We have recently released a new Addon for Yooba Studio called External Data. The purpose of the addon is to load data from external sources into a project. The addon loads RSS2 feeds, which is the most common format for publishing data feeds such as news headlines, blogs, tweets etc. The texts from the RSS feed can be loaded into regular textfields in Yooba Studio, which makes it very flexible when working with external data sources. So if you want to show your corporate blog, make a ticker for your recent tweets, or display any other kind of external data, this addon will make your life easier.

Below is a sample project that shows our latest posts on Twitter. Besides of using already existing feeds from Twitter, Blogger etc, you can of course also create your own custom feed to get external texts into your project.

Please contact us for more information about the add-on.

Tags: add-ons, yooba studio, rss, external data

Version 1.3.1 of Yooba Studio has now been released! Two major improvements are included in this release: Image optimization and an improved preview mode.

Image Optimization
All images in your project is now automatically optimized for faster downloading. The automatic optimization uses various techniques to reduce the file size of your assets, which makes your projects load faster for the end-user. For you as a Yooba Studio user, this also means that it's no longer important to think about compressing the images that you are using in your project - the automatic optimization does that for you, and and lets you focus entirely on the creative process. You can of course also turn the automatic optimization off if you want to manage the compression yourself.

Improved Preview
The look and feel of the preview has been improved. First of all, the preview does not open in a new window anymore. This makes switching between edit mode and preview mode easier. Also, it is no longer neccessary to save your project before previewing. In earlier versions, your project was automatically saved when you pressed the preview button, but now you can preview your changes without saving.

More features has also been added, for instance the scrollbar for text that I wrote about in the previous post. Hope you'll find these new features useful!

Tags: yooba studio, optimization, preview

We haven't written much lately about what we are up to here at Yooba HQ. That does not mean that we're not doing anything, quite the opposite actually. We've been hard at work on a new feature that will be presented shortly. It will be really useful for collaborative work in Yooba Studio, but that's all i will say about it for now. Instead, I will talk a little about some smaller features that will be included in the next release.

• Text fields will have an optional scrollbar so that you easier can present large sections of text.
• It will be possible to add comments to objects and scenes. They are useful when collaborating with someone else on a project, or just as reminders for yourself.
• A Crop tool will allow you to crop your images directly in Yooba Studio.

These are only a few of the new features that will be included in the next version of Yooba Studio. Stay tuned for more info about the release!

Tags: features, scrollbar, comments, notes, crop

With Add-ons, extra functionality can be added to Yooba Studio. Under the Add-ons menu on the toolbar you can find the extensions that are currently activated for your account. An Add-on can add functionality in many ways, and we have already created a bunch of generic add-ons that anyone can use.

For instance, we have recently worked with a customer that wanted to run Yooba projects on touch-screen monitors. We helped them by creating the Touch Screen Add-on, which adds the functionality they needed, including a fully customizable on-screen keyboard to enable user input without a regular keyboard. As a result of this add-on, Yooba projects are at the moment running on hundreds of touch-screens all around Europe and Latin America.

Other add-ons that we’ve been working on with clients includes sending text messages to cell phones, uploading images, counting impressions etc. So if you need extra functionality that is currently not available in Yooba Studio, please let us know! Chances are that it’s already available as an add-on. And if not – we’ll build it!

Add-ons are features for our Enterprise customers and can be ordered by contacting your sales representative or calling Sales at +44 (0)20  8123 2570.

Tags: add-ons, yooba studio, touchscreen

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

Version 1.25 of Yooba Studio is now up and running, including among many things a brand new Actions Panel. It is now possible to add MouseOver and MouseOut actions to objects, as well as adding multiple actions to an object that will execute simultaneously.

The rebuilt actions panel is faster to work with, but it is also an important foundation for upcoming improvements. In future versions we will include more types of actions, and the list of actions you can execute will gradually grow longer.

 

 

Tags: actions, yooba studio

An area that is currently under the radar here at Yooba HQ is Actions. Actions is an integral part of Yooba Studio, and we are working on some improvements that will make them even more powerful.

One of those improvements is the ability to trigger actions upon mouse interaction with objects. In the current version, an action can only be executed when an object is clicked. In the next version, it will also be possible to execute actions when the mouse is dragged over an object, as well as when the mouse is dragged away from an object. Another useful addition is the ability to execute more than one action at a time. To make room for these new features, we are also rebuilding the actions panel from scratch, making it easier and more intuitive to work with.

Stay tuned for Yooba Studio 1.25!

Tags: actions, coming features, yooba studio

In the latest version of Yooba Studio, we've added the ability to optimize the look of text fields. With a text field selected, have a peek at the text panel. Under Advanced text settings, you can now choose to optimze the text field for animation or for readability.

Optimize for animation creates a smooth text that will look good in animations. This is the setting that all text fields had in earlier versions, and works good if your text is fairly large, or if you intend to animate it.

Optimize for readability on the other hand, will give your text sharper edges which will make it easier to read. Especially when using a small font size, this can really improve the look of your texts. This mode is ideal for static texts that are not animated.

Tags: text, new release, features

For those of you not familiar with EPIServer, it's a web content management system, which makes it easy to create and update content on a web site. The content that can be managed in the system (and in all other content management systems) is mainly static, text and images basically. We attended the EPIServer Day to present the new possibilities to integrate Yooba Studio into EPIServer, to enable management of dynamic flash content as well.

Most of the people we met at EPIServer Day were heavy users of content management systems, but when we asked them how they manage their flash content, the reply was that - well they just didn't. Enter Yooba Studio! Yooba Studio integrates into EPIServer, and makes updating your animated content easy, from inside of your regular CMS system. Here's how it's done:

When editing a page in EPIServer, click on the Yooba icon. From a list you can now choose which project to insert to the page.

The project is added to your page among the other content:

If you want to edit the project that you added to the page, click on the Yooba.com tab, where you'll find shortcuts to your Yooba account. Click on Published projects to automatically log in to your Yooba account and edit your project as you like.

Have a look at the box in the lower half of the above image. By simply dragging assets (or even folders) from EPIServer's File management and dropping them on this box, the assets will be added to your Yooba Library. This means that the images and other content that you've uploaded in EPIServer is easily accessible in Yooba Studio as well.

That was a quick review of some of the features. It is also possible to add projects to your page templates, schedule your added projects, and more. This integration between EPIServer and Yooba Studio makes it easy to manage your whole website in the same place. A workflow that, judged by the feedback we recieved at EPIServer Day, is really awaited!

Sharepoint? - Anyone?

Tags: episerver, yooba studio, cms, episerverdagen

Before heading off to EPIServerdagen, we released an updated version of Yooba Studio. The ability to use gradient fills on shapes that we've talked about earlier is one of the new features. We have also made some quite big improvements in the backoffice system, that makes managing your saved and published projects easier. Log in to your Yooba account to check it out!

As usual, were interested in getting feedback about your experience. While working in Yooba Studio, all you have to do is open the feedback window in the top right corner and wish for anything you want, it's almost like writing to Santa! And believe me when I say that your feedback is important when we deceide what features to get into the upcoming releases.

Tags: yooba studio, studio, new release, gradient