Pragma 2000 s Content Management System LP-Web for automatic generation of product cards and printed publications. Introduction. LP-Web description

Transcription

1 Pragma 2000 s Content Management System LP-Web for automatic generation of product cards and printed publications Introduction In the last 5 years Pragma 2000 developed and is presently improving a system for collecting and managing information allowing its clients in offlice supply business area to generate in a highly-automated way their commercial literature (such as catalogues, price lists, brochures, flyers, and so on). The system, called LP-Web, is an advanced and innovative Content Management System (CMS): in comparison with traditional CMSs, generally devoted only to the web, LP-Web focuses its attention in producing paper documentation, anyway without neglecting the web. The management of information needed to create printed documentation requires a richer amount of details, largely greater than the information normally stored in a CMS dedicated only to the web. This is why Pragma 2000 s firm belief is that a CMS able to manage printed documentation will always be suitable for the web, while the contrary is hardly true. LP-Web description A tree-shaped classification system LP-Web classify the products by means of a multi-level, tree-shaped structure. The customer can freely decide how many are the levels by which he wants to classify his products. Previous experiences have shown that three/four classification levels are enough to ensure a complete product classification in the office supply area. LP-Web allows to create and manage its tree-shaped classification structure by simply using nested folders as shown in figure 1. The user can add or delete the branches/folders of the tree according to all his needs. Figure 1 - Tree-shaped classification screenshot Products As a product LP-Web means a collection of items (the definition of item is given later), that differs one from the other for some attribute (the definition of attribute is given later). So, for instance, a collection of pens (items) differing only for ink colour (attribute) is a product. So, the product pen groups a series of items: black pen, red pen, green pen, and so on. Generally speaking, account and stocking management systems assign a code only to each item and often a product has no coding. In this case LP-Web assigns its own product code. LP-Web allows a very quick retriving of a product by simply requesting the system with this code. For any product, LP-Web allows to specify plenty of information (a title, a description, and so on). The user can also assign a vendor s logo and other graphical elements, suc as pictograms or icons. LP-Web has two strong points when managing products: it is able to generate a snapshot of the product card and this snapshot respects exactly the graphic layout the product will assume in a printed catalogue; pag. 1 di 8

2 a second strong point is that the system alerts the user about the changes made to the product so that he always has an updated snapshot under his control. Product snapshots are regenerated by the system usually on a daily basis or on demand by the user. A screenshot of the product is given in figure 2. Figure 2 - Product screenshot Items Items are the most elementary units in LP-Web s classification tree. Each item is defined by a code, a description and many attributes, that is typical features of them. LP-Web resumes the items of a product in a table (see figure 3, items snapshot): items are listed in table rows while their attributes are listed in table columns. The system allows to indicate which attributes are to be printed on paper in each publication tables and which are to be grouped so that the information is summerized becoming more readable. LP-Web produces also a snapshot of items table, after all composition parameters have been set (see figure 3, table snapshot). Figura 3 - Items and table screenshot Attributes and attributes management As attributes the system means any feature of the items. Valid examples of attributes are: colour, length, format, and so on. pag. 2 di 8

3 LP-Web has a unique set of attribute names in two versions ( short and long ) and has a specific and intelligent tool for inserting and uniforming attributes (see figure 4). When inserting information into table headings, the generator of product cards can determine whether it s aesthetically better to use a long or a short version of an attribute name. Figure 4 - Management of items attributes screenshot External information elements (deepenings, cross-references, promo pages) LP-Web allows inserting additive or aside information. This information at present can be of three different type: deepenings, cross-reference, promo pages, but it is possible to extend this kind of elements to other types, according to clients needs. Deepenings usually are frames inside catalogue pages where directions are given about technical features of peculiar products; this is why deepenings are linked to a product or to a group of products: LP-Web allows this kind of linking. Cross-references are reference between two different catalogue sections; for example, in the category printers you can find references to the category toners. Promo pages are full pages, generally paid by the advertiser or by the vendor, inserted into the catalogue for promotional reasons, often linked to specific products needing to be highlighted. The product cards assembler (described later) manages automatically all the cross references stored in LP-Web; on the contrary, usually deepenings are frames manually built by a client s graphic designer using traditional layout software and linked by the product cards assembler when it places in a page a product card linked to a deepening. Promo pages are placed with the same criteria as deepenings and cross references. Keywords LP-Web allows to link keywords to each product. They are then transferred by the system to pages as hidden markers. By this technique it s possible to generate indexes per keyword by means of automatic processes when the final phase of document building is made in the InDesign book (that is, using InDesign s system of assembling and ordering publication chapters). As for attributes, LP-Web has a special tool to manage and standardize keywords (see figure 5). pag. 3 di 8

