks
• AfterPublish Macros.

This webinar is for anyone who is interested in seeing how to push beyond Author-it's out-of-the box functionality. However, to do the 'hacks' yourself, you will be a reasonably experienced Author-it user who has intermediate Author-it configuration skills and some technical aptitude.

The webinar is at on May 24/25 at:

PDT 13:00 (24 May)
EDT 16:00 (24 May)
GMT 21:00 (24 May)
IST 01:30 (25 May)
NZT 8:00 (25 May)
AEST 6:00 (25 May)

Register here.

I am please to introduce my new business Segue Consulting.

Segue Consulting provides professional technical communication, Author-it consulting, and online communication services.

We specialise in:

• Developing complex technical documentation and training
• Developing online help systems (both integrated and web-based)
• Deploying and customising Author-it
• Deploying content management systems (CMS)
• Developing and deploying websites.

I also have a new email address. To contact me, please use the contact form on the site.

Please visit the site and contact me if I can help you in any way.

A couple of months ago, quietly and without too much fuss, Author-it released a Software Development Kit (SDK). This is a huge leap forward for Author-it and, I believe, gives them a huge advantage over their competitors. Why? Because now with the SDK, you can make Author-it work for you. You no longer have to change your processes and systems to fit Author-it; Author-it can now change to fit your workflow.

What can it do?

Well, lots. The SDK exposes a huge array of Author-it functionality to developers (and wannabe, or ex-developers, like me). But there are two main ways the SDK can work. You can create both:

• Stand-alone applications (using .NET, JSON, SOAP, TCP, or ASP.NET) that can access your Author-it library and manipulate almost all aspects of it. For example, you could create a:
  • Self-service publishing web application -  A web user could build a book structure using topics that exist in your Author-it library and then publish that book (on an Author-it Publishing server).
  • Desktop application that integrates with other systems – An app that reads in content from an external database or files and automatically creates or updates topics directly in your Author-it library.
• Plug-ins that that let you customise the Author-it user interface and launch actions from directly within the Author-it Editor. For example, you could create a plug-in that:
  • Automatically sends an email to a user when a topic’s release state changes to 'Ready for Release'.
  • Let users 'watch' objects so they are notified when an object is saved or its release state changes.
  • Puts shortcuts in the right-click context menu to embed commonly used graphics (for example, note icons) or paste topic contents (for example, boilerplate text).

Here is one I prepared earlier...

So, as they say on the cooking shows, here is one I prepared earlier.  I have created a plug-in that lets you annotate objects by attaching comments. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

What you need to know

The Author-it SDK takes customising Author-it to a new level. You do need an intermediate level of programming skills (in whichever flavour of language you choose) to get it up and running. The new Author-it DevHub does have a lot of resources (including sample applications you can download), and John on the DevHub forum is incredibly helpful with providing assistance.

If you do not have the programming skills to write an app or plug-in, now is the time to start buying your dev team mates beer and/or chocolate (or whatever it takes).

My experience

With John’s help, I got up and running reasonably quickly. For me, it was setting up the foundations of the plug-in that took the most effort (setting up the project, getting the references working, and setting up database connections). Getting the Author-it interaction working was relatively straight forward. The next plug-in or app will definitely be quicker and easier.

Making Author-it work for you

Author-it can now fit snugly with your other business processes and systems removing many clunky workarounds and manual steps. The SDK really does open up Author-it and makes it work for you; rather than the other way around.