Geometry updates in Enterprise 9

Info: The Geometry Updates feature has become obsolete and support for it has therefore been dropped from Enterprise 9.4.0 onwards.

Introduction

When an article that is placed on a layout is opened in InCopy, the layout file is accessed as well. The same happens when sending layout updates from InDesign and receiving them in InCopy. Large layout files will cause long wait times and a higher network load.

By enabling the Geometry Update functionality, a very small geometry file and a geometry preview file is saved by InDesign and loaded by InCopy instead of a large layout file. Optionally, the preview files can be suppressed to make the loading process even faster.

About the disadvantages of using this feature

Using this feature has the following disadvantages:

• The layer structure of the layout will be lost: all layers will be flattened into one single layer when the files are opened in InCopy. This means that layers cannot be used in the Layout View of InCopy, and the preview file generated by InDesign will only show the layers that were visible when the file was saved.
• The legibility of non-editable articles is limited to the resolution of the geometry preview bitmap. Zooming in to higher percentages can therefore result in a more pixelated view.

About the limitations of using this feature

This feature comes with the following limitations:

• Editions. Editions are not displayed in the Editions panel of Smart Connection for InDesign.
• Sticky Notes. Sticky Notes are not displayed in InCopy.

Enabling the Geometry Update feature

Step 1. Add the UseXMLGeometry option:

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: UseXMLGeometry
• Section: Server Features list
• Example:

new Feature( 'UseXMLGeometry'),

Step 2. Disable the UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE option by changing it into a comment (that means: by adding // in front of the option):

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE
• Section: Update geometry section
• Example: (commented out)

//define('UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE', 'OFF');

Note: In case both UseXMLGeometry and UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE are enabled, UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE is ignored.

Note: the UseXMLGeometry option displays article previews in a resolution of 72 dpi. To use a different DPI value, use the GeometryPreviewResolution setting.

Notifying users of geometry updates

A message can be displayed to an InDesign or InCopy user each time a geometry update is available.

Step 1. Enable the UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE option by un-commenting it (that means: removing the // characters in front of the option) and set its value to ON.

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE
• Section: Update geometry section
• Possible values: ON or OFF
• Default setting: OFF
• Example:

define('UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE', 'ON');

Step 2. Disable the UseXMLGeometry option by changing it into a comment (that means: by adding // in front of the option):

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: UseXMLGeometry
• Section: Server Features list
• Example: (commented out)

//new Feature( 'UseXMLGeometry'),

Note: In case both UseXMLGeometry and UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE are enabled, UPDATE_GEOM_SAVE is ignored.

Suppressing geometry article previews

By default, geometry files will carry layout preview information. This can potentially result in a large amount of information that needs to be processed.

To increase system performance, the preview of all articles on the layout — apart from the article that is being edited — can be suppressed.

This can be controlled by the following option:

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: SuppressGeometryPreview
• Section: Server Features section
• Example:

new Feature( 'SuppressGeometryPreview'),

Controlling the geometry article preview resolution

By default, geometry preview files are displayed in a resolution of 72 DPI. The advantage of this is that the preview files are small but for large article previews this resolution may be too low.

The preview resolution can be controlled by the following option:

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: GeometryPreviewResolution
• Section: Server Features section
• Possible values: any value
• Example: (set to a resolution of 300 dpi)

new Feature( 'GeometryPreviewResolution', 300),

Note: To benefit from this setting, InCopy users should ensure that the Display Performance setting is set to High Quality (View menu > Display Performance > High Quality Display).

Controlling the geometry layout preview quality

The quality of the layout preview when opening an article in InCopy can be controlled by the following option:

• File: configserver.php file
• Name of option: GeometryPreviewQuality
• Possible values:
• 1 - low
• 2 - good
• 3 - excellent
• 4 - great
• Example:

new Feature( 'GeometryPreviewQuality', 3 ),