Zoom Plug-ins for Adobe

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Zoom Plug-ins for Adobe

User Guide

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 PREFACE

Evolphin Zoom is a cross-platform Version Control System with a built-in Workflow engine. This user guide illustrates and explains how to use the Zoom plug-ins for Adobe products.

1.1 DOCUMENT REVISION

Current revision of this user guide is 2.2, last modified on September 24, 2010.

1.2 AUDIENCE

This document is written for end-users working with the Adobe software on their desktop.

1.3 PRE-REQUISITE

Knowledge of version control or workflow concepts is not a pre-requisite. However, familiarity with Adobe tools is necessary.

1.4 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

We have made every effort to address the issues that a typical user might face when working with Zoom, in this document. For the most up to date version of this document, please visit the customer portal on our web-site. There, you will find additional resources such as technical bulletins and the product knowledgebase.

1.5 CONVENTION

Anything marked with this symbol in this manual requires particular attention.

Many of the product screenshots are taken on a Microsoft Windows system. The Zoom user interface on MacOS is similar, except it will have a MacOS native window border around it. Exact same functionality is available on either operating system.

1.6 FEEDBACK

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CHAPTER 2 INSTALLING AND SETTING UP ADOBE PLUG-INS

Zoom installer will try to automatically install all supported Adobe plug-ins provided the Adobe tools are installed in standard location or Zoom can infer the path to Adobe tools. In the rare event, Zoom is unable to locate the Adobe distribution, plug-ins can be manually installed as described in this chapter.

2.1 ADOBE CS5

For Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5) tools, Zoom ships with a zxp plug-in. The plug-in opens as a panel inside the supported CS5 tool. It provides short cuts to the commonly used Zoom functions like check-in, checkout, update and more.

The installer will register the plug-in automatically with the Adobe CS5 Extension manager.

2.1.1 VERIFY ZOOM PLUG-IN INSTALLATION

There are two ways to verify if the plug-in was successfully installed:

2.1.1.1 CHECK FROM INSIDE THE TOOL

Launch any CS5 tool like Photoshop for example and look for an extension named "Evolphin Zoom" under the Windows menu:

Figure 1 - Zoom Extension

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Launch the Adobe CS5 Extension manager from the applications menu. Click on any CS5 tool on the left pane. The Zoom plug-in will show up as "com.zoom.plugin" under the list of extensions. If a lot of extensions have been installed, it may be necessary to scroll down to spot the Zoom plug-in.

Figure 2 - Adobe CS5 Extension Manager

2.1.2 MANUAL INSTALL

If for some reason you cannot find the Zoom plug-in installed inside the Adobe tool or in the extension manager, please install the plug-in manually by clicking on the Install button inside the Adobe Extension manager and browse the file system to locate the ZoomAdobePlugin.zxp file in the Zoom plug-in folder:

 Windows: c:\Program Files\Evolphin\DAM\plug-ins or c:\Program Files (x86)\Evolphin\DAM\plug-ins

 MacOS: /Applications/Evolphin/zoom/Resources/plug-ins

2.1.3 RUNNING THE PANEL

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Figure 3 - Zoom CS5 Panel inside Photoshop

2.1.4 UNINSTALLING THE CS5 PLUG-IN

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CHAPTER 3 WORKING WITH ZOOM CS5 PLUG-IN

Designers can use the Zoom plug-in to track and manipulate revisions of digital assets from with-in their Adobe tool. They can also access their workflow tasks and associated files using the plug-in. For more advanced options, designers can also use the Zoom universal clients from outside the Adobe tool. Documentation and help on the universal clients can be found in the Zoom Reference Manual.

3.1 ABOUT ZOOM

Zoom acts as a central digital asset server that lets designers work collaboratively on a set of common assets. Designers can easily track and manipulate multiple revisions of files.

Zoom consists of two modules: the Version Cue Server and Workflow. The Zoom Server can be installed locally or on a dedicated computer, and it hosts Zoom projects.

3.2 USING ZOOM

Below is a list of typical set of tasks, administrators and end-users will encounter when using Zoom.