4 Figure 5 - Keywords screenshot Images management LP-Web manages in a complete and exhaustive way all the images. In order to avoid the need of specific image treatment software (e.g.: Adobe Photoshop), LP-Web is designed so that any user can load images into the system without any peculiar skill in graphic design and without dealing with dimensions and digital formats needed by the system and by the procedures by which cards sheets and pages are generated. LP-Web processes the loaded images and, for each image, produces the files needed for printed pages and for the web. LP-Web is customized on customers needs and can produce any dimension and graphical format needed by the different communication channels (eps, tif, jpg, png, and so on). It is able to warn about the problems of the images, such as a too small dimension, an insufficient resolution, an unsuitable color space. After all images has been loaded and processed, they are stored into a folder (called limbo ), waiting to be classified by the user and linked to a product (see figure 6). Figure 6 - Image management screenshot The association between images and items, also managed by LP-Web, being necessary only for the web, is managed in the system web section (see next paragraph). Web LP-Web allows to generate files that can be sent to the web management system. pag. 4 di 8

5 They are both text files, generally extracted by procedure generating XML files, and low-res image files, in different dimensions and formats, to be shown in the web site. LP-Web has a specific tool (see figure 7) to link every image to its item.the information is then exported to the XML for the web and the image url is available to be hooked by web site procedures. This section of LP-Web allows to indicate which images are to be used in the site and which ones for the printed pages (these are highlighted by a green border). Figure 7 - Web screenshot Image Placer One of the most complex problem in laying out a product card is how to place product images in order to produce card product snapshots. LP-Web makes available a tool called Image Placer. This tool shows in a window (see figure 8) all the text elements as gray boxes having the exact dimension of the text when printed in the specific font size and leading. Image Placer distinguishes between fixed elements (elements that cannot be moved anyway) and displaceable elements (elements the user can move to his liking but inside the product card delimited area). Moreover, it shows an area dedicated to the images where at first they are randomly placed. The user can move, resize, crop and rotate any image to his taste in order to achieve the best possible aesthetic results. In this sense, Image Placer is quite like the common desktop publishing software, but the peculiar difference is that it drives the user and limits him to deal only with images and with elements he can and he wish to move, preventing to displace and bring out of alignment elements having a pre-determined position in the product card project (such as some texts, logos, pictograms or icons). Figure 8 - Image Placer screenshot pag. 5 di 8

