FSI Version 4 - Release Notes
FSI Viewer FSI Pages Add-on FSI Showcase Add-on
New Features in FSI Viewer Version 4
Optimized Image Access

With FSI Viewer 4 image access to the imaging server has been rewritten to better match with the resolution levels in the source images resulting in faster display of image details and improved image quality. Additionally image details are being loaded while the user drags or rotates an image while FSI Viewer 3 started loading image details once the user stopped dragging or rotating an image only.
FSI Pages 3 FSI Pages 4 Zoom Depth
eRez 3 & FSI 3 with
FSI Pages Converter 1.3		 eRez 4 & FSI 4 with
FSI Pages Converter 2.0

36%

50%

68%



Customizable Interface Languages

FSI Viewer 4 comes up with a modified model for tool tip languages. With FSI Viewer 4 the tool tip texts are stored in XML file. This way you can easily modify tool tips or add new languages yourself. Additionally tool tips can now contain multiple lines of formatted text using basic HTML formatting tags like <b>,<i><u>,<br/> and alike.


Simplified 3D View Publishing

With FSI Viewer 4 you can publish virtual 3D presentations based on multiple source images. This is: each view is an individual source image and you don't need to compose 3D images any more. eRez 4 provides a very easy way to publish 3D images based on individual source images. You can simply upload all source images belonging to a 3D presentation to a folder and publish the 3D presentation just by selecting the folder and choosing "Publish as FSI Viewer 3D". Of course using individual images speeds up the publishing process for virtual 3D presentations dramatically as you don't need to compose images in advance. Additionally using individual source files provides the possibility to use 3D presentations at higher resolutions. Nevertheless FSI Viewer 4 still handles composed images as well like in earlier FSI Viewer versions for compatibility reasons.


Built-in Mouse Wheel Support

FSI Viewer 4 provides built-in mouse wheel functionality. The FSI Viewer "MouseWheel" plug-in required with FSI Viewer version 3 has therefore been removed and using JavaScript is not required any more. Please note that Flash plug-ins before version 7 do not support mouse wheel functionality. In FSI Viewer mouse wheel zooms the image by default. Lists like thumbnails in FSI Showcase add-on and FSI Pages add-on support scrolling by mouse wheel as well.


Improved, Optional Software Cursors

With FSI Viewer 4 the software cursor plug-in has been improved. Besides providing new cursor shapes that now provide additional drag states, setting up custom cursor libraries is now as easy as creating a Flash movie containing the desired cursor shapes.


eRez 4 – Publishing FSI Instances

The interface of eRez 4 "Publish to Web" now provides the possibility to choose the target format of the document you want to add FSI Viewer to. The options include static HTML code (like with version 3) and dynamic HTML including Flash detection with a fall back image. Using the dynamic (X)HTML option works around the ActiveX activation issue1 in the latest Internet Explorer release as well. Additionally you can optionally choose to generate the entire document code instead of generating FSI Viewer code only.

1) with the latest MS Internet Explorer releases you need to click any Flash movies once before you can interact with the movie clip's interface.This is being indicated by a grey border drawn around the Flash movie clip. Choosing the Javascript based dynamic HTML publishing option works around this feature so that clicking the movie once is not required again.


FSI Viewer Skins

Version 4 comes with three new skins . Upon common request a new FSI Pages skin "Silver Bar" has been introduced. This skin provides more space for the user interface elements and contains buttons with textual labels. The text on the labels can be adjusted by modifying the XML based language files. Additionally the skin provides sufficient space to present chapters of a catalogue in a list box rather than using a drop down (combo box).


Visual Effects in FSI Pages

FSI Pages version 4 introduces new visual effects options. By default the pages show an improved "page bend" effect adding highlights and shadows as real coated pages do. Additionally a drop shadow behind the catalogue improves the level of realistic display. The intensity of the effects can be modified or turned off by either parameters or using the eRez "Publish as FSI Pages" options. Using the "SoftwareCursor" plug-in with FSI Pages now displays a small hand grasping the corner of a page if the user points at or flips a page at it's corners.


Printing in FSI Pages

FSI Pages version 4 provides built-in printing options. Clicking the print button displays a dialog inside the FSI Pages instance offering options to print the left, right or both pages. FSI Pages automatically retrieves the required image data from the imaging server at a configurable maximum resolution.


