Rick Borstein has written a very comprehensive tutorial in the Adobe Developer Connection about how to store all the interactive "bits and pieces" of a slideshow in an InDesign Library, so that additional slideshows can be created with a minimum of fuss in the future.
Very nice!
I'm prompted to write this today after reading yet another "Has Apple Peaked?" article. There has been lots of negative publicity about Apple's stock price falling amid investor speculation that Apple cannot continue to innovate. While this may or may not be a valid concern, I want to point out one fact that many of the articles overlook: iPad sales.
In the last fiscal quarter ending in December 2012, Apple sold 22.9 million iPads. That is far more than in any previous quarter. They have sold over 121 million iPads in less than 3 years.
Still a pretty healthy market for those of us involved with creating tablet apps with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, I'd say!
In my work with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS), I've found that there are certain tasks when creating interactive content that are either highly-repetitive, or difficult and tedious to do. I decided to try to do something about this.
The first outcome of this is a set of 6 scripts that I call "Digital publishing pack 1: scripts for Adobe DPS". In a nutshell, the scripts makes creating a button-driven "reveal and hide" object completely automatic. It also makes it possible to add objects to all states of a multi-state object in a single step, and provides an easy way to move from one state to another within a multi-state object.
My on-line store contains more specifics about the scripts, as well as a brief demonstration video. The package of 6 scripts costs $19.95/workstation.
I'd love to hear what you think of these scripts. If you have ideas for other DPS-related tasks that should be automated, I'd love to hear those ideas as well. Thanks!
From the "you don't know how easy you have it!" department:
If you've been around the printing, publishing and typesetting industry for more than a few years, you'll appreciate the following 2 videos. If you are a relative newcomer to the industry, you could benefit from watching these, both to get a feel for how far the industry has advanced in the last 60 years, and to learn a bit about how early typesetting and page makeup worked. Many of the typesetting and layout terms that we use today have their roots in this era.
Enjoy!
Making Books, a film from 1947 about the book making process
Your Life Work: Printing, also from 1947
Here are four tools that I've found useful for creating design mockups and comps:
1. LiveSurface files make it easy to create photo-realistic mockups in Photoshop. See my previous blog post about this valuable resource here.
2. A similar resource is this collection of mockup templates from Arsenal.
3. MockupEverything lets you create easy mockups completely online, no knowledge of Photoshop needed. Just select a template and upload your art to create a mockup.
4. lorempixel is a placeholder image generator. Just enter the width and height of your desired image in pixels, choose a subject category, and indicate if you want color or grayscale. A random Creative Commons licensed image that matches your specs will display, ready for you to download and use in your design comp.
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