In advance of this week’s release of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite Release 19, TFP got a preview of its across-the-board enhancements as the product continues to evolve rapidly in response to user demands.
Here are the highlights of what you can expect to see.
What to expect with new iPad:
- Publishers generally need to think about iOS devices as “normal” and Retina, with Retina displays having double the resolution.
- For DPS content that has already been created, expect to see some fuzziness where pages were rendered as PNG or JPG. Images will show beautifully on either device.
- Folios created specifically for the new iPad will generally be four times the current size, so it will be important to save them as PDFs to optimize the size of the folio.
- Publishers will need to decide whether they are going create two sets of files, optimizing them for the iPad 2 and the “new” iPad.
Overlays and Folio Builder:
- Automatic recognition of smooth scrolling pages. If a page is larger than a single page, DPS will now assume it’s a smooth scrolling page, so the feature no longer has to be set manually.
- The availability of the “new” iPad screen pixel size for folio creation (2048×1536).
- The ability to set the start viewing position in scrollable frames.
- The ability to create a link from within an article to a custom store.
Viewer Builder:
- Auto-archive is now an option, as many publishers, especially weeklies, establish a build-up of back issues. Take note, though, that accessing an archived issue incurs an additional download fee for the publisher.
- The ability to enable bookmarking in a tablet interface, using a star icon in the upper right-hand corner.
- The ability to enable social sharing for Facebook, with several options; other channels are expected in Release 20.
- The ability to have up to eight custom icons on the bottom navigation bar, or “mustache.”
- The ability to create restricted distribution viewers that can distribute content based upon user info. (Enterprise only)
- The introduction of renditions to deal with differing iPad pixel ratios. Renditions will introduce logic for determining what to deliver to a device. Here are a few basic concepts regarding what to expect from rendition behavior:
1) If there is a folio created as a 2048×1536 rendition, it will only be displayed to users with the new iPad.
2) If there is both a 2048 and 1024 rendition, the 2048 will be displayed for new iPad users, and the 1024 for older iPad users.
3) If there is a folio created at 1024, it will be displayed for all iPad users. Note that in this scenario, those pages not created as PDFs, but rather as PNGs, will be scaled. In some cases, the results may be somewhat fuzzy, so it’s important to test this with your app. But the bottom line is, use PDF wherever possible.
Analytics:
- The ability to track analytics for HTML-based ads, online or offline, so the data is not lost within editorial data. Several options for tracking will be available, including the ability to trigger an event and send data to Omniture.
Annoyances:
- That pesky “Can’t Update Library” dialog should appear less frequently, since Release 19 is better at determining the state of the Wi-Fi connection.
Things we’ll potentially see in Release 20:
- A download counter in the Dashboard.
- The ability to publish folios to the iPhone.
- A web viewer that will enable users to view folios in a web browser from a provided link.
- Two-finger swipe to move to the next article.
- “Hot zones” on the left and right edges of a page for one-handed flipping.
- Cross-app folio linking.
Bob Bringhurst at Adobe has put together some quick tips and guidelines to help guide folks as they create folios for the new iPad. For more DPS tips, take a look at our DPSCreate™ handbook and iPad app.
Look for our suggestions for creating new folios and migrating in-progress folios to work with this new release. Post your questions below and we’ll get back to you!
Posted by: Margot Knorr Mancini