6 Layouts of product cards Layouts (otherwise called graphical projects ) of product cards (even in different versions for the same product) are commited to the client s graphic designer. They are set up using common desktop publishing software (such as Adobe InDesign) and serve as a model to LP-Web. If the client has no familiarity with desktop publishing software, Pragma 2000 has peculiar training courses and gives assistance in this field. Compared to traditional training courses, Pragma 2000 s are specifically devoted to technical features of desktop publishing software: actually, these features are more useful in designing layouts for automatic pagination. For instance, Pragma 2000 s training courses emphasises document structuring and systematic and careful use of style sheets for characters, paragraphs, tables, cells, objects, and to the techniques of laying out master page with labels assigned to the frames, so that automatic pagination and index generation procedures can work correctly. On the base of these graphic layouts, Pragma 2000 sets up alle the software procedures needed to allow LP-Web building up of product cards according to the client s wishes, using the information stored in its internal database. The activity of designing new layouts and of setting up the software to make them work is steady and lasts continuously since the clients tend to change very often card layouts or design new publications with different card layouts. This makes LP-Web not only a product but a downright and everlasting service/product. Automatic creation of product cards An automatic procedure (generally at night) re-creates all the product cards with the information the client modifies during his normal daily activity. Product cards snapshots are shown in LP-Web product window. A green light indicates snapshots and data are perfectly aligned (that is, snapshot contains exactly last updated data), a red light indicates snapshot does not contain last data changes and a further launch of the updating procedure is required to obtain an updated product card (see figure 9). Figura 9 - Semaforo rosso/verde LP-Web populating Pragma 2000 can set up trasfer procedures between LP-Web and the client s ERP or IT systems. Pragma 2000 offers itself as a consultant for acquiring and strandardizing data to be inserted into LP-Web. Experience has shown the client only progressively and often slowly raises consciousness of the operations to be put to use for standardization. Tipically, at first information about descriptions and images are loaded into the system. Later, an activity of data dis-aggregation is to be done because data are often too aggregated in the matter of items attributes, keywords, logos, icons, vendors. Catalogue pagination ( page composer of ordered product cards) After all product cards have been refined and approved, Pragma 2000 can operate with its automatic procedure called page composer, that is a procedure generating the catalogue pages by collecting all the product cards, ordered according to the client s criteria. Pages can later be furtherly refined by manual finishing (see next paragraph). Page composer (see figure 10) is a desktop procedure that takes a set of product cards generated by LP-Web and a series of elements previously prepared with traditional desktop publishing software (such as promo pages, deepenings, cross references) and places them into the publication pages according to an order given by the client or according to a best fit optimation calculated by the page composer itself. pag. 6 di 8

7 Page composer is not necessary if the client decides to manually place himself product cards into the publication pages. Figura 10 - Page composer Manual finishing (appendix to composer) After a publication has been generated by page composer it s possible to use the automatically produced Adobe InDesign files to refine them with a manual finishing operated by the client and/or by Pragma These operations are not necessary if the client lays manually out the product cards in the publication pages. Price assignement Generally, prices of products inserted into a publication are not stored in LP-Web since commercial strategies force the company to decide and assign item prices to a catalogue as closely as possible to the issue. After pages have been finished (manually or automatically), a further procedure assigns prices to items. This is possible because each item code is detected by a price updater procedure thanks to its position in the price column of the attributes table and by identifying the specific price style sheet. Indexes generation Pragma 2000 has also automatic procedures to generate publication indexes. Indexes are generated thanks to markers hidden in pages close to each item code. This way, the index generator system detects each item in tables and assigns the correct page number to items. Using such information any kind of index is easily built: index per item code, per vendor, per keyword, and so on. Index generation is possible both for manually built pages and for pages created by the automatic page composer. Post-finishing page re-reading After a publication is printed, often manual finishing procedures affect product cards layed out in pages. Although it would be better that product cards were exactly defined as to their contents, before inserting them into pages, clients often modify them inside the publication pages. Text changes made inside a publication pages are always counter-productive, and compell to manually realign data in the CMS. Modifications made to product cards graphical layout are more understandable and frequent. This happens because of the aesthetic relations created when product cards belonging to the same category or subcategory are placed together, one aside the other, in the same page. Normally, Pragma 2000 can set up procedures for re-reading product cards in order to acquire information on a new image positioning; on the contrary, re-align a text modified in pages also in the CMS is quite more complex. How we work Pragma 2000 relies on agile development mothodologies based on Scrum and Extreme Programming. This way, the client is not supplied with a software package after many months after the analysis of his needs, but is continuosly involved in the process of creating procedures. pag. 7 di 8

8 Generally, Pragma 2000 s methodologies imply regular meetings with the client (usually twice-monthly). In these meetings the short-time objectives to be reached are fixed and Pragma 2000 sets up the procedures in the following 15 days. Procedures are immediately made available for the client, and he can use them at once in his real context, founding bugs or discovering he has further needs or improvement requests. The client communicates his needs and the bugs he has found and in the next steps Pragma 2000 releases an improved version of the system. By Extreme Programming both the client and Pragma 2000 are always well conscious about the work progress and can decide to change the plan initially stated if they realize that needs risen in course prevail over others that at first they thought as a priority. Although it s necessary to have a plan, it s not necessary for the plan to remain unchanged all over the project process. Rather, it s wise to progressively adapt it to new needs and new acquired knowledgements. pag. 8 di 8