Digital Magazines software with pageflip for creating online magazines, digital newspapers or digital catalogues in-house

Before reading this article on how to use 3D Issue Professional to add interaction to your digital magazine, please ensure that you have read the article on "Using the 3D Issue Converter".

3D Issue Professional is an innovative windows based software solution that allows publishers to easily add all the interactivity that is currently offered by digital magazine service providers. The Professional v3.0 application enables you to easily add drop down menu, hotspots, preview rollovers, video, audio, comment & send to friend functionality in a matter of seconds. Users may use this tool to create new digital magazines or work on existing digital publication.

Upon exiting the “3D Converter”, 3D Issue Professional will automatically calculate the number of pages in this issue, the page width and page height. A verification process is also run at this stage to ensure that all pdfs used where the same width & height. The width & height values refer to the full size of the page when the user zooms into a page in the final digital magazine. These 3 values cannot be altered.

A new feature that we added is the ability to alter the page numbering to reflect the page numbering in your print publication. For example, most print publishers would not refer to the front cover of their magazines as page 1. Their page numbering in most cases might start on the third, fifth or even tenth page in. So we have included a new option that will allow you to enter the page number commencement page and this will ensure that the flash magazine reflects the number in the pages of the publications.

3D Issue Professional allows you to add & remove featues in the digital magazines with the click of a button. On the left hand side of the ‘3D Issue Details’ tab, there are also a variety of functions that can be added or disabled for this issue, such as :

- Allowing users to print pages,

- Send emails to friends,

- Search for keywords,

- Linking to previous issues,

- Enabling contents menu,

- Download off-line editions,

- Allow users to change zoom settings

- Make hotspots transparent until the user rolls over them.

The newest feature to be added is the “Stretch page to fit window”. By selecting this option you will tell the digital edition to check the resolution of the end-users browser and stretch that page to suit their browser.

Another new feature is the "Read Right to Left". This feature is to cater to international clients such as arabic publications, who first page would be the backcover of the publication and the last page would be what we would classify as the front cover. simply by clicking this button, the digital edition is completely reconfigured to handle this publication type. Along with reordering the pages, it will also change all page numbering, keyword search and contents menus to suit the configuration of the publication

There are two functions in our digital editions that require dynamic scripts. The “Send to Friend” feature and the “Add comments” buttons. There are many different types of server hosting platforms and to ensure that you can run these features on any windows or linux platform we have provide the ability to choose your script type.

If you are using windows servers, choose ASP and if you are any other platform choose PHP. Professional will then add the necessary scripts to the project folder.

The right hand section of the ‘3D Issue details’ tab is for adding content options to the drop down menu options. The contents menu is the compulsory first tab. However you can change its name by double-clicking on the title.

Here you can enter the names of the various sections of your publication and the pages numbers in which they occur. Please enter all “article name” information here. To add a label, simply click on the content name field and enter the name of the section you are referencing, then click on the corresponding page number field and enter the number of the page that the application should jump to when the corresponding ‘name’ option is selected.

To create a submenu, click in the field underneath the label that you wish to be the submenu heading and enter the “>” character before the label name.

In the above sample you can see a menu structure that was automatically created by the bookmark detector. You can also see the submenu structures denoted by the “>” character.

There are 10 default fields, if you wish to add more, select the ‘Add’ button at the bottom of the panel. This will prompt a dialog box that allows you to add as many addtional listings as you want and also allows you to specify where you want these new fields added.

You can also enter an additional 7 menu options in the options bar. By default these tabs are labelled ‘Blank’. To rename, choose the ‘Options’ button. Note that there is limited space available on the menu bar, so keep the names short.

In the Page features tab you can add a variety of features to each page. At the top of this section there are a series of buttons that allow you to save changes and move between pages using the left and right arrow buttons or the go to page dialog box.

You will notice at the button of the screen that when viewing the pages that the 3D Issue Professional 3 has automatically detected and added URL and e-mail addresses to the digital edition. During the convesion process you will have stated whether you wanted these links added as hostpost or buttons. Any url or email that has been detected has been added to the panel at the bottom of the display area. To activate these links all you have to do is drag and drop these URLS onto the location.

To assist you in placing the hotspots accurately you can zoom in on the page by double clicking anywhere on the page.

You can activate interactivity on the pages by two methods. You can choose to intiate an action using either hotspots or buttons. To activate these features on a page all you have to do is click and drag the buttons / hotspots onto the canvas area and enter the value. A full list of the actions that you can add to a digital magazine are listed below.

If you have selected the “Download offline edition”, then you have stated that you wish to allow users to download the publication and view it offline. There are two options. If you have acquired the offline reader, then you can allow the download this completely interactive and searchable digital edition onto their desktop for future viewing. If you do not have the offline reader package then select PDF and this will automatically zip your publication and attach it to the digital edition, ready for downloading.

Hotspots

These tools allow you to add hyperlinks & preview rollovers to a page. These features are located at top of the canvas area. To add a hyperlink hotspot, click on the hotspot button. When you move the mouse over the page you will notice that the cursor changes to a drawing tool. Once you have decided where to place the hotspot, click and drag. To complete, release the mouse button. Do not worry if the hotspot isn’t exact the first time as you can increase the width & height by clicking and dragging the small red circle in the bottom right of the hotspot box.

Once you have released the mouse, a dialog box appears stating the width, height, x and y values. This info is used by 3D Issue to ensure that the hotspot is correctly placed in the flash application. Therefore there is no need to change these values.

In the navigation section of the ‘Hotspot Information’ dialogue box, you can specify whether you want this hotspot to jump to a page, URL, send an email, play a flash movie, load a video or audio clip.

You must enter a numeric value only for page number. In the live digital edition, when clicked the digital edition will jump to that page number.

The URL must contain the prefix ‘http://’. In the live digital edition, when clicked the digital edition will open a new browser window and load that URL.

The email address must contain the “@” symbol. In the live digital edition, when clicked the digital edition will launch your email editior and start a new “send email” function to the email address defined here.

The flash movie must be a SWF file. When you click on the browser button and select the SWF file, 3D Issue Professional will copy the file into a subfolder of the project folder, allowing you to easily manage the uploading of the full project.

The audio clip must be an .mp3 file and must be stored in the folder or subfolder of the folder you are creating the digital edition in. Again all files will be copied into subfolders of the project folder.

The video clip must be an .flv file and must be stored in the folder or subfolder of the folder you are creating the digital edition in.

Once you have entered the required info, click ‘Generate’ to add the hotspot.

There are eleven new buttons in 3D Issue Professional 3 that allow you to add interactivity to the page. These buttons are located to the right hand side of the canvas area. (See image below)

To activate an option you simply click and drag the button you want onto the canvas and release it at the location you want. There are nine buttons in total.

This button allows you to play a video clip when a particular page is opened. Simply click and drag the button onto the page. You will then be asked to locate the .flv file. Once located, click return. If the clip is not located in a subfolder of the project folder it will be copied and moved to that location.

The reason for this is that when you are uploading the project folder to your live site, all linked files will also be copied.

NOTE THAT YOU CAN NOT HAVE AN AUDIO, SWF OR VIDEO ON START ON THE SAME PAGE OR CORRESPONDING PAGES. IT MUST BE ONE OR THE OTHER.

This button allows you to play an external flash movies when a particular page is opened. Simply click and drag the button onto the page. You will then be asked to locate the .SWF file. Once located, click return.

NOTE THAT YOU CAN NOT HAVE AN AUDIO, SWF OR VIDEO ON START ON THE SAME PAGE OR CORRESPONDING PAGES. IT MUST BE ONE OR THE OTHER.

This button allows you to play an audio clip when a particular page is opened. Simply click and drag the button onto the page. You will then be asked to locate the .MP3 file. Once located, click return.

NOTE THAT YOU CAN NOT HAVE AN AUDIO, SWF OR VIDEO ON START ON THE SAME PAGE OR CORRESPONDING PAGES. IT MUST BE ONE OR THE OTHER.

This button allows you to link to an email address. When you drag and drop this icon on to a page, you will be asked to insert an email address.

When the user clicks on this option in the live 3D Issue, their default email application will be loaded and a new email request will be initiated with this email address inserted into the “Send to” field.

This is a great new feature that allows users to add feedback functionality to their 3D Issue. This option allows you to create a topic / board that allow users to add comments / feedback on particular articles or products. After you click and drag the button onto the page you will be asked to enter a topic heading. EG (article1)

Once you hit “OK”, a new topic is added to the database, (“article1”).

In the live edition, when the user clicks on this button, the comments dialogue box will open and the display box will show all comments that have been left by other visitors. (There is one comment from the editor entered by default).

The user can read through all comments and if they so wish, click on the add comments option to add their own feedback.

You can also just add video by clicking on a button. Click and drag the button onto the page, and enter the location of the .flv file. Similarly to the video on start option, the file will be copied to a subfolder of the project folder.

You can also just play flash movies by clicking on a button. Click and drag the button onto the page, and enter the location of the .swf file. Similarly to the SWF on start option, the file will be copied to a subfolder of the project folder.

You can also just add audio by clicking on a button. Click and drag the button onto the page, and enter the location of the .mp3 file. Similarly to the audio on start option, the file will be copied to a subfolder of the project folder.

If at any time you wish to edit the values that you entered for any button, simply double click on the button and edit the value entered or click on delete to remove the button from the page.

To test your work so far, click on the ‘PREVIEW’ tab. This is a new feature to 3D Issue Professional, allowing you to view the work so far. By clicking on the tab, a fully functional 3D Issue is displayed within 3D Issue Professional. This will allow you to test the interactivity that you have added so far.

Yuo can skip forwards and backwards to other components in 3D Issue Professional but each time that you make changed to to the digital edition in Professional, you must click on the refresh button on the bottom left of the display area to update and view these new changes.

This tab allows you to edit all the text that is used for keyword searching. Like the page features tab, this viewer display each page one at a time

In the example below you are viewing page 5. By default when 3D Issue Professional extracts all the text from your PDFs it only divides it into one entry per page. What this means is that when you are doing a keyword search in the live 3D Issue the results will only tell you the page that word appears on. In 3D Issue Professional this is denoted by the removal of any spaces between different paragraphs (i.e. no empty white lines).

You can however refine the search to also display the paragraph number. To do this, all you have to do is go to the end of each paragraph and hit “enter” on your keyboard.

By looking at the image on the right hand side of the page details tab, you can see that there are five paragraphs on page 4. All you have to do in the text editor is go to the end of each paragraph and hit "enter" to separate the paragraphs.

See sample on the right. This page is now split into five paragraphs and when you do a keyword search in the live 3D Issue you will now notice that it doesn’t just tell you the page the keyword appears in but also the paragraph number.

3D Issue Professional ~ Part 2