We have just activated our new support system. Support requests can be filed online at http://support.k15t.com or via email to support@k15t.com.

A little bit of background: Since we have established, we had used Email in combination with an internal JIRA system. While this setup worked well with moving support issues to our development JIRA, the communication between us and our customers was hard. Especially our customers were not able to see the status of their request.

The new, Zendesk-based solution provide much better service to our customers: Filing requests through web UI and Email, and status-review through the web UI. Also, it provides forums, which allows you to participate in discussions about our product. There are a few neat features, but the key feature which eventually convinced us to switch to Zendesk is the integration with JIRA, which lets us copy support requests into JIRA and keep the support request and issue in sync.

Scroll 1.1.1 has been released and can be installed through the plugin repository (go to Confluence Admin > Configuration > Plugin Repository). For manual download and installation it is available at the Atlassian Plugin Exchange.

Scroll 1.1.1 fixes a few bugs and brings some improvements. For further information please have a look at the changelog.

The Confluence wiki is a great tool to collaboratively write technical documentation, training materials, reports, requirements specs, … But hey, wouldn’t it be nice to use that content for manuals, hand-outs, books, brochures, etc.?

The Scroll Wiki Exporter lets you do this - it turns your Confluence wiki into the source for single source publishing.

In contrast to Confluence’s built-in export functionality, Scroll builds a semantic model from the wiki pages. From there it produces various output formats (currently DocBook and PDF). Also, it separates content from representation. That way an export can be themed in many ways.

Scroll 1.1 comes with two exciting new features:

• Pluggable and Configurable Themes: Space administrators can now configure their own themes - for example they can define TOC generation, header and title page images, and many more with a few clicks. If more customization is needed Scroll supports so-called theme plugins, which are based on the DocBook XSL stylesheets.
• RenderX XEP is now embedded as PDF Rendering Engine: XEP is one of the world’s leading rendering engines for PDF, Postscript and other formats. With RenderX XEP Scroll will be capable of rendering high-quality output for printing books, brochures, etc. Given that fact, we are happy that Scroll with XEP embedded still comes at a very reasonable price.

Scroll 1.1 is available through the plugin repository (as a Confluence Admin go to Confluence Admin > Configuration > Plugin Repository and search for Scroll). For manual download and installation it is available at the Atlassian Plugin Exchange.

The complete list of feature and improvements can be found in the Scroll 1.1 release notes.

For more information about Scroll please visit our website (http://www.k15t.com/scroll) or watch the recorded webinar from November 5 at the Atlassian News Site (http://blogs.atlassian.com/news/2009/11/video_scroll_wiki_exporter_plugin_for_confluence.html).

About K15t Software
K15t Software develops single source publishing and documentation solutions based on new, collaborative technologies (also known as “Web 2.0″). Its flagship product is the Scroll Wiki Exporter for Confluence a single source publishing solution for Atlassian Confluence.

In preparation for the Confluence Community Day 2009 in Frankfurt on Oct 29, Communardo has published an interview with Tobias Anstett (German).

For more information about the Confluence Community Day visit http://www.communardo.de/techblog/confluence_community_day_2009/.

Two announcements about upcoming talks, where we will talk about the upcoming Scroll and the upcoming 1.1 release:

• Stefan Kleineikenscheidt, founder of K15t Software, will be on the commercial plugin panel on Oct 21 at 3pm at AtlasCamp 09 in Half Moon Bay (near San Francisco) representing K15t and Scroll.
• Tobias Anstett, will be presenting our vision of Documentation 2.0 with Confluence at the Confluence Community Day 2009 (Oct 29, 2009) in Frankfurt, Germany.

We have moved into our new offices. Being a privately funded startup we decided to rent an office in a shared office space in the Stuttgart Westend.

Some of the benefits of our office: We share our office with architects, graphic and product designers and others, who have created a super-stylish office. We have a lot of pubs, bars, restaurants just around the corner. There is an original Italian coffee machine in our kitchen.

Our new address:

When you are in Stuttgart, don’t forget to stop by for an espresso.

Today K15t Software released Scroll 1.0.1. Along with some minor bugfixes, it comes with the following improvements:

• Basic Support for Scaffolding Plugin
• Compatibility with Confluence 3.0
• Greatly improved performance for big exports using the Scroll Documentation theme.
• Scroll now comes with its own distribution of Apache FOP, which provides better support for links.

Stewart Mader, founder of Future Changes, published an interesting video about ‘How to Build & Revise Documentation Using a Wiki’. He is a specialist consultancy that teaches people at Fortune 500 companies, universities, non-profits, and small businesses how to improve productivity using wikis. In the video (available here) he motivates why a Wiki is a great tool for documentation. Our product is the evidence that we feel the same way.

Even though he is not mentioning product names, the Scroll Wiki Exporter for Confluence is helping you to create professional documentation from your Confluence wiki.