FEATURES

• Automated Production now recognizes 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. However, additional frames placed with the asset might still overlap these items. (INDESIGN-4105)

• 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 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 you use the Snippets/Geometry Items feature, it's advisable to select both publications and page locations when exporting snippets with the UXP-based BLOX Total CMS Plug-in. (INDESIGN-4269)

• With the recent availability of the UXP-based plug-in for Snippet export support tracking of child image frames, it is now possible to assign a score to the asset based on how well the selected Snippet/Geometry Item 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. For additional information see Understanding Asset Hierarchy Scores. (INDESIGN-3594)

IMPROVEMENTS

• Some legacy export snippet functions were logging errors after their functionality. Those have been removed. (INDESIGN-4326)

• Prevent unavailable snippet shortcuts from preventing the "Shortcuts Menu" from being built. When the shortcut or macOS alias can no longer resolve to an actual Adobe InDesign snippet, the shortcut/alias will be removed. This "Shortcuts Menu" feature has been supplanted by the BLOX Total CMS plug-in for Adobe InDesign’s "Favorites" functionality. (INDESIGN-4326)

• The "Advanced Search" option for Source Application was not 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 resolved, updates and shows applications for the current, active domain. However, please note that the browser-based search might show fewer applications than the Asset Manager in Adobe InCopy and Adobe InDesign, as the browser will only show applications that have assets. (INDESIGN-1850)

• New options to control columns during Automated Production placement has been added. 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)

• Client 5.70 changed the way the macOS Workaround was configured after we learned that rather than opening an existing document, certain versions of Adobe InDesign could regain functionality by creating a new document. The old “osWorkaround” documents was 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 and with newer versions of macOS, the users had difficulty activating menus. To counteract this, macOS users now have two sets in BLOX Total CMS > Settings 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 > Settings 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)

• 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)

• 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, will now be cleared of the prior ads. This issue most commonly appeared when using Ad Layout Formats that didn’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)

• 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 > Settings 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 Automated Production placement previously limited the number of child assets placed to one. However, with the new feature that allows budgeting for child assets, this limit has been updated to match the maximum number of child image frames the geometry item supports. For example, a "Centerpiece" snippet can support at least two child images. (INDESIGN-3733)

• For many years, the "Publications" accordion of the "Print" tab in the browser-based "Asset editor" has allowed users to select a "Geometry" item. With the upcoming release of the BLOX Total CMS Plug-in for Adobe InDesign, which supports the latest features for creating and placing snippets, 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, but 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/
  
  For additional details check out our Guidelines for using Automated Production. (INDESIGN-4286)

Using this involves budge an asset and specifying the geometry item (Design Element Snippet) as shown below:

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:

Place the asset and the star frame will be replaced with the budgeted snippet as shown below: 

• In Automated Production, you can now place assets into snippets. You can select these snippets either from the "Publications" tab or from the "Geometry" dropdown menu in the "Placement Options" portion of the Automated Production tab in the Asset Manager, as show below. (INDESIGN-3765)

BUGS

• "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 Production was active or if the site had chosen to upload the .adinfo files to Page Tracker. This incompatibility with "Benchmark Mode" has been resolved. (INDESIGN-4327)

Prior Version

The release notes for client version 5.71 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.