The Geometry drop down menu will show the Geometry Items chosen in the browser interface if one was selected there. Otherwise it allows the user to select from any snippets that were exported using the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in. The Automated Production placed assets will be placed using the designated geometry items.
This image shows the newly functioning Width and Columns sliders that can be used with Automated Production to make the Page Locations smaller than their full width and the change the number of legs or columns within the area that remains.
This shows a Geometry item selected for an asset in the `Publications` accordion. By selecting an Design Element Snippet in that dialog in the browser interface a selected frame on the page will become the top-left anchor for the snippet when the asset is placed. Thus, staff can pre-select the design / layout of an article asset and its children in advance of building the page.
This shows a random sized Text Frame on an Adobe InDesign page. This is all that is needed to establish the top left placement location for a pre-selected Geometry item (Design Element Snippet).
This shows a snippet being used for the placement of an article asset.
For macOS users with odd combinations of macOS and Adobe InDesign or Adobe InCopy where the two do NOT play nice with some scripts, such as the BLOX Total CMS client, we've added the ability to force both the use of the macOS workaround technology as well as the legacy version where it opens a document versus the faster document creation technology we added with client 5.70. Only choose these options if you have a weird, unsupported, combination of macOS and Adobe InDesign. By the way, Adobe only officially support the current version of Adobe InDesign or Adobe InCopy an the prior version. So as of 2024.08.07 the only two supported versions are Creative Cloud 2023 and Creative Cloud 2024. BLOX Digital, likewise, only support the two versions that Adobe supports.
This should be a reasonably small release to further enhance Automated Production. The biggest changes are full support for the Design Element snippets that were exported with the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in. Those snippets will appear in the Publications tab of the browser based asset editor and can be used to force Automated Production placements of Article assets to be placed into the designated snippets.
In addition, the snippet's number of child image frames figures into the score of the asset to determine the order that the assets are placed.
5.72.00-12 Released 2024.09.17
Enable Benchmark Mode with Distributed Production Enabled) Benchmark Mode is a Development Mode functionality that provides timing comparisons. It’s a great thing to use before switching file servers or workstations. Unfortunately, a prior change in client version 5.72 prevented its use if Distributed Mode was active or if the site had chosen to upload the .adinfo files to Page Tracker. This incompatibility with Benchmark Mode has been solved. INDESIGN-4327
5.72.00-11 Released 2024.09.16
Removed Senseless errors from the user log) Some legacy export snippet functions were logging errors after their functionality. Those have been removed. INDESIGN-4326
Prevented Unavailable Snippet Shortcuts from Preventing the Shortcuts Menu from being built) We had a user who was configured to use the legacy snippet shortcuts but who had a Windows shortcut that was no longer valid. Now, when the shortcut or macOS alias can no longer resolve to an actual Adobe InDesign snippet, the shortcut/alias will be removed. This feature has been supplanted by the BLOX Total CMS plug-in for Adobe InDesign’s Favorites functionality. INDESIGN-4326
5.72.00-10 Released 2024.09.11
Advanced Search by Application Change) The Advanced Search option for Source Application is wasn’t automatically updating to show the applications for the current domain. Instead, it was showing those for the domain where the user first logged in. This has been changed so that it should be matching the active domain. Keep in mind, however, that the browser-based search might show fewer applications than the Asset Manager in Adobe InCopy and Adobe InDesign. The browser will only show applications that have assets. INDESIGN-1850
5.72.00.09 Released 2024.08.29
Corrected Column/Width activation) During tes by the team, a specific workflow was found to prevent reactiva the Columns area. This has been corrected. No user sites got the problematic version. INDESIGN-3817
5.72.00-08 Released 2024.08.07
Yet another change to the macOS Workaround) Client 5.70 changed the way the macOS Workaround was configured after we learned that rather than opening an exis document, certain versions of Adobe InDesign could regain functionality by just crea a new document. So the old osWorkaround documents were depreciated and we used a new document for each launch. That approach tested correctly for the supported versions of Adobe InDesign (only the current and the prior versions are supported by Adobe, and thus by extension by BLOX Digital). However, for older versions of Adobe InDesign with newer versions of macOS, the users had difficulty activa menus. To counteract this, macOS users now have two sets in BLOX Total CMS > Sets and Support... within the User Interface (UI) tab. If the user needs to enable the legacy open behavior check the Use macOS Workaround checkbox to force the functionality on. Click the OK button and then quit and relaunch Adobe InDesign. If the Adobe InDesign menu items are still not behaving correctly, choose BLOX Total CMS > Sets and Support... in the same User Interface (UI) tab. Check the Legacy macOS Document Workaround and click the OK button. Again, quit and relaunch Adobe InDesign. INDESIGN-4294
For macOS users with odd combinations of macOS and Adobe InDesign or Adobe InCopy where the two do NOT play nice with some scripts, such as the BLOX Total CMS client, we've added the ability to force both the use of the macOS workaround technology as well as the legacy version where it opens a document versus the faster document creation technology we added with client 5.70. Only choose these options if you have a weird, unsupported, combination of macOS and Adobe InDesign. By the way, Adobe only officially support the current version of Adobe InDesign or Adobe InCopy an the prior version. So as of 2024.08.07 the only two supported versions are Creative Cloud 2023 and Creative Cloud 2024. BLOX Digital, likewise, only support the two versions that Adobe supports.
5.72.00-07 Released 2024.08.02
New options to control Columns during Automated Production Placement) The Automated Production tab now supports using Page Location at a narrower width than its definition. This is a quick way to get alternate widths on Automated Production created pages. INDESIGN-3817
This image shows the newly functioning Width and Columns sliders that can be used with Automated Production to make the Page Locations smaller than their full width and the change the number of legs or columns within the area that remains.
