Silicon Publishing Brings HTML5 to Online Editing

October 20, 2011

Tools

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At the 9^th Annual SVG Open Conference today, Silicon Publishing presented a prototype for an HTML5 version of their popular Silicon Designer online editing platform.

The reference implementation of Silicon Designer, expected mid-2012, will be free to all licensees of the original, Flash-based, version, and will include both Flash and HTML5 versions of the web client.

Chad Siegel, Director of Product Management at Silicon Publishing, expressed satisfaction that “this will be a milestone that both validates and coincides with HTML5 coming of age.”

RENDER-AGNOSTIC DOCUMENT MODEL

Instead of accommodating all browsers that support HTML5, Silicon Designer will target Webkit, the engine that powers Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Adobe AIR. The Webkit and Flash forms of Silicon Designer will vary only in terms of the web client, with shared tooling for document setup and rendition for print. This is made possible by what the company calls the “render-agnostic document model” that has been central to Silicon Designer from its beginning.

“Deploying the Flash player and Webkit with parallel forms of the same application lets us reach the entire browser base, from legacy PC browsers to the full spectrum of mobile devices, without degrading user experience. We write once, and don’t have to test everywhere,” said Max Dunn, Silicon Publishing CEO and