Digital Workshop

I thought I’d post my first impressions of Opus 6. My initial survey of the new features has impressed me enormously.

I should start off by saying that I'd almost given up on using Pro XE5.5 because I was finding it difficult to manage two issues that were key to my current project: presenting data graphs and handling frequent updates.

The project I'm building needs to pull data from varied online official sources and present these in engaging graphical form, but all of the users won’t have always-on connections. I'd been struggling with using swf data charting and hit a wall when I realised that it was going to be difficult to scrape, process and display ever-changing data.

The easiest technique I found was to process the stats, then generate and upload these to my webserver, then show them in a browser viewport in the publication. Fine, except some of my customers won't have broadband. My net-enabled publication design just did not implement well without a broadband connection.

With the new partial update feature I plan to modify my design so that I can offer updated content modules as one-off downloads for customers who don't have always-on broadband. Great stuff.

As if that weren't good enough it looks like I can use the new graphing script features to generate graphs from a publication database or from webserver data.

So in one stroke DW may have solved two of my three biggest problems. I now have to re-design my publication in light of these new features, but it looks as if it could be time well-spent.

My third concern was Mac OSX output, but I some time ago decided to launch my pub for Windows only. So that's all three problems sorted.

I've built a prototype in Runtime Revolution, but found it too reliant on extensive scripting for most of the functionality I needed. I am minded now to stick with Opus for my project; I hope to go to market before year-end.

Congratulations to Paul and the team at DW on some superb software engineering! Your competitors must surely be thinking of shifting into the catering, or any other, business, as it looks unlikely they'll catch up with Opus .

Brian

The first feature I explored was the External DLL support, which I've just got working. I can drive an external interface card directly from Opus. BRILLIANT!!!!!

What did you use to build your dll? I'm thinking of using delphi, as I don't know c++.

Brian

Fortunately, the interface card I use is supplied with the DLL, but I had to drive it with a small c# program before. There are 20 operations contained in the DLL, so I will just create functions for each.

As long as it produces a standard Windows DLL, with undecorated exported functions, the programming language used doesn't matter.

First impressions are one of disappointment to be honest...Personally not sure I regard this as a particularly major step forward from Version 5.
Apart from a few background changes which have been mentioned, there is nothing noticibly different from Version 5 that warrants a number change...I suppose if it ain't broke don't fix it....but as an upgrade on what I use...I think I probably wouldn't have bothered in hindsight.
I am only disappointed in this aspect..the application I love...that will never change..just not sure I would have upgraded.

Nor would I if I hadn't already been on the Evolution scheme. There's simply not enough of a change to be deemed a full upgrade. It's also disappointing that there's been no development of the Flex/Flash features and that there are suggestions that they will be added later as a chargeable additional product. I thought we'd been down that marketing route before when Flex was first introduced and then later incorporated into the main package. I'm sure the DLL feature will be of use to some users (but not to me) and surely is of much less interest to most users than reliable and flexible Flash output. 20% of my customers now use Mac or Linux; greater crossplatform support is needed, in my view, if Opus is to continue to be useful in my work.

Can someone please reassure me that I won't have to pay extra for anymore enhancements to this version...I have upgraded..If we get drawn into paying for more extra features, then that may finally end my love affair with Digital Workshop...Please, if you have any more up your sleeves, don't rip off those that have stuck with you.

Same here. Still love the product - just don't think it was worth the upgrade. But I see this more and more with software across all markets. Use to upgrade every time a new version of something I had came out, but I don't upgrade just to upgrade anymore.
Also had hoped for additional Flex/Flash options. Disappointed when it didn't happen. Guess I'll just wait and see about the additonal features.

Obviously I’m disappointed that you are disappointed but I think you may find you uncover more things of value as you work with the program and uncover the shortcuts we’ve put into many of the areas in addition to the obvious new features. Looking at the time of your post David you seem to have reacted in less than an hour of receiving the upgrade so with all due respect I don’t think you’ve explored the product fully.

The number of features of the upgrade will depend on whether you are upgrading from v5.5 which included some of the features we had intended for this version, and whether you’re upgrading from XE. There are over 20 additions even from the very latest XE and countless minor improvements we haven’t listed. The upgrade prices reflect this and I think the upgrade represents excellent value for money. I know for a fact that just one of the new features has won one of our customers business worth thousands of pounds – while it was still being tested! Plus there’s Vista compatibility of course.

In the end though the more general problem we have is that every individual user wants us to upgrade the features they use most. We have to take into account the views of all our customers and only a fraction come on this website. The two big issues on this forum have been Flash export and SCORM compliance and I can see why people are so keen to turn Opus to these tasks – Opus is much cheaper and easier to use than Flash and certainly easier, more flexible and cheaper than most SCORM tools! The problem is that is not what Opus was designed for and the vast majority of our customers don’t use Flex and don’t want SCORM. (Though that's not to say we won't continue to develop in these areas.)

The enhancements being requested are becoming more and more specific and thereby more and more likely to divide opinion as the comments here confirm. So we took the decision to open the architecture a bit so you can plug in what you need without bloating everyone else’s product.

As for Flash, Presto is our dedicated Flash editor (not as developed yet as Opus I know). Opus will never be a Flash Editor per se as it works in a completely different way but for many users the Flash support we have in Opus is perfectly adequate. If there are specific enhancements you need to Flash export, let us know and we’ll look at them again.

But ultimately if you’re not happy, please feel free to contact sales to arrange to rescind the upgrade and we’ll arrange a refund.

Regards,

Paul Harris

Actually I think the upgrade cost from Opus 5.0 is very reasonable; I had expected to pay more for the new features I have access to. I might not need them yet, but I tend to plan ahead.

If I want to produce work in the SWF format that requires more than basic functionality then I use Flash -- you can't expect a multi purpose tool like Opus to be as flexible as an editor specifically designed for Flash work, and only for Flash work.

It comes down to using the right tool for the job, something that has not changed throughout history.

Opus has a considerable number of advantages for certain types of work, and if you are disappointed with DW and Opus, you will probably not be satisfied with support from other companies either.

Paul

I think the level of satisfaction depends on what you use Opus for. For me, the DLL support alone, is worth the upgrade price.

I'm happy to agree with Paul G on the reasonableness of the upgrade cost.

I expect that statement to be something of a shock to Paul Harris, because those of you who were around at the time of the upgrade from v281 to v4 might recall that I was vocally critical about that upgrade because it cost me more than 1000 additional hours in modifying major existing pubs because of the introduction of anti-aliasing.

What a user gets from any upgrade tends to be very personal. Once I recovered from the annoyance of wasted hours spent changing to v4, I began to appreciate some of the new features. As far as v5 (particularly 5.5) is concerned, I do not remember finding any benefit for me, apart from the greater stability of 5.5 which by itself justified the cost of the upgrade, and the page curl transition.

From my perspective, there is a lot about v6 that I like and find useful, although interestingly, I've had problems upgrading to v6, pubs developed in v4 and subsequently moved to v5.5. Publishing failed to work, so for these few pubs I've needed to revert to v5.5 -- but I can live with that.

As with any upgrade to a complex program, there are minor idiosyncratic elements which annoy me, but with which I have learned to live.

I too, see no use for DLL support, but I'll wait to see what happens.

Opus continues to be the best tool that I have found for the type of development that I do.

If I have a complaint, it is a complaint that applies to every version of Opus that I have used. I would dearly love to see meaningful practical examples for scripting. By this I mean examples that can be interpreted by non-programming plebs like me. I recognise the power in scripting, and while I remain envious of this power, I have to put scripting on the back-burner.

sandyn (or anyone)
could you explain what an interface card is and how you use it?
is it for controlling mechanical devices?

An interface card is a way of getting your PC to talk to the outside world. To get it to do 'something' with 'something'. I'm not being vague, but it is incredibly versatile.

The word 'Interface' is very important because the computer has no ability to drive external things, turn things on and off so the Interface card, connects to the USB and the computer instructs the card what to do via instructions sent to the DLL. Then the card can switch something on or off.

One user on here is using the system in a production environment to count
boxes coming from a production line, then used this information to monitor the status of an order.

The card I use has various capabilities, but for the moment I'll just talk about digital inputs and outputs. The card can monitor switches, so in Opus you can read the switch state...on or off (identical to reading a button state)... then you can make a decision in Opus and set an output on or off.
Have you ever seen the system in some post offices where there is one queue, and when an assistant is ready, they press a button and an announcement is made saying "Position Number five please" at the same time a little display lights up above the vacant position. That is a very simple demonstartion of what you could do using text to speech and an interface card. Imagine also, an Opus presentation running in the background with the local advertising etc etc, so you have a complete hardware/software package.



Another area is home automation. There are many building block solutions for this--You buy modules and configure how you want. There is a small USB interface for home automation, which controls light switches, volume controls alarm systems etc etc. Have you ever seen the very sophisticated home automation systems which control the heating, lights, audio et etc.

Before the DLL support, I had to use C# as a software interface, which was really messy, now I can drive things directly from Opus. To me, it is a very very significant addition to Opus and I haven't stopped smiling since I got V6

Another area I'm investigating is looking into DLLs to see what they can do. I am trying 'PE explorer' which can open a DLL and show its operations. So far I haven't figured out how to get the operation parameters or types, but it's easy to see the operations.
I want to try to drive my Canon Digital camera from Opus. At the moment I can use the interface card and a small relay to focus and fire the camera, but I would love to do it directly via the USB and DLLs.


I also have a passive IR motion detector connected to the card, so when someone triggers the detector, I can take their picture, then tell them to 'Eff off' via text to speech!!!