Escenic Content Studio

Escenic Content Studio is the content creation, editing and management application of the Escenic content management system. It is the system's "front end", the most visible part of the system, and is intended to be used on a daily basis by the writers and editors responsible for the content of an Escenic-managed web site.

Escenic Content Studio supports the workflow of the digital age.

Escenic has always believed in building a feature-rich application founded on the Java platform, and not be limited by running inside a web browser. This approach enables us to create the fastest, most powerful and flexible environment for managing content.

Escenic Content Studio 5 is a Java application based on the Swing Application Framework (also called JSR-296) and it runs on both MS Windows and Mac OS, looking and functioning just as any other application for the current operating system. Escenic has always believed in building a feature-rich application based on the Java platform, utilizing all the power and features of the underlying operating system. Escenic Content Studio is not limited by running inside a web browser. There are keyboard shortcuts for all commonly used actions and very few clicks necessary for normal work. This approach enables us to create the fastest, most powerful and flexible environment for managing content.

Escenic Content Studio 5 is started using Java Web Start , ensuring that the application is always kept up to date: When a new version or new modules are deployed on the server, all users automatically get the updates when they start Escenic Content Studio 5. Administration needed for 5 or 500 installations of Escenic Content Studio is the same: None.

Richness and reach

Working with news, time is of the essence. Information from various sources needs to be collated, edited, and given expression before publishing. The pressure for expediency is constant. Meanwhile, audiences expect richness of expression, commentary, and contextual content with every story.

Future audiences are likely to favour publications that successfully merge the essence of news, broadcast and entertainment formats with the interactive capabilities of digital media.

Escenic Content Studio 5 supports an open, continuous, editorial workflow for digital publishing. After releasing a first version of a story it can be iteratively refined and enriched while expanding your reach. Meet the future with an industry standard. Welcome to Escenic Content Studio 5.

Features

The benefits of using a powerful and feature-rich application developed through 10 years of close cooperation with demanding media customers is not easily summed up. Some of Escenic Content Studio's main features are:

The fastest and most efficient way to work with content
Excellent support for multi-channel and multi-site content management
Effective, responsive and customizable workspace
User interface adapts to the customer-defines content types, installed modules, etc
Drag and drop images, videos, text, articles, etc.
Dynamic multi-level caching: Content is live on all sites immediately after publishing
Integrated editing of images, videos, maps and graphics
Open content items in specialized programs (Photoshop, Final Cut , MS Office), save directly back into Escenic Content Engine. The updated content item is live on all sites and channels immediately.
Search results in both internal and external data accessible from within the application
Live monitoring of both internal and external data, including built-in RSS reader
Work on several stories, images, videos, etc. at the same time
Advanced teaser editing: One story may have several different titles and lead text when used in different contexts
List editor: Globally managed lists such as "Editor's choice" easily accessible across sites
User-configurable inboxes: Manage planned content, assignments, etc by creating inboxes and permission schemes
Field-level locking: Multiple users can work on different parts of the same article simultaneoulsy
Roaming profiles: Users' workspace preferences are stored on the server and accessible everywhere
UTF-8 support throughout the system, and user interface localized in several languages
Dictionaries are based on open standards, with a large number of languages available for download
Integration with Tansa Systems' advanced text-proofing tools
Integration with Vizrt Products
Automatic scaling and conversion of images to multiple sizes based on the presentation layer
Workflow support and permission control through user groups and roles
Content completely separated from presentation: Focus on content, not appearance
Presentation for all channels managed in separate JSP presentation layer, allowing content managers to focus on the content, and the designers on the design
Integration with several industry-standard print-based systems, as well as powerful import and export features
Extensible to meet specific customer needs using the open Java API and RESTful web services

Benefits

Designed from the ground up to support the the demands of people using this application as their main workspace. Easy access to all stored content, customizable workspace, custom keyboard shortcuts and a powerful editor. The editor adapts itself to the article types specified for each installation, making the workspace reflect the content the user is working on.

Escenic Content Studio supports the workflow of the digital age. In a traditional publishing workflow, content is written, edited and published. This is not the case for online publishing. Content is acquired and collected in the same way as in a traditional workflow, but after being published, it is refined based on input and reactions from users. This is then fed back into the workflow, the content is updated, refined and published again. This cycle includes input from citizen journalism, reader tips and so on. Escenic Content Studio is designed for this way of working with content.

Content Studio is a feature-rich application and benefits from modern computers' processing power not limited by running inside a web browser. The speed in which Content Studio users can do their work ensures that their time is spent not waiting but producing and managing content.

Content Studio includes an image editor and a video editor, making it possible to do quick image manipulations and to set in and out points for live footage. Content is previewed directly in the editor.

Large organisations can use several editorial servers, each serving many Content Studio users. Sessions are managed across servers, and should one user accidentally disconnect the network cable, work can be resumed without data loss. Should Content Studio lose connection to an editorial server, work can still be done while disconnected. Content Studio automatically reconnects and notifies the user about this.

Content Studio features sophisticated locking: One user may work with the lead text of an article, having locked that for other users, while at the same time, another user can work with the body text of the same article, locking it for the lead text user. This ensures that no users are working with the exact same text at the same time while still allowing different users to work with different parts of a text simultaneously.

Screenshots

Below are some sample screenshots from Escenic Content Studio 5. As Escenic Content Studio adapts to each client's configuration, the exact appearance, options, panels, etc may differ from production environments.

Article editing

This screenshot shows Escenic Content Studio more cluttered than a user normally would see, but it is useful for explaining all the various features.

Search panel

The search tab is active, displaying thumbnails of all images from the last 100 days. Searches can be specified in a multitude of ways, such as "all draft articles in the Tennis section that are between one week and one month old". The search results can be displayed as thumbnails, lists and detailed view. Each user may have several searches easily accessible by clicking the creen arrows in the search panel.

In this example we have two publications, or websites: "Escenic Times" and "Escenic Mobile Times". Both have a hierarchy of sections. These sections are for internal organization of content, and may be rearranged at any time. Any section may be given its own URL, or even domain name. For instance: "www.example.com/entertainment/capetown" may be presented as both "example.com/ct", "capetown.example.com" and "capetown.entertainment.com".

The internal representation of sections may be different from the organization on the website. For instance, the "2008 Olympics" may be presented as a top-menu item on the website, but on the inside it may be located under "Sports" and "International events". The menu on the site is managed with the Menu Editor, which also has functionality for menus in multiple languages, etc.

Article editor

The article editor is an advanced, configurable XML-based editor. The displayed fields rely on the content types defined in XML according to the client's requirements. In this image, the "Field options" tab is active, displaying the options for the "Body" field. A content type may have many different fields with many different options.

Escenic Content Studio has field-level locking: Multiple users may work on different fields of one content type at the same time. On user may write the body text, a second user writes the lead text and a third user writes all the image captions. When one user saves an updated field, it will also be updated for the other users. If the story is used on section pages, each section editor may edit the "teaser" independently in the same way.

The editor has a built-in spell checker, and dictionaries are in a standard format (similar to ispell), available from many sources in a wide variety of languages.

To the right of the article the related images are displayed. This are also displays other related content, such as other stories, videos, slideshows, etc. Each related item may have a different title, caption, etc than when the content item is viewed in a different context.

This particular story is published in three sections, displayed below the body field. Publishing to a new section is done by dragging the section onto the story. On the right side of each section bar there are operators for sending this story directly to a section or an inbox for a section. This way, a journalist may write a story and send it to the Sports desk, or send it to another user's inbox.

This story uses a content type that has an associated "Geotag" panel, which can be activated by clicking the "Geotag" button below the sections. This will open an interface for adding geographical information: searching for addresses, entering GPS coordinates and placing map markers directly in a map.

The "Preview" button opens up the current story in a web browser. Escenic believes that the best way to correctly show the content exactly as the site's visitor will see it, is to use a browser. Browsers handle the XHTML and CSS mark-up differently, and this approach allows content managers to check details, such as kerning, in multiple browsers. Using two monitors, content managers may work with Escenic Content Studio on one monitor, and the preview of the resulting website(s) on the other. The preview version of the story is only visible to this user.

Boxes

The boxes at the bottom display both RSS feeds and internal content search. The are user configurable and part of the roaming profile: Log in on another computer, and they appear again. The internal search uses Apache Solr and search in non-Escenic Solr indexes data may also be presented. Each user may configure zero or more boxes.

Frontpage and section editing

This screenshot shows an example of frontpage, or section, editing. Stories are placed by dragging or using shortcut keys. Based on the client's predefined guidelines, content may be grouped and rearranged according to the site design. In this example, the selected articles may be grouped in three ways. Grouped articles are shown in group enclosures (not shown in this screenshot).

The final presentation is handled using CSS on the site, and may be different in different contexts. Heading sizes, text sizes, image sizes, etc are transparent to the user - Escenic Content Engine handles everything automatically in the background.

The blank panel to the right shows the teaser options when just a single story is selected. Each story on the page may be tailored: Change the title, heading or teaser image, for instance. This will not change the story itself, just the representation of the story when viewed on this page.

The "Page options" allows editors to easily change the layout and appearance of the front or section page using predefined designs, normally connected to CSS. One example could be "Sunday edition", with more space and a "lighter" look than the standard design. These different layouts may also be time-controlled and change automatically. All front and section pages may be previewed before saving and making them available to external users.

The "Views" button top right toggles between the view shown above and a compact view more suitable for very long front pages.