Downloading in FSI Pages

FSI Pages version 4 provides options for downloading individual pages, parts of the document or downloading the entire document. With regards to downloading individual pages, you can offer downloading JPEG files or alternatively partial PDF documents like with version 3. Clicking the download button the user will be prompted to select which page or document to download. In addition to downloading individual pages you can as well provide dowloading a file representing the entire document (e.g. a source PDF file) or files related to the current section of the document.


Searching with FSI Pages

FSI Viewer version 4 provides an optional interface to add text search capabilities to FSI Pages. This way the user is capable of searching for pages containing a given text in a document. FSI Pages provides a list of links to matching pages in return including thumbnails of these pages. By default FSI Pages searches the IPTC of the images contained in an FSI Pages instance by accessing eRez imaging server. For this reason FSI Pages converter version 2 is capable of generating keywords for each page during the conversion process on the fly resulting in text search capabilities without requiring any manual preparation. Alternatively FSI Pages can be configured to request search results from existing databases.


Optional, Realistic Page Flip Sounds

FSI Pages version 4 provides optional page flip sounds. When the user flips a page, FSI Pages plays a flip sound from a sound library. Besides offering the possibility to alter the volume of the flip sounds, FSI Pages plays multiple sounds that slightly differ from each other in random sequence so that flip sounds appear more realistic than playing a single sound over again. Besides using the two standard sound libraries for heavy coated paper and uncoated paper, you can additionally create and use custom sound libraries for use with FSI Pages.


Background Images

Especially when publishing FSI Pages using a background image might be handy instead of using a solid background colour only. FSI Viewer 4 comes with a new plug-in "BackgroundImage" that you can use to specify a background image. The background image is being retrieved from the imaging server so that it doesn't require any scaling. With eRez 4 you can enter a path to an image in an eRez share in "Publish as FSI Pages".


FSI Showcase Labels

FSI Showcase now supports multi-line, HTML formatted labels for the thumbnails. This way you can add more information on each image than before. If the information on a thumbnail doesn't fit the label space, an HTML formatted tool tip will be displayed containing the entire information. Additionally the tool tips may contain templates that are being replaced at run time. These templates might be custom values or values provided by the imaging server, like file size, dimension and alike. The new FSI Showcase preset "Showcase with file info" uses this feature to automatically display the file name, file size and dimension, the image format as well as copyright, title and caption (IPTC data).


Custom Context Menu

With FSI Viewer 4 a context menu appears when clicking the right mouse button on FSI Viewer instances. With FSI Viewer the context menu provides menu items to zoom in or out and to reset the image to the initial view. With FSI Viewer Add-ons the context menu automatically offers additional options like "View next Image" in FSI Showcase and "Go to next page" or "Zoom this page" in FSI pages.


FSI Configuration File Format

FSI Viewer configuration files version 4 are fully compatible with configuration files of earlier FSI Viewer versions. The file format of configuration files for FSI Viewer 4 has been changed to UTF-8. This way handling language specific characters has become far easier.


Animation Parameter

The "Animation" parameter (none, low, medium, high, best) has become obsolete. Today computers that require reduced quality during animations are very uncommon. With FSI Viewer version 4 the "Animation" parameter has become a Boolean parameter (true/false). Existing parameter values will be handled as "true" except for the value "none" which is being handled as "false". If for some reason you need to reduce the display quality, you can modify the "quality" attribute in the <object> or <embed> tag of the HTML code embedding FSI Viewer.


Less Files

FSI Viewer versions 3 or below came with a special file for each viewer component to support Flash version 5. As support for version 5 has been cancelled the total number of file in the FSI Viewer setup is significantly lower without reducing functionality.


Requirements

FSI Viewer 4 requires Adobe Flash plug-in version 6.0.65 or above. Support for Flash plug-ins version 5 has been cancelled with FSI Viewer version 4 as less than 1% of all users have Flash version 5 setup on their computers today. With cancelling support for Flash version 5 specifying the size of the FSI Viewer instance has become obsolete. Using "ViewerWidth" and "ViewerHeight" parameters is therefore not required any more. Using these parameters has no effect with FSI Viewer 4.