3.2.1 INSTALL AND SETUP ZOOM SERVER

Before you begin using Zoom, you will need to install and setup the Zoom Server. For installation please refer to the Zoom Installation guide for your platform (Windows/Mac/Linux). When you install Zoom Server either locally on your desktop or on a dedicated server machine, a default project and admin user account are automatically created. These can be used to test the Zoom server.

3.2.2 CREATE PROJECT, ASSIGN USERS , SETUP SECURITY

The super administrator can create new projects beyond the default project (defproj) and assign project administrator to each project. As a project administrator, you can take control of your project by assigning users to your project. Every command in Zoom is project aware to facilitate easy mapping of your real life project to the Zoom project.

To constraint access within a project, project administrator can specify or create new security roles. Roles carry permissions and can be used to restrict users to read-only mode, ability to write new versions without the ability to remove files and much more. Please refer the Zoom Reference Manual for more details.

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3.2.3 IMPORT FILES TO PROJECT

Once your administrator has created and granted access to a project , you can start importing your digital assets to the Zoom server. Imported assets can be checked out by other users, who can then modify and check-in revisions.

For batch import of assets you can drag assets from Windows Explorer or Mac Finder to the remote repository browser. Individual assets can be directly imported from within your Adobe CS5 tool as described in section 5.1.2.

3.2.4 CREATE WORKFLOW TASKS, SETUP REVIEW

While you can do the version control operations without setting up the Zoom Workflow, to experience the full benefits of Zoom it is highly recommended you setup workflow tasks.

Workflow tasks are setup using the web based administration console. Please refer to the Zoom

Reference Manual for more details. You can assign tasks to specific users, create dependencies between tasks, setup hierarchical reviews, monitor task progress using the web based workflow administration tool.

3.2.5 OPEN, SAVE REVISIONS OF PROJECT FILES

From the CS5 Evolphin Zoom panel inside the CS5 tool, automatically save and check-in changes to your files. With Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and InCopy Zoom is aware of the current document being edited and provides one button automation to command commands like check-in, update, add, revert and import. See Chapter 7 for more details.

3.2.6 PERFORM WORK ASSIGNMENTS

Once the project lead has assigned tasks to you, Zoom will notify you via Windows system tray or MacOS Menu bar Extra icon about upcoming tasks. From within your CS5 tool, you can click on My Tasks button to browse your tasks, drag assigned files to the CS5 tool to automatically check them out. See Zoom Workflow Reference Manual for more details.

3.2.7 PERFORM REVIEWS

Zoom allows reviews to be performed on any digital asset not just text or PDF files. If you are a assigned a review and the asset changes become ready to be approved, you will be notified via the Windows system tray or MacOS Menu bar Extra icon about pending reviews. From within your CS5 tool, you can click on

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CHAPTER 4 MIGRATING FROM VERSION CUE

4.1 WORKING COPY NOTION IN ZOOM

As a Version Cue users, most of the version control concepts will be familiar to you. One of the key difference with Version Cue is the notion of working copy in Zoom.

Unlike Version Cue, when you check out a project or a folder to your local desktop, Zoom designates the local desktop directory as a working copy. It automatically maps and track any changes to a working copy to the remote Zoom server from which you checked out. This approach has number of advantages over the naked import-commit model used by Version Cue:

1. You will not lose versions in the repository if you accidently import without checking out again. Zoom will prevent over-writing of versions

2. You can commit or check-in all your changes by just invoking commit on the root folder of the working copy. No need to remember every modified file and commit it explicitly.

3. You can schedule changes to be committed in the working copy and at a future time. Check-in all of them at once to the server

4. Most version control operations can be performed offline without the need of a connected Adobe Drive

5. Zoom can automatically notify you of any changes on the server that pertain to your checked out project, without examining individual files for status change on the server.