Layout control

With the Escenic Widget Framework Escenic Content Studio may be used for different layout control, with very detailed control over content (and widget) placement. This screenshot shows the layout configuration for a standard story:

The white labels are "areas", the green and yellow are "groups" (customers may specify a nesting limit) and the grey are widgets. Each of the widgets can be configured individually. Please see the Escenic Widget Framework for more details. The areas and groups in this example are:

"Head" is for meant for special configurations, such as which type of "skin" (design) to use. In this example, it is empty, meaning it inherits from the parent configuration.
"Top" is where the dateline, menus, etc are configured. See the section configuration below for an example. The article inherits the "Top" configuration from the parent.
"Main" is where the layout configuration for the "article" view is managed. In this example it starts with an image, which automatically turns into a slideshow if more than one image is used in the article. Next up is a group containing byline, dateline, rating, and "page tools" (share on Facebook, etc), all grouped in a column view to place them next to each other. Next is the lead text, which spans the entire width of the image above.
The "Wrap" group containing the body text and related content makes the body text flow around the box(es) containing related content. Article comments are displayed below the body text, spanning the entire width of the body text (double-clicking on the "Article comments" widget will bring up the widget configuration, allowing the user to choose "flat" or "threaded", as well as other options).
The "Right" are contains a rectangular ad (the ad widget can contain scripts from an ad agency, or be a simple image), map, more content from the same section as the article, latest comments on the website (or in this section) and another ad.

Here is the layout configuration for a section frontpage:

Each section may either inherit the configuration of the global section configuration, or have its own configuration. Changing the layout configuration is done entirely in Escenic Content Studio, and there is no need for modifying the JSP or CSS. Changes are live immediately after saving. A section may have several different layouts, and the active one may be changed at any time.

Please note that this type of configuration requires that the Escenic Content Studio user has the necessary privileges.

Image and multimedia editing

Escenic Content Studio has a built-in image editor for common features such as rotation, sharpness, brightness, contrast and cropping. Images may be zoomed for enlargement, and a small navigator tool will then be presented as an overlay in the corner of the image.

Crop aspect ratios are defined by the client according to the site design, assuring that user can not break the site design and layout. In this example there are three predefined aspect ratios, and free crop is also allowed. The "Open in external editor" button will open the associated image editing application, for instance Adobe Photoshop. When saving in the external application, the image is saved back to Escenic Content Engine, and the updated image is live on the site(s) immediately.

This applies for all content types that have assosciated applications: Images may be edited in Adobe Photoshop, videos in Final Cut Pro, Word documents in Microsoft Word, PDF documents in Adobe Acrobat, etc.

There are similar editors for videos, maps and graphics. See also Vizrt Products. In much the same way as Escenic Content Engine handles all image resizing transparently, Viz Video Hub can handle transcoding of videos, eliminating the need for content editors to think about video formats such as Windows Media, Quicktime, Flash Video, etc and focus on the video content.

Escenic Content Engine treats all content types equally, and any content type may be changed at any time. Images may have metadata fields both for IPTC and EXIF data, as well as other metadata. Images may also be related to other images, they can be tagged, have publication intervals, etc. The underlying database representation for all content types is handled automatically by Escenic Content Engine, and Escenic Content Studio uses the content type definitions to adapt the user interface accordingly.

Soft cropping

This screenshot shows the editing of four different softcrops in Escenic Content Studio:

The crop masks can be moved around in the image, and resized by dragging the yellow corner markers. To use the image in a story, all the content editor needs to do is to drag the image (or use a keyboard shortcut) into the story. There is no need to select the correct size or soft crop, as this is handled automatically. Updated soft crops are immedeiately available on the website and across channels.

Updates of the original image will automatically update all the soft crops, and published images will immediately be updated across all websites and channels. Updates may be done in Escenic Content Studio, using an external program (such as Adobe Photoshop, accessed from within Escenic Content Studio), or by re-importing from an external system. It is possible to restrict editing of the original image based on roles, groups and permissions, just as with other content.

As with all images, Escenic Content Engine automatically generates all the different image sizes for use on all websites and channels. Note to developers: Every soft crop has it's own URL, and the different soft crops (and also versions/sizes) are accessed by using the logical names in the JSPs.

Slideshow editing

Escenic Content Studio has a dedicated editor for creating slideshows (image galleries). The screenshot below shows one example:

Images can either be dragged directly from the desktop into Escenic Content Studio, or be added from images already imported and accessed by standard search. Images can be rearranged by dragging and dropping, and images may be added/removed/changed at any time. Images that have metadata for captions will automatically be displayed with those data in the slideshow editor. The presentation of the slideshow is managed by the JSP presentation templates. A slideshow may be cross published across multiple websites and in different channels, and may appear differently in each context. The presentation may be done using (X)HTML, AJAX, Adobe Flash, etc.