InDesign to HTML5 Nearing Release

Update (12/12/12): The product, now called in5 is now publicly available:
http://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/

We’ve been adding features like crazy in the last few weeks. We’re on track to deliver the Kickstarter release by the end of November and public release in early December. Here’s a quick update on what we’ve added in the last 2 prerelease builds and what’s left.

Bonus Features

We tabulated the results for the (stretch goal) bonus features, and the 2 winning features are Lightbox for Images and Offline Storage. Offline Storage (caching) was implemented in build 7 and Lightbox for Images will be implemented soon. We also (already) implemented the following additional bonus features:

• Embedded HTML (InDesign CS6)
• Embedded Flash
• Saved settings from last export

Build 7 Features Added

• Mobile zoom (viewport setting).
• SEO/Metadata: title, keywords, description, author can be set. These are automatically pulled from the InDesign file’s metadata (if there is any). There’s also a button to generate the most commonly used keywords automatically from the InDesign file.

Build 8 Features Added

• Option to render individual items within groups or render groups as images (forces display fidelity for complex items, like items with blending modes).
• Audio support (with or without controls). Poster image acts as a play/pause button when there are no controls. Include a Flash Player fallback for older browsers. Supports the looping option in the Media Palette.
• Improved video embedding.
• Application (offline) caching, including an options to store everything and everything except media files (audio/video). Allows the site/app to be reviewed when no internet connection is available (top-voted bonus feature).
• Allow items to span across multiple pages (within a spread).
• Two new Continuous scroll page formats added.
• Ability to set Page Color and Background Color.

Roadmap

These are the remaining features we plan to tackle before release:

• Rendering textframes as HTML text. (the last guaranteed version 1 feature yet to complete).
• Render Rectangles as simple div tags (to save on file size).
• Lightview – image gallery (top-voted bonus features).
• Lightview – links.
• Object states (primarily buttons–also highly requested, we’ll try to add this as another bonus if we have time before release).

For anyone who wasn’t able to back this project before it closed, our mailing list is the best way to stay up to date on the public release. We’re excited that we will be delivering InDesign to HTML5 to you in the very near future!

Screenshots from the Latest Build

(Reposted from our Kickstarter update)