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Define the structure of your content
Before building a house you draw a floor plan. Before you create your app or even your content you define the structure!
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Twixl Publisher allows you to:
It is a solution for content creation & presentation, app building and distribution.
For content creation, Twixl Publisher offers two approaches; The pixel-perfect approach using InDesign content and the responsive approach using HTML content.
We offer a plug-in for Adobe InDesign (all versions since CC) that allows you to create interactive content for mobile devices. A multitude of interactive content types are supported, such as photo slide shows, audio, video, scrollable content and more. You can even integrate HTML-based content within your InDesign layout.
You can also decide to create your articles with the HTML tool of your choice and make your content responsive. But in most cases HTML content will be published in an automated fashion pushed from your CMS workflow.
PDF content is also supported and the different content types can be combined within the same app.
To present your content, Twixl Publisher lets you define the interface of your app, based on a grid layout and define your own navigation. “Browse pages” let you introduce your content to your readers in a very flexible way. This interface can be a classic kiosk approach, a continuous channel approach or a combination of both. You are in control and you can define how you want to guide your readers through your content.
For building apps, Twixl Publisher's stand-alone Mac OS X application lets you create tablet apps, phone apps or universal apps for iOS and Android. Apps can be published "ad hoc" (for testing), in the app stores or deployed in-house (also called "enterprise distribution").
For an article-based app, you can also activate the browser client that lets you publish your content to your web site.
The Twixl Distribution Platform takes care of the storage of your content and connects to your automated content sources or your CMS workflow. It manages the distribution of your publications in the different app stores or in-house, supports in-app purchases and subscriptions, manages who gets access to which of your publications, provides detailed analytics information and lets you communicate with your subscribers by means of push notifications.
In terms of content apps we all know the kiosk approach. Working article-based you are not bound to one specific setup, you can layout your app interface just the way you want it to.
Twixl Publisher lets you work with browse pages to introduce your content and with a menu/navigation to guide your readers through your content. You can work with one introduction browse page or with different browse pages, even using a specific browse page per collection of articles.
You can define which article(s) you are going to emphasize, which specific chapters or sections you want to put in the spotlight, how you’ll provide an overview for readers to access all your legacy content, …
Based on a grid layout you can layout every single cell of your browse pages. This interface can be a classic kiosk approach, a continuous channel approach, a combination of both, anything you want. You are in control and you can define how you want to guide your readers through your content.
The different display parameters of your browse pages and menu are server-driven, so any changes you make are immediately available in the app without the need to resubmit an app update.
Next to the browse pages you can also define your own menu/navigation in the same way you define your browse pages. This makes it even easier for the user to find its way through your content. Use the browse pages to introduce the content and the menu to guide the reader.
This approach combined with the ability to publish article by article is offering you a tremendous flexibility.
The Twixl App also lets you review your entire app, both the interface with all browse pages, and the contents itself.
Twixl Publisher offers the possibility to integrate with different solutions for automated production flows and so to push content to the Twixl Distribution Platform and into your app.
The “Integration API” option allows you to integrate with a number of solutions that we support out of the box, but using that same API, basically any type of CMS could be setup to push content to the Twixl Distribution Platform. Some custom development or help from your local integrator may be required to achieve this.
The Twixl Distribution Platform can also pull content from automated content sources. This lets you easily integrate RSS feeds, YouTube channels and Vimeo Channels in your app. This gives you the possibility to enhance your app in a very easy yet valuable way.
The CMS solutions that we support are:
Developed specifically for content creators, Canvasflow is a cloud-based, responsive HTML5 content authoring and management tool.
You can create, design and publish to multiple channels from a single location.
vjoon®, a fixture on the publishing market since 1990, is a leading developer of software solutions for managing digital content. Its flagship product vjoon K4® is the ideal collaboration and production system for creative and editorial teams to publish for web, mobile, tablet or print.
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WoodWing Enterprise is a multichannel publishing solution to fully optimize the process of content creation, management, sharing and distribution.
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Twixl media is an integration partner for Enfocus Switch.
Twixl Publisher can be integrated in Switch 13 workflows.
One of the major changes brought by Twixl Publisher 5 is the different approach of how you publish your content.
Traditionally Twixl publications created in InDesign were published as monolithic issues in a kiosk app.
While the tradional magazine approach allowed you to get up and running quickly with your magazine, the downside was that the reader needed to download a complete issue first, before being able to start reading. Also, making a change to a single article in your issue required an update of the complete issue (and required the reader to re-download that issue).
Twixl Publisher 5's new article-based approach (which by the way is an option, not a requirement) offers many advantages.
”Automated Content Sources” let you pull content from RSS feeds, YouTube channels and Vimeo Channels in your app. This gives you the ability to enhance your app in a very easy yet valuable way.
This pack is available as an extra paid option.
Here's an overview of the different types of content items that can be used in a Twixl Publisher 5 article-based app:
Several types of links are also available:
Content sources are designed to make automated publishing in your apps easier.
They allow to easily integrate different types of feeds in your apps.
The types of content sources are:
Using InDesign's alternate and liquid layout features, you can easily generate a portrait version if you started with a landscape version, a 16:9 Android layout after you created a 4:3 iPad layout, or even a special layout for phones. Twixl Publisher allows you to generate the alternate layout for all articles in your publication with a single click.
When you convert an InDesign object to a button (using the Buttons and Forms panel), you’re able to attach an action to it, such as:
You can use the InDesign "Hyperlinks" panel to add a:
There is also a special "Web Overlay button" that lets you display an overlay with web content and define its size.
Slide shows are easily created with Twixl Publisher.
The slide show panel allows you to configure many options, such as the transition style, whether or not to show a scroll viewer indicator, whether to auto-play, allow full-screen view, etc.
Video or audio files can be embedded in the publication. Movies need to be H.264-encoded mp4 files, sound files need to be in MP3 format.
From the Media palette, you can either select a particular frame within the movie or a specific image as the poster frame.
A number of parameters let you define whether to play the movie automatically when loading the page, whether to play it full-screen, etc.
It is also possible to add a link to an external movie using the “Place a video from a URL” option from InDesign's Media palette.
You can also easily integrate a YouTube or Vimeo video, no HTML knowledge required.
The 'Scrollable content' option allows you to add scrollable content to a container frame.
Optional zooming can be enabled for the scrollable content to allow a user to use pinch to zoom, e.g. to see more details of an image.
The "Image Sequence" option lets you walk through a series of images while swiping.
The most frequent use case for this is to allow a reader to see a 360 degree view of an object.
You typically need a minimum of about 30 images for a fluid sequence.
Any rectangle on a page can be turned into a 'Web viewer', which allows you to add dynamic web content to your application. You can integrate live online content or run HTML5 applications within your publication.
Select a rectangle, then use the 'Web viewer' panel to enter the URL you want to display within its boundaries.
Embedded web content enables the use of web viewers even when a user is offline. Typical applications would be HTML5-based animations or a shopping basket. All local content, including assets, JavaScript, etc., is then placed in a WebResources folder within the same folder as that of the document.
You can add any type of HTML5 animation to a Twixl publication using a web viewer, but you can also directly drag and drop .oam files, created with several specialized tools, such as Adobe Animate or Tumult Hype.
Easily integrate an Apple map (iOS) or Google Map (Android) based on the criteria you define in the Twixl Publisher "Maps" panel, no HTML knowledge required.
A panorama VR lets you view a complete environment in 360 degrees and in 3 dimensions, but also lets you tilt so you can e.g. also have a look at the sky and at the floor within that environment.
In order to use a panorama VR with Twixl Publisher, you need a tool like Pano2VR. You can find more info here.
Certain interactive elements can be nested within slide shows or scrollable content areas:
When creating a new publication, you can select whether to support portrait only, landscape only or both orientations.
Navigating between different articles is done by horizontal swiping.
Navigation to the next page in the same article is done by vertical swiping.
When you use this option for a publication, it will place all pages, independent of the number of separate articles (documents and pages), horizontally one after the other. In this case, there is no vertical navigation.
Twixl Publisher-based publications automatically generate a Table of Contents overview that will be accessible as a dropdown menu. There's also a search and bookmarking capability.
You can easily search through all the metadata and all indexed text in your app (content item name, title, tag line, etc.). From the search results, one can quickly navigate to a specific article.
You can now add a quick access menu in the top right corner of your article-based apps. This menu is managed through a special collection called the “Hamburger menu”. It can be managed like other collections, with its own grid and cell styles, but is limited to the following types of content items:
The free Twixl Viewer Classic for iOS and Android allows a designer to send a preview of an InDesign article or publication to a tablet or phone on the local Wifi network.
Using Twixl Publisher's sharing feature, a designer can also share an article or publication with a client, a colleague, ideal for proofing purposes.
While Twixl Viewer Classic lets you preview InDesign content only, the Twixl App Reviewer provides the ability to review the complete interface of your app and the different browse pages, in addition to the InDesign, HTML or PDF based articles in the app.
Extra “App Reviewer” users can be added to your Twixl Distribution Platform account, so you can allow your clients, colleagues to provide feedback.
You can adjust a number of parameters for a collection in an article-based app, such as the number of columns and type of scrolling (horizontal or vertical), in the "Grid style" window. You can set different parameters for tablet and phone content.
The appearance of the cells on your browse pages can be changed in the Cell Style options window.
The basic structure defines the number of columns and rows that it spans, and you can set extra settings like border width and color, cover image options and how metadata is displayed in a cell.
Twixl Publisher 5 introduces what we call "browse pages" as a flexible way to present your content to readers. While browse pages can still mimic the behaviour of the traditional kiosk that contains different issues, the flexibiliy goes much further.
The layout of your browse pages will be defined using a grid-based approach. First of all, define a number of columns for your pages, then based on that your page will be divided into a number of equal squares.
Each "cell" on your layout will then span a number of squares.
Browse pages can be defined as either scrolling vertically or horizontally.
The look and feel of the kiosk can be adjusted when you build your app.
Here are some of the options that you can set:
Custom URL schemes allow you to control navigation in a Twixl publication.
You can use these schemes in:
Twixl Publisher allows you to publish on iOS and Android, both on tablets and on phones.
You can also generate a "Web Reader" export for display in a standard desktop or notebook browser.
While you are in a testing phase, you can create test builds of your app for internal or external testers, before you decide to make it available in the App Stores.
Apple also calls this "Ad Hoc" or "Testflight" distribution.
When you are satisfied with the test builds, you are ready to submit your apps to the app stores, i.e. Apple's App Store, the Google Play Store or the Amazon Appstore for Kindle Fire.
Build your app in the Twixl Publisher application, then submit it to the Apple, Google or Amazon portal.
Whereas Apple's "Ad Hoc" testing procedure is limited to a specific number of devices, iOS developers enrolled in the iOS Developer Enterprise program can easily distribute their application outside of the App Store without any device limit.
Typically this is used for wide-scale in-house distribution, using a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, such as e.g. Jamf Software or AirWatch.
For an article-based app, you can activate the browser client that lets you publish your content to your web site. Your complete app, both the browse pages and the article content is pre-rendered as HTML and published on our servers making it accessible from a browser.
By default the content is served from a Twixl domain, ‘browserclient.twixlmedia.com', but an optional ‘custom domain’ let you serve it from something like ‘yourapp.company.com'.
Single-issue apps have only one publication embedded in the app. Multi-issue apps will display a kiosk that can contain different publications.
There is an important difference in the distribution model of single-issue apps vs. multi-issue apps:
Twixl Publisher allows you to gather analytics for your publications.
There is built-in support for analytics in the Twixl Distribution Platform.
The following items will be tracked:
All interactive objects that you define using the Twixl Publisher plug-in (slide shows, movies, etc.) can have their own analytics name to simplify reading the analytics data afterwards.
It is also possible to integrate Google Analytics on issue-based apps.
A publication can provide readers with an option to share information via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook.
A custom sharing message can be defined when building your app.
Twixl Publisher 5 supports different content types. Our own .article and .publication format created using the Twixl Publisher plug-in in InDesign, HTML content and also standard PDF files for non-interactive publications. All of them can be combined in the same app.
Our multi-issue apps allow you to offer paid content to your readers.
You can offer publications to readers…
Article-based apps can be published in a full offline mode.
If a publisher configures an app for offline access, all content of all collections will be downloaded completely at first startup. This is ideal for sales people and service teams who sometimes don’t have an internet connection when they are on the road. Every time a user returns to the app and he’s online, a check will be performed to see whether new and/or updated content needs to be downloaded.
Push notifications are short messages that appear on the the lock screen of a mobile device or within the app itself.
You can send a push notification to all subscribers of your app whenever you want to. They can be sent either manually or automatically when publishing a new content.
We support deep linking enabling you to guide your readers directly to specific content within your app.
You can also send separate push notifications per platform (iOS/Android) with the most obvious use case being to send a different web link or app store link to iOS and Android users.
Note: only readers that have decided to opt in will be receiving your messages.
The Twixl Distribution Platform offers built-in reporting and analytics for multi-issue apps, both on an app level and on a publication level.
Here are some app level reports that you will automatically have access to:
You also get detailed info on how readers are interacting with the publications:
In addition to the built-in analytics support for all apps on the Twixl Distribution Platform, it is also possible to integrate Google Analytics within article- and issue-based apps.
This feature provides the option to connect to a subscriber or user database.
It allows you to determine who gets access to which publications in your app, based on login information.
Frequently publishers may want to provide print subscribers of a publication with free access to otherwise paid content in an app.
Publishers can also offer their content to a specific audience and so increase the value proposition and advertising value of their publication.
Other entitlement options allow the use of e.g. an access key or a promo code to claim free access to a particular publication.
The special "Users & Groups" entitlement option is targeted at companies that deploy apps in-house either by distributing an app internally using Apple's Developer Enterprise Program, or by publishing an app on the App Store with "restricted access".
Some publications are only meant to target a closed group, e.g. medical publications, reseller information, etc. Using entitlement allows a company to publish to specific target groups without making the content available to the public. Only entitled users that the company has defined will be allowed access.
Different groups can be defined so that each group may have access to different publications.
The Twixl Distribution Platform provides built-in support for a number of specific use cases for entitlements, but integration with an custom (external) entitlement server is also possible. In most cases, integrating direct entitlement will require some custom development to provide for the connection between the Twixl Distribution Platform and the publisher’s database of users/subscribers.
Twixl Publisher lets you integrate with different solutions for automated production flows and so lets you push content to the Twixl Distribution Platform and into your app.
The “Integration API” option allows you to integrate with a number of solutions that we support out of the box, but using that same API, basically any type of CMS could be setup to push content to the Twixl Distribution Platform. Some custom development or help from your local integrator may be required to achieve this.
The CMS solutions that we support are:
This pack is available as an extra paid option.
Smart content publishing
Create your complete interactive publication in the same familiar environment.
The Twixl Publisher application allows you to build the apps for iOS and/or Android, either for phones only, tablets only, or universal.
Review your complete app. The interface and all content pages. InDesign, HTML and PDF content all together.
The Twixl Distribution Platform is a cloud-based system to manage and store content for multi-issue (kiosk) apps created with Twixl Publisher and to connect with your CMS and/or different automated content sources.
You'll create your complete interactive publication in the same familiar environment.. The design, the content and the enriched elements are all brought together in Adobe InDesign.
Supports any version of InDesign since CS6.
The Twixl Publisher application allows you to build the apps for iOS and/or Android, either for phones only, tablets only, or universal.
With the free trial you can:
While Twixl Viewer Classic lets you preview InDesign content only, the Twixl App provides the ability to review the complete interface of your app and the different browse pages, in addition to the InDesign, HTML or PDF based articles in the app.
Extra “App Reviewer” users can be added to your Twixl Distribution Platform account, so you can allow your clients, colleagues to provide feedback.
The Twixl Distribution Platform is a cloud-based service to manage the content in your app. A Twixl app is basically like an empty shell that gets its content from the Twixl Distribution Platform. On the platform, you will define the interface of your app, your navigation and optionally manage who can get access to the content in the app.
Check out what our customers are creating with Twixl Publisher
All our services available from one platform.
The Twixl Distribution Platform is the heart of our solution and lets you manage different parameters for your app. With this cloud-based platform you can create and update the interface of your app, store, sell and distribute your content; manage who can get access to your content and analyze the performance of your app. It is fully server-driven so any change you make on the platform is reflected in your app on the fly, without the need to update the app itself.
Three types of yearly subscription plans are available for Twixl Publisher. Find out which model fits your needs the best.
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