5.72.00-06 Released 2024.07.19
Automated Production enhancement for recognizing cutouts and rules) When placing assets for automated production, there is enhanced recognition of page items that would normally be excluded from a cutout segment. This includes rules or narrow items such as color bars placed inside the live area of the page. This change helps to prevent the main story element from being enlarged to cover those items. For example, some Page Design snippets might have rules used as a design element. In the past, these small or thin items would have been automatically covered up by the main story frame. The asset’s default frame should stop at the Page Tracker supplied distance from the rule's vertical position. Additional frames placed with the asset might still overlap these items, however. INDESIGN-4015
Create Edition Improvement) When an Edition is recreated when a site is configured with the Upload .adinfo to Page Tracker option enabled pages that previously had ads assigned, but didn’t after the recreation, the pages will now be cleared of the prior ads. This effect most commonly appeared when using Ad Layout Formats that don’t provide details on every page such as Layout 8000. This extends an improvement that only affected active Distributed Production sites in client 5.70.00. INDESIGN-4291
5.72.00-05 Released 2024.07.12
The Asset Manager Search Results now include e-Edition sourced assets by default) Some time ago, the BLOX behaviors changed, to force the Search Results in the BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy to lose the ability to see those assets that had moved through workflows and got marked as e-Edition sourced assets. Users re-using assets in alternate publications most likely had difficulty searching for those assets to place in secondary publications. Now the Asset Manager tab of BLOX Total CMS > Sets and Support... includes a checkbox for Always Include e-Edition Sourced Assets. It will be set by default. If the active domain has e-Editions installed, all searches in the Asset Manager will include e-Edition assets. Finally, the Advanced Search tab allows you to perform specific source application searches similar to what can be done in the browser-based asset manager by choosing the `Source Application is` option. INDESIGN-1850
The above requires a Page Tracker update that should be installed on 23 July 2024
5.72.00-04 Released 2024.07.03
Automated Production Placement sets child assets to match geometry children) Originally the Automated Production placement always capped the number of child assets placed at one. But with the new ability to budget children, the limit is being revised to match the upper limit of the number of child image frames that the geometry item supports. A classic example of this would be for a Centerpiece snippet that might support at least two child images. INDESIGN-3733
Updated Support for Placing an Asset using a Budgeted Design Element Snippet) For many years the Publications accordion of the Print tab in the browser-based Asset editor has allowed a Geometry item to be specified. Now with the impending release of the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in for Adobe InDesign that supports all the newest features for crea and placing snippets, the legacy support for using those assigned snippets has been updated to expect the snippets to have been exported by the newly created plug-in. Legacy snippets, if they were made recently with the legacy client, might work Only newly exported Design Element Snippets are expected to work properly. Thus, yes, if you use this feature, you need to re-export the snippets. There is a built-in feature in the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in to help automate that process if you’ve followed the recommended template management procedures. The changes do require that Automated Production be enabled for your domain(s). This is a no-cost option. Just file a support ticket at https://support.bloxdigital.com/ Additional details on automated production can be found at: https://www.help.bloxdigital.com/blox_total_cms/automated_production/guidelines-automated-production/article_510fb5d0-b9f1-11ee-8980-8759d6151059.html INDESIGN-4286
Using this involves budge an asset and specifying the geometry item (Design Element Snippet) as shown below:
This shows a Geometry item selected for an asset in the `Publications` accordion. By selecting an Design Element Snippet in that dialog in the browser interface a selected frame on the page will become the top-left anchor for the snippet when the asset is placed. Thus, staff can pre-select the design / layout of an article asset and its children in advance of building the page.
Then on the Adobe InDesign page, just draw a star frame to indicate the upper left corner of the snippet’s placement as shown below:
This shows a random sized Text Frame on an Adobe InDesign page. This is all that is needed to establish the top left placement location for a pre-selected Geometry item (Design Element Snippet).
Place the asset and the star frame will be replaced with the budgeted snippet as shown below:
This shows a snippet being used for the placement of an article asset.
5.72.00-03 Released 2024.06.27
New Feature Selec Snippets for Automated Production) The Geometry panel in the Placement Options for the Automated Production tab now has a checkbox for Limit to Space. When checked, the list of available snippets to select from in the drop down list will only include those matching the available column width for the selected location. This assumes that the page uses the same column width as the snippets. If using this feature it makes sense to select both publications and page locations for when expor the snippets using the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in. INDESIGN-4269
Automated Production Ranking Score for Matching Child Asset Frames) With the recent availability of the UXP-based plug-in for Snippet export suppor tracking of child image frames, it is now possible to assign a score to the asset based on how well the selected geometry item (snippet) matches the available printable children. To be considered printable for this scoring the child must either be an Image asset or a variant of the PDF assets. In addition, the child must not be marked as having a flag of Web only. In the future, additional qualifications may be added. Sample scores are included in the link below. INDESIGN-3594
Snippet Support in the Automated Production tab of the Asset Manager) When using Automated Production, you can now place assets into snippets. The snippets can either be selected in the Publications tab or the Geometry drop down menu in the Placement Options portion of the Automated Production tab of the Asset Manager as shown below. INDESIGN-3765
3765 Selected Geometry Item.png
The Geometry drop down menu will show the Geometry Items chosen in the browser interface if one was selected there. Otherwise it allows the user to select from any snippets that were exported using the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in. The Automated Production placed assets will be placed using the designated geometry items.
Prior Version
The release notes for client version 5.71 can be found here.
