That original Clone and Move made duplicates of assets in the local domain. For appliance based BLOX Total CMS sites that needed to share Adobe InDesign pages, that worked fine.

But with appliances reaching end of life, we needed another solution. The solution is Cross Domain Clone.

In general, Cross Domain Clone triggers a replication of assets via BLOX Site Tags. Once the assets have been syndicated, or copied, to the Destination Domain the Cross Domain Clone functionality can be used to place the replicated assets on the designated destination pages, just like the legacy Clone and Move function did.

One of the major advantages of Cross Domain Clone is that it allow the BLOX Total CMS based Adobe InDesign pages to produce fully segmented BLOX Live e-Edition pages using assets native to each domain and thus maintaining the immersive `River of News` experience. This becomes exceptionally important as sites cut down on print versions of publications.

Terminology

• Source Domain: The domain where both the original assets and the original Adobe InDesign document/page exists. 
• Source Page: The page with the placed assets. This is, as of 2024.02.01 only the first page of an Adobe InDesign document.
• Destination Domain: The domain(s) where you want the assets to be copied to, via a site tag based syndication so they can be placed in on the destination page.
• Destination Page: The page where you want to replicate the Source Page's layout with the assets from the destination domain. As with the source page, this will be the first page of the document. This Destination Page document must be created with Adobe InDesign before using `BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete...`
• Site Tag: This is a core BLOX functionality that is responsible for the actual background replication of the Source Assets to the Destination Domain

BLOX Configuration

For successful use of Cross Domain Clone, each Source Domain needs needs a Site Tag for each Destination Domain where you intend to share pages. Site Tags can be configured using two different technologies. It is recommended that they be created using the Linked Sites feature for faster syndication. 

In addition, there needs to be nothing to prevent the Source Domain syndicating the asset to the Destination Domain. Similarly, nothing should prevent the Destination Domain from importing of the syndicated assets.

• Some assets, have Digital Rights Management (DRM) rules that could prevent the Site Tag based copying form completing.
• Some Wire channels do not allow further syndication of imported assets. 
• In addition, the source asset's applied Workflow Process could prevent assets from syndicating.

If you're having issues, please file a support ticket at: https://www.bloxdigital.com/support/

Menu Functionality

Within Adobe InDesign there are currently two Cross Domain Clone functions. You should find both Cross Domain Clone options under the legacy Clone and Move... option. So that means you can find the options at:

• BLOX Total CMS > Clone and Move...
• BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request...
• BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete...

Basic Use within Adobe InDesign

1. Create the Source Page in the Source Domain with all the assets placed that you want cloned to the Destination Domain
2. Choose `BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request...`
3. Select the Destination Domain
4. Click the OK button
5. Use the naming convention controls to select the Destination Page for the Destination Domain
6. Click the `OK` button
7. Wait. It takes time for the assets to make their way to the Destination Domain. How long? It depends upon how your Site Tags are configured. Using the Linked Site based fast syndication is it quite quick. 
8. If the Destination Page hasn't yet been built with Adobe InDesign while logged into the Destination Domain, construct it now.
9. Choose `BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete...`
10. Select the Destination Page in the dialog.
11. Click the `OK` button

Page Size 

Just like with Clone and Move, the Destination Pages are constructed by replicating the Source Page's asset's frame sets on the Destination Pages. Then the Destination Domain's copies of the Source Domain's asset's are linked to those replicated frame sets.

If the Source Page and the Destination Page margins, columns, live area, etc. are different, the frame sets in the Destination Page's document will not necessarily be aligned to the bottom and right margins, nor will they necessarily be aligned to the column guides. 

If however, the Source and Destination Page's Adobe InDesign Templates share common measurements, then all should be aligned!

In addition, if you are going to be cloning pages to different print production centers with different press cutoffs, the recommended procedure would be to:

1. Complete the Cross Domain Clone once for one publication at that print production center.
2. Make any adjustments as necessary to get the asset's frame sets and assets to fit.
3. Use BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request... and BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete... for the additional publications produced for that print production facility.