6. You can move/rename files and still track the history without causing a new file to be versioned

4.2 RICH SET OF VERSION CONTROL COMMAND

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Figure 4 - Limited version operations in Version Cue

The Zoom context menu has a rich set of version control and workflow commands as shown:

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CHAPTER 5 IMPORTING ASSETS

5.1.1 IMPORT WIZARD

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By default it selects the currently open document as the source document to import. To import an entire folder, simply click on browse button and select it for import.

Alternatively, files and folders from Windows Explorer or Mac Finder can be dragged and dropped into

the Zoom remote drive/repository browser. To launch the remote drive, click on the button in the Zoom panel. It will open as:

In the left pane all the projects you have access to will be listed. You can drag and drop assets from Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, into the project of your choice to trigger an implicit import. During import you will be prompted for comments or annotations. These will be applied to all the imported assets.

5.1.2 ADD NEW FILES

Unlike version control systems like Adobe Version Cue, Zoom supports scheduled operations. You can batch up the changes you need to version on your desktop and when you are ready, just click on commit to send the changes to the server.

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Click on the button in the Zoom panel to schedule the current document for addition to the project:

Figure 6 - Schedule files for add to server

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CHAPTER 6 CHECKING OUT PROJECTS

There is no need to mount a drive, to start working on a project, simply click the checkout menu option in the Evolphin panel menu:

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See the Zoom Reference Manual for more details on the checkout dialog. Once checkout is complete you will use the checkout destination directory for saving, adding, modifying files and folders. You will be able to batch commit the project folder by using the commit from Window Explorer/Mac Finder or from within the Zoom panel inside the CS5 application.

6.1 LOCKING FILES

To prevent other users from editing files you are modifying, an exclusive lock can be set.

6.1.1 AUTOMATIC LOCKING ON CHECKOUT

From the web administration console, turn on the lockable flag on the digital assets that require automatic locking on checkout using the Manage Lock Policy tab:

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6.1.2 EXPLICIT LOCKING

From the Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, click on the Get Lock menu option for either a folder or a file:

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CHAPTER 7 COMMITTING OR CHECKING-IN CHANGES

After modifying a document in the CS5 application, clicking on the button brings up the commit dialog:

If you wish to continue holding the locks after checking in the changes, just select the Keep file locked

checkbox at the bottom left. Otherwise Zoom will automatically release the file locks on a successful commit.

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CHAPTER 8 UPDATING TO LATEST CHANGES

Zoom supports two methods for updating to the latest changes on the server:

8.1.1 SINGLE FILE UPDATE

From within the CS5 application if you click on button, it will cause the current file to be updated from the Zoom server if there are pending changes.

If the file is locked by you then by definition, there cannot be updates from other users.

Only for unlocked files, updates can exists. If you have modified an unlocked file, Zoom may detect a conflict while updating and will prompt you to resolve the conflict by showing you several applicable proposals (discard server changes, discard your changes, merge changes). See the Zoom Reference Manual for more details on Zoom conflict resolution mechanism.

8.1.2 CHANGESET BASED UPDATE

This methods provides more control and a much more sophisticated user interface for viewing and managing changes.

Changeset is the set of all the changes that were atomically checked-in when a user clicked on commit on their desktop. Zoom bunches up all the changes by a commit transaction in a bag called changeset. This makes it easy to rollback an entire changeset or view changes by multiple users.

8.1.2.1 CHANGE NOTIFICATION

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The Zoom change monitoring agent icon will turn red with a download arrow indicating pending updates.

8.1.2.2 VIEW CHANGE TABLE

Clicking on the red icon or left click on the icon followed by click on View Details brings up a table with a list of changes for each Working Copy being monitored. Note - you can turn off working copy monitoring via the Settings dialog.

At this point you can left click on the working copy to view the context menu. To see incoming changes just select Show incoming changeset. To update the entire working copy, you can click on Update working copy menu option.

8.1.2.3 INCOMING CHANGES IN A TREE VIEW

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CHAPTER 9 VISUAL HISTORY OR TIMELINE OF CHANGES

As changes are checked-in, Zoom automatically extracts and saves thumbnails/previews of supported file

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Zoom Plug-ins for Adobe