IntuiFace 5.2.5: A Power Editing Update

One of our primary objectives for IntuiFace is to accelerate its users' ability to create amazing visuals in amazingly short periods of time. High value content with minimal effort. Our latest release, Version 5.2.5 introduces a set of capabilities - primarily for the editing experience in Composer - targetted squarely at this objective.

Whether working with static or dynamic content, collections enable you to organize that content in a variety of engaging ways. Could be everything from a simple image wall comprised of graphic content to a complex display of information referenced by an Excel spreadsheet. Either way, your goal as a designer - yes, nomatter what your day job, when using IntuiFace feel free to think of yourself as a designer - is to create the most engaging, intuitive and fit-for-purpose display of that content.

Version 5.2.5 greatly increases your ability to edit collections directly, in-scene. And since Excel is an extremely powerful yet simply means to create dynamic, data-driven experiences, we've added additional capability to streamline its use as well.

SIDE NOTE: Not using Excel yet? If you do nothing else, check out this article. You'd be crazy to not use Excel if there is anything repetitive about the content or layour in your experience. Want to speed things up? Want to reduce the number of scenes? Use Excel!

Greater In-Scene Editing Capability

• Directly resize the width of items inside collections and data templates by double-clicking the collection/data template and then dragging item handles. Previously, you had to manipulate these values indirectly via the All Properties panel.
• Resize Group collection "window" without resizing contained items by double-clicking the Group and then dragging its resize handles. Previously, you had to individually move items outside the Group window.
• Nested collections can be individually selected for in-scene editing. Wasn't possible before this release.
• Lasso selection (i.e. left-click-hold+drag) now works inside the Group and Pinboardcollections. Wasn't possible before this release. You had to manipulate each child item independently.

Enhanced Excel Support

• Edit Excel-based workbook data - accessed via the Excel interface asset - in real-time by opening spreadsheets from within Composer. Add/rename columns, add rows and change data without breaking the existing bindings used to display your data. Not only do you no longer have to keep track of where the project-hosted version of the spreadsheet is kept but - more importantly - you can modify your spreadsheets layout and contents after creating data templates and you won't break them.
• Create Excel interface assets on the fly by drag-and-dropping Excel workbooks (and, optionally, associated graphic files and folders) into Composer. Much more intuitive and a lot more agile.
• Open the folder containing the workbook referenced by an Excel interface asset directly from within Composer. This is particularly helpful if changing graphic media that is referenced by the spreadsheet and stored within the project folders.

New Sample Experience

• Our "DIY Shopping Catalog" sample introduces a brand new Shopping List interface asset. This experience not only shows you how to capture a list but it even includes a classic shopping cart design you can borrow for your own experiences.
• Use this sample to also experiment with the power editing enhancements of Version 5.2.5. All data referenced by this experience is stored in an Excel spreadsheet and multiple collections and design templates are used.

You'll find many more enhancements and updates - listed here in the Release Notes. For example, starting with 5.2.5, it is now possible to specify, for any Player on any supported platform, whether or not it should automatically run an experience when started. This is great for deployments where you can't use the remote deployment capability of Management Console and third party organizations unfamiliar with IntuiFace may be handling Player installation.

I can tell you that as active IntuiFace users ourselves, we've fallen in love with this release. You'll find your productivity will shoot up tremendously.