Year: 2010

more interface updating

Post author By gileslane
Post date January 30, 2010

So we continued with the tinkering yesterday – shifting some simple things like the login and main menu items to be consistent at the top of the page, made the library and my publication page lists of eBooks and StoryCubes behave more elegantly, and tidied up the home and help pages too. Links to create new eBooks and StoryCubes have also been shifted to the main menu items at the top so it should be simpler and more intuitive to create your shareables. We’ve also added in some more help notes related to making StoryCubes.

Next week, we should be pushing through some more fixes and improvements and testing the back end for a new print on demand capability for eBooks (similar to that which we currently offer for StoryCubes) which we’ve been working on for the past few months. Lastly, we’ll be working on new templates for making A3/Ledger sized eBooks, which will fold down to make A5/half-US Letter booklets.

Tags updates, user guide

events

PU&P 5 – schools and learning

Post author By gileslane
Post date January 29, 2010
3 Comments on PU&P 5 – schools and learning

Our next Pitch Up & Publish – No. 5 – will focus on using http://bookleteer.com in learning and schools contexts. The evening is aimed at teachers/educationalists and others who work in schools and formal/informal learning contexts – exploring ideas for and uses of Diffusion eBooks and StoryCubes as learning and teaching resources.

The evening will be co-hosted by Giles Lane (Proboscis) and Kati Rynne (writer and digital producer at Teachers TV) – Proboscis will provide test bookleteer accounts to attendees in advance, just bring a laptop and some content/ideas for content to make some eBooks or StoryCubes live in our studio.

For Inspiration, download Kati Rynne’s eBook, “8 Ideas for using bookleteer in schools“; see examples of eBooks and StoryCubes made with bookleteer and other examples of eBooks & StoryCubes in schools, learning and education.

Date : Tuesday 9th February 2010
Time : 6.30pm to 9pm
Venue : Proboscis Studio, 4th Floor, 101 Turnmill Street, London EC1M 5QP
Map : http://bit.ly/PEBbb
Cost : Free (donations towards refreshments gratefully received)

RSVP: space is limited, so please email us to confirm a place : bookleteer at proboscis.org.uk

Tags pitch up & publish, workshop

updates & improvements

Interface Updates for Authoring Pages

Post author By gileslane
Post date January 28, 2010

We’ve spent today making some further improvements to the user interface of the authoring pages for both eBooks and StoryCubes, reducing the screen clutter, grouping the choices of format etc to be made, and the content entering/uploading areas.

Principally we’ve added some diagrams to show the different options for eBooks (Classic and Book formats, Portrait and Landscape orientation) as well as StoryCubes (improving on the previous diagram added last week). We’ve also re-named some of the buttons to make the process of uploading content and then generating the PDFs clearer.

We’re looking into fixing some of the intermittent bugs and errors that have been reported over the next few weeks. A niggling issue with the HTML content editor where fonts and image were not flowing through into the eBook PDF at the correct sizes has now been isolated and will be fixed in the next week or so. At the same time we will fix the ‘preview HTML content’ functions to show how content added in the HTML editor will flow into actual eBook pages.

Tags design, feedback, updates

publishing on demand

bookleteer test accounts – more invitations

Post author By gileslane
Post date January 22, 2010
1 Comment on bookleteer test accounts – more invitations

We’re accepting another 100 requests for bookleteer test accounts over the next few weeks. If you’d like to try your hand at bookleteering – creating your own shareables (Diffusion eBooks and StoryCubes) then send us an email at bookleteer @ proboscis.org.uk with a sentence or two about what you’d like to do with it and why and we’ll set you up with a test account.

Tags bookleteering

updates & improvements

Interface Tweak

Post author By gileslane
Post date January 21, 2010

Following feedback at this week’s PU&P we’ve made a small, but important tweak to the StoryCube create/edit page – a diagram showing the position and orientation of each image on the cube (front and back):

The exact dimensions of each StoryCube face are 55mm by 55mm and we recommend making images at no less than exact size at 72dpi (or 150dpi optimum).

Tags design, feedback, StoryCubes, user guide

events

PU&P with We Are Words + Pictures

Post author By gileslane
Post date January 20, 2010
3 Comments on PU&P with We Are Words + Pictures

Yesterday we held the first Pitch Up & Publish of the year with seven of the members of We Are Word + Pictures, a “team running comic and ‘zine themed events throughout the UK” – Matt Sheret, Michael Leader, Mark Higgins, Anne Hollowday, Emilie Chalcraft, Tom Humberstone and Julia Scheele…

It was really inspiring for us (myself, Karen Martin & Stefan Kueppers representing the bookleteer team) to see just how enthusiastic they were about picking it up and using it for different purposes. In not time at all half a dozen eBooks and StoryCubes had been made with bookleteer as we talked about different contexts and types of use the Shareables could be put to.

Matthew Sheret has posted some pictures from the evening on his Flickr site:

Here are some other images of the things they made: