As many of you know, we are working hard on developing
version 2 of IMS Studio which includes Web Dwarf, Web
Spinner and Web Engine. We are still approximately 2 months
away from the release date but hope to have a beta version
available within a month. This beta will be made available to
our current Web Engine customers that are interested in
helping us test it.
At this time I thought it would be of interest to our existing
IMS users to outline some of the new features and
enhancements you can expect to find in version 2.
New Features:
Visual Table Editor:
The Visual Table editor will provide a quick and flexible
means to create complex Tables. From within the Dialog you
will be able to access the Image Editor and Text Editor to add
and change member Objects within the Table. The Table
border, color, cell dimensions and most other Table attributes
and be quickly set or changed. A Drag and Drop feature will
provide the ability to quickly Move and Copy Objects between
the table cells.
Visual Frames Editor:
The Visual Frames Editor is similar in function to the Table
editor but will work on the entire Project to combine pages
into a Frame Pages. A Frame Page will simultaneously
display all Pages Included in the Frame in the IMS editor.
Visual Drop Menu editor.
This is a modified version of the Visual Table editor that is
specifically designed to easily create complex Navigation Bars
with drop menus.
Spell Checker
An advanced spell checker will be included to work with the
Text Editor and other Text operations.
Enhancements
Work Window:
The Work Window will include the addition of Vertical and
Horizontal ruler toolbars. In addition to displaying the exact
pixel location of the cursor, the Rulers will include adjustable
tabs that will work in conjunction with the Align Bar. When
any Object is selected, the Align operations will move it to the
next adjacent tab position. The Rulers will also provide Tool
Option operations to quickly enable/disable the snap grid and
to make the guides Visible or Invisible.
Enhanced bitmap support:
We will be upgrading our bitmap support to include additional
formats and automatic format conversion to JPEG and PNG.
We will specifically improve our support for PNG which is
rapidly gaining favor as the format of choice for the Internet.
The Text Editor
The text editor is undergoing some major updates. In addition
to the inclusion of an advanced Spell Checker, Rich Text
support for automatic URL conversion and imbedded images
is also planed. Other additions include Find, Replace, Font
Dialog and many other text editing aids. A menu will also be
included and the editor buttons will be moved to toolbars with
context sensitive help.
Actions
-Several new Actions will be added
Behaviors
-The Behavior Editor will be updated to increase the number
of complex Behaviors while simplifying their creation.
This is not an all inclusive list of the Version 2 updates.
Although many of these new features have already been
developed or are well into development, it is possible that
some of them may not be available for whatever reason by the
release date. I know many of you have sent us wish lists of
features you would like to see included. Although time,
resources and technical issues will preclude our ability to
include them all, we will try our best to include many of them.
If there are any features that you feel we should seriously consider adding,
let us know. We can make no promises but
the more people that want a specific feature, the more seriously we will
consider adding it. Send your comments to support
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