Image Toning

Just like with Clone and Move, if the images placed on the Source Page are toned for print prior to using the BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete..., then the replicated pages will get the toned images. They don't need to be toned prior to using BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request...

If you are needing to tone differently for different print production centers then it is recommended to initially perform an Cross Domain Clone initially for each print center, re-import the image assets (Budget View makes this easy), and then export for toning the replaced images in each print center. When the images have been toned for each print center, then complete additional cycles of Cross Domain Clone for the rest of the publications using that print center. This whole process is similar to handling different sized publications. 

Template Styles

Just like with Clone and Move..., the Cross Domain Clone > Complete... process formats the text in the using the style names of the Source Page but with the style definitions of the Destination Page.

Ultimately, this means that all the publications that you are using with either function must have their Adobe InDesign templates configured to use the same Adobe InDesign style names. Object Styles, Paragraph Styles, and Character Style names and functionality and/or uses should match. And, like has always been the case with the BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign, manual, non-style based formatting is not advised.

That said, the definitions of those named styles do NOT have to match. But, if they don't match, you could find that the Destination Page will need the assets edited to fit.

By the way, if a Destination Page's template is missing a style used in the Source Page's formatting, the Cross Domain Clone and the legacy Clone and Move... functionality will import the Source Page's style(s). And the text, and/or object's appearances will match the Source Page. This is why all template's used by the Destination Pages must have all the named styles from the Source Pages. And honestly, this is just logical behavior. If everything is consistent between publications it's easier for the staff manually building pages. 

Jumps

While the Cross Domain Clone only works on the first page of both the Source Page/document and the Destination Page/document, either document can have additional pages. But only the assets on the first page get the Site Tags to trigger replication. 

The BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete... process may well leave the source page frames un-jumped if they have been threaded to a jump page. 

Thus, if you're going to do jumps, it is recommended that you both perform both the BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request... and the BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete... prior to jumping the assets. Or, make the readers happier, your life easier, and don't jump the articles at all!

Ruleset Differences

The assets are not placed using the Destination Domain's rulesets. The assets are composed on the Source Page using rulesets of the Source Domain and formatted using the styles from Source Page's Adobe InDesign Template.

Thus, if a destination domain, for some illogical reason, composes certain components differently in different domains, you should rethink if that is necessary. In many cases its because of a decision from someone who no longer works at the publication. Readers won't care. The more consistent you can make things, the easier everything becomes.

That said, once the BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Complete... process has finished, the Destination Page now has assets that can be easily reflowed using the Budget View tab of the BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign's Asset Manager. And reflowing the asset should force the asset to be composed on the page using the rulesets from the Destination Domain. This too would force the use of the Destination Pages' Adobe InDesign Template's Object, Paragraph, and Character Styles rather than from the Source Pages' named styles.

Multiple Destination Pages in the Same Destination Domain

Yes, you can use BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request... to multiple Destination Pages in a single Destination Domain. However, the Site Tags will NOT make multiple copies of the Source Domain's assets. Only one replication happens regardless of how many times you use `BLOX Total CMS > Cross Domain Clone > Request...` to a specific domain.

If no edits will be needed on any of the Destination Pages, this is fine. But that won't do if you need to edit uniquely to either localize the content or to handle different page sizes or ad stacks. To solve this issue, after creating the first Destination Page, use the legacy BLOX Total CMS > Clone and Move... and you can create unique assets for each Destination Page.

BLOX Total CMS Minimum Requirements for Cross Domain Clone

Cross Domain Clone only works on non-appliance based versions of BLOX Total CMS. In other words, it requires the modern hosted variety of BLOX Total CMS. 

Cross Domain Clone requires Adobe InDesign Creative Cloud. Only Adobe InDesign Creative Cloud versions 2023 and newer are recommended. 

Cross Domain Clone was first released with BLOX Total CMS client for Adobe InDesign version 5.69. You'll need that version or newer.