Summer is here, but work at the Yooba HQ doesn't stand still because of it. We're hard at work with new features in Yooba Studio as well as in the BackOffice. At this point, we're working on enhancing some of the Add-ons that are available. These enhancements will not be visible immediately with the new release of Yooba Studio, but we'll explain and unveil more about them at a later point.

A select list of features of what will be included in the next release, which will be version 1.3, is:

• More keyboard shortcuts. A full list will be available in the Help.
• Enhanced functionality in the settings panels, to make them easier to work with.
• Minor tweaks and bug fixes

If you keep an eye on our UserVoice feedback forum at yooba.uservoice.com, you can see that we have some features planned for the future:

• The possibility to copy effect and animation settings from an object and apply them to another. This will help save a lot of time!
• Built-in optimization of uploaded images, meaning that compression and rescaling of images will be possible, to optimize the loading times of a project. These settings will of course be customizable, as everything else in Yooba Studio.

We'd be delighted if you took a look at the feedback forum to help us improve!

Keep a lookout for version 1.3 of Yooba Studio sometime in the first part of July!

Tags: yooba studio, 1.3, feedback, uservoice, addons, add-ons

The question might seem simple to answer, but how come so few companies actually do it? There are of course a number of answers to both these questions, but let's look at history first. When looking at the traditional CMS market, it has been a well established truth for very long that you need to take control of your content, and minimize the number of consultant hours needed to put your messages out on the web. There is also the issue of time to market, and scheduling and versioning issues. The list could be made long of different reasons why one should use a traditional CMS, and looking at how many do it, it has also become an accepted truth that you need a CMS.

Isn't it strange that everybody use these arguments when investing time and money to release a new site, but somehow these arguments aren't valid when it comes to Flash content. Of course these same arguments apply to Flash content as well, it's just that most people aren't aware that it's possible. It is also true that many agencies that create web sites make a lot of money by updating and creating simple Flash content, these people are often afraid that they will loose revenue if they no longer can charge a weeks worth of time to produce a simple banner.

You can hardly blame people that are unaware of the possibilities for not using Flash CMS, you can however blame us for not telling them. To the companies that are afraid of loosing money if their customers start using a Flash CMS, are you making less money on your developers by selling a traditional CMS? There is also something to learn from the desktop publishing revolution from the 80's, just because everybody have the tools to create content doesn't mean that everybody has the skills to do it.

Tags:

Great news form from Google Webmaster Central Blog. "We just added external resource loading to our Flash indexing capabilities. This means that when a SWF file loads content from some other file—whether it's text, HTML, XML, another SWF, etc.—we can index this external content too, and associate it with the parent SWF file and any documents that embed it."

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Tags: google, flash, yooba

For every release, there are improvements made to Yooba Studio - some visible to the user and some under the hood. While working on the development of Yooba Studio we always consider the invaluable feedback we get from our users.

In the next release we plan to add more keyboard shortcuts for faster access to various editing options something that's been suggested from many of our users. (A list of current keyboard shortcuts are available in the Help) Another feature already implemented in the current version of Yooba Studio is the improved settings panels, where you now can choose to have multiple panels open at once or focus on just one panel at a time.

This is great examples of features becoming reality through feedback from our users - and we want more! To make this process easier for you we have created a UserVoice forum where suggestions can be made and voted for.
So, go ahead and submit your favorite feature!

Tags: yooba studio, users, feedback, uservoice

Recently, version 1.29 of Yooba Studio was released. Besides of numerous GUI updates and bug fixes, the main new feature in this release is the Project Info Window, found on the Project tab. If you want to optimize your project for faster downloading, this window will be your new friend. Here you can find information about all the assets that are used in your project. You can see the file size of each individual image, video, sound file, widget and font that are included in your project, which is invaluable when you want to find bottlenecks in the loading process. You will also receive warnings if you have used your assets ineffectively, as well as suggestions on how to use them better.

Hope you'll find it useful!

Tags: yooba studio, studio, new release, project info

Our continuously steady growing Yooba community is getting bigger for each hour. Needless to say times are exiting, and most certainly exhausting. And this is just the beginning, as a service Yooba is constantly under development. Sure, most products and services are, but as a web based service you get access all the good updates straight away. But this isn’t all done by ourselves, over the time we’ve had some great and necessary feedback from users. That approach is still part of our strategy. Let us know what you think.

Thanks.

Tags: yooba, yooba studio, news

Professional content management system for Flash now ready for commercial use

London and Stockholm, June 8^th 2009 – Yooba Ltd today announced the full commercial availability of its revolutionary online Flash creation and management system, Yooba.

Yooba is a content management system (CMS) specially designed for Flash website content creation. As with CMSs for static content, Yooba puts full creative power over Flash, right down to the object level - but without the need for programming skills - into the hands of editors and others responsible for site content origination and maintenance. As Yooba behaves just like a conventional CMS, therefore, it is particularly intuitive and easy to use.

All work in Yooba is carried out via the user’s web browser, so no software installation is required. As the editing environment - Yooba Studio provides the same features and functionality of costly industry-standard professional packages, it delivers substantial operational savings - a considerable benefit when communications budgets are under pressure, but businesses still need to maintain their communication channels.

As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, there are no licensing issues with Yooba and users are always working with the latest version. The SaaS structure also gives full scalability on pricing, to suit anyone from individual professionals to enterprise companies.

Once content is created, Yooba makes the efficient management of the Flash elements straightforward, which simplifies the scheduling and publication of created and edited material. This is carried out through Yooba’s graphical admin dashboard, which gives users total control of Flash objects within a website at a glance, making it easy to update and change them as frequently as information and sales campaigns require.

David Nordin, Yooba’s Managing Director, commented: “We want to enable creation of Flash-elements to complement the static content; to visualize and enhance information. With Yooba Studio, our users can still focus on what they do best, be they designers, agencies or editors. Thanks to Yooba, they can now get their work to the web in entirely new ways. We’re bringing technology and creativity together, but with the emphasis on business values. We want to make it possible to have an increased presence and interactivity on the Internet, and with Yooba you really do get more bang for your buck.”

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Tags: yooba, flash cms, yooba studio, manage flash content, flash without programming

We just got back from a conference here in Sweden. A conference for organisations within the public sector, and where we also exhibited and presented some new features. It was a quite positive experience in general, and a very positive aspect was the attitude for complementing web sites with interactive content. There's very clearly a shift in how municipals think about interactive Flash-objects. Obviously we're very biased as we're providing a very productive service for many of those, but mainly it's about making information more accessible for the visitors.

We've seen great and successful examples where Flash content is used to visualise information, which in the end makes the information easier to find out about. The Flash content isn't replacing anything, it complements and strengthens the static content. You can't either disregard that many municipals also, more and more acts like a brand. It's about attracting new businesses with a visually enhanced, and interesting website.

But again, the good thing is that Flash content is there to make it easier for the inhabitants.

Tags: offentliga rummet, yooba, flash cms, visualisation, information, flash

As always, Yooba Studio is constantly growing, improving and evolving.
The GUI designers are working on some updates for the next release of Yooba Studio right now, improving some GUI elements to fit better with the rest. At the same time, the development team is implementing new exciting features. One feature which we think will be very useful is the ability to see some detailed info on your project. Info on which images, fonts etc. that are being used, with a file size report and suggestions on how to improve the loading experience can really be helpful to make your Yooba project the best it can be for your viewers.

Look out for this and more in the upcoming release of Yooba Studio!

Tags: yooba studio, gui, project info

Web applications are not something new – they’ve existed for years, in different forms and with different technologies. Lately, these applications have become more and more like the applications we have installed on our computers and use in the day-to-day work, so called desktop applications. As the functionality and usability progresses with these web applications, we grow more effective in our work using them. And, they have an advantage over desktop applications: no installation is required and the application is available everywhere that there’s a computer with an Internet connection.

Although many of these Rich Internet Applications (RIA) exists in the browser, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. New technologies such as Adobe AIR and Mozilla Prism make it possible to install the application as a traditional desktop application, but with all the advantages from a RIA. To include constantly changing information from the web and integrate with other web services such as YouTube and Google Maps is all made possible with this technology.

This week, one of the largest newspapers in the world – The New York Times – launched a desktop RIA for reading their paper online. It’s called Times Reader and includes all published articles from a week back. As they put it: “It reads like a newspaper. Updates like a Web site. And delivers like The New York Times.”

Seeing a company such as The New York Times, traditionally associated with an “old media” launching a Rich Internet Application is a strong sign of the impact of RIAs, be it in the browser or on the desktop.

For more reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_application
http://www.adobe.com/products/air/
http://timesreader.nytimes.com/timesreader/
http://prism.mozilla.com/

Tags: rich internet application, new york times, times reader, desktop