woodwing

The promise of Adobe’s Flex technology was always the ability to create an application that could sit on a user’s desktop as well as run within a web browser. This, in part, was one of the reasons WoodWing chose the Adobe technology for its new content publishing application, Content Station. With the release of version 6.2, that promise has become a reality.

A sample of the other changes in version 6.2 include:

• Faster rendering of thumbnails
• Support for restricted metadata fields in property dialogs
• Multiple file check-out and property adjustments
• The ability to reveal all dossiers that contain a selected object
• Table support in the HTML editor
• Editing of articles directly from the Publication Overview application

Content Station 6.2 can now be deployed on the desktop or within the major web browsers of the Mac or PC (FireFox, Safari, Internet Explorer). Traditionally, Web applications have looked different from their desktop counterparts, but the beauty of Adobe’s AIR technology is that the Web version and the desktop version of Content Station look exactly the same. This is great news for users who may switch between both versions.

Improved Dossier Templates

Content Station 6.2 features changes to the way dossier templates behave. As a reminder, dossier templates are part of the Planning function of Content Station, which allows users to plan upcoming products such as newspapers, magazines, books, company projects, etc. Dossiers themselves are content packages that may contain articles, layouts, audio files, video files, etc. Dossier templates are a feature that helps users create dossiers quickly and with somly e files automatically included.

In version 6.2 of Content Station, if a dossier template contains an article template, new copies of the dossier will simply contain a reference to the original article template, not a whole new copy. If, however, a dossier template contains an article, then a new copy of the original article will be created. Layouts behave differently, though. For layouts, should a dossier template contain a layout or layout module, those objects will be ignored when a new dossier is created. If a layout template or a layout module template is part of the dossier template, a new copy of the template is created with the new dossier.

Small differences

It is important to note that the behavior of Content Station differs slightly between the Web and the desktop version, mainly due to security limitations:

Drag and drop support: Since the Content Station application is running within a Web browser, dragging from the desktop of the operating system into Content Station Web is not supported. Instead, users will need to use an Upload feature. Dragging and dropping of files within the application window is still supported, however.

Automatic refreshing: Due to limitations within the Flash framework, automatic updating of content windows is not supported. Users will need to refresh the Inbox or dossier contents windows manually.

Availability

Content Station 6.2 is immediately available and works with Enterprise server 6.1.3 or above. Please consult the release notes for a detailed list of changes and improvements.