This is a reasonably small release adding enhancements to Automated Production and support of the snippets created with the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in for Adobe InDesign.
FEATURES
There is a new feature for template masters at BLOX Total CMS > Development > Mark Branded Items... that can be used to mark as many page items as desired as having optional content for shared e-Edition pages. When a page item is marked as a "Branded Item," the PDF sent to Live e-Editions for shared pages on alternate domains will exclude the frame and content. This is accomplished by temporarily setting the page items as "Nonprinting" and thus excluded from the PDF set to e-Editions. Thus, a page from publication A can be excluded when the page is used for publication B’s e-Edition. Additional functionality is needed before this process becomes a reality, but the marking of "Branded Items" can be done now. (INDESIGN-4311)
There is a new output test process to see how an Unbranded PDF would appear. A prior change added a Template Master option at BLOX Total CMS > Development > Mark Branded Items... which can be used to mark the page items, frames, etc. that hold items unique for the original publication when sharing pages to alternative domain’s e-Editions. Now there is a BLOX Total CMS > Development > Test Branded Item Output... which will produce and open an Adobe PDF file without the page items, frames, etc. included. (INDESIGN-4312)
IMPROVEMENTS
When the system is placing one of many different matching "Page Design Snippets" in response to a "Page Content Type" being applied, the BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign will now attempt to learn your choice and automatically select it the next time it needs to prompt. In addition, there is a checkbox to allow it to not prompt you in the future when using the indicated Page Content Type for the specific publication code. (INDESIGN-4304)
Page Tracker version 1.35 added an option in the Page creation settings for each publication code which can be checked to Disable Jumps. Once set, users in Adobe InDesign will no longer be prompted to create jump lines for the indicated publications. This support has now been extended to the BLOX Total CMS Client for Adobe InDesign. (INDESIGN-4287)
With the release of the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in with advanced support for Page Design Snippets, the dialog at BLOX Total CMS > Documents > New... now displays the "Page Design" snippets that have been exported with the publication currently selected in the dialog. This makes maintaining these snippets easier, especially for Distributed Production sites. There is no longer a need to export or copy the snippets to specific folders for the publication code. The Snippet menu is populated on a publication-by-publication basis. To test things out, you can export snippets for your training publication type and not disturb the legacy snippets. If the name of the selected "Page Design Snippet" matches a "Page Content Type," the page will be marked with that Content Type, which can drive "Passive Budgeting." (INDESIGN-4305)
Sites applying a snippet via the dialog for BLOX Total CMS > Documents > New... might have previously been prompted to select the section letter for the page they just created. This happened because the functionality to place the snippets needed the complete page name to satisfy a site-based request to back up the snippet before placing it to prevent it from being marked as in use by the same or a different user. The snippet is now placed after the page has been saved and the section letter prompt should no longer happen for this reason, but it can for other reasons. (INDESIGN-4305)
The menu at BLOX Total CMS > Page Content Types > Place Snippet > has been updated to support showing snippets exported with the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in that match the applied "Page Content Type." As with other recent changes, the menu will update when snippets have been exported with the publication code checkboxes set to match the active publication code. The behavior of the menu is different, however from the legacy behavior. In the past, the menu showed all "Page Design Snippets" from the publication code named folder matching the publication code of the document. The new version of the menu only shows those "Page Design Snippets" that have been exported with the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in for Adobe InDesign with the document publication code selected and whose name contains any of the "Page Content Types" applied to the active page. (INDESIGN-4306)
Now that the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in for Adobe InDesign is available for use, we are starting the long process of disabling features in the Legacy BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign and InCopy. Since the first plug-in only supports Snippets, that will be the first to begin the process. Once we know the feature is available and configured by the site’s template master, we will prompt the user to use the new plug-in rather than the legacy functionality. Over the following few versions, the prompts will change. (INDESIGN-4321)
In October of 2024, Adobe will officially release both Adobe InDesign 2025 and Adobe InCopy 2025. At that time, Adobe’s support for the Creative Cloud 2023 versions will cease. By extension, that also signals the end of BLOX Digital’s support for Creative Cloud 2023. However, macOS sites with older OS versions might have instances where they are still experiencing the UI being difficult. To aid with that, we’ve included a new document for the 2025 versions. Note, however, that with client version 5.70, the default was to have that feature turned off. Client 5.72 added a "Settings and Support" option to re-enable it for sites still having incompatibilities. (INDESIGN-4324)
This release includes important changes to the "Create Image Asset" tool from the BLOX Total CMS menu. Since client 5.43 in 2020, there has existed a feature at BLOX Total CMS > Create Image Asset... to allow a BLOX Image asset to be created from an image placed in the Adobe InDesign document. Unfortunately, at some point in time, it stopped picking up the image caption text. Instead, it would pull the caption from text embedded in the metadata of the image and overwrite the caption on the page. The intended behavior has been restored. If, however, the placed image does not have a caption frame with a matching File Reference to the image, it will attempt to build another caption frame as described above. (INDESIGN-4313)
Auto "Page Content Type Snippet Placement" now supports UXP-based snippets created by the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in for Adobe InDesign. For sites with Automated Production enabled, the "Page Design" snippets with names matching the "Page Content Types" will automatically be placed on the pages replacing the older publication code folder-based method. To enable this new feature, the snippets need to be exported as "Page Design Snippets," have one or more publication codes explicitly set (as opposed to using no options), and have a snippet name/title containing the name of a "Page Content Type”. Unlike the older method, this new one will present options for which "Page Content Snippet" to place if more than one snippet for the chosen Publication Code exists. For example, if the "Page Content Type" is "oped" and you have versions exported "oped-sanders," "oped-sunday," and "oped-no-comic" a dialog like the one below will appear allowing you to select which snippet to place. This new method is considerably easier to manage because the legacy method requires a unique copy of the snippet in a specific folder for each publication and only does 100 percent matches. However, while the old method did not require that all Page Content Types be defined in the browser’s "Page creation settings," this new one does. This is a onetime configuration. (INDESIGN-691)
Additional documentation for this feature can be found here.
BUG FIX
We have fixed an issue with saving user preferences for page content type snippets. This release resolves two issues that prevented alpha versions from correctly saving and retrieving user preferences for snippets based on the "Page Content Type." The problem has been fixed, and no user sites were affected by the flawed version. (INDESIGN-4304)
Prior Version
The release notes for client 5.72 can be found here.
If you experience any issues or have any questions, please contact customer support at (800) 293-9576 or BLOXDigital.com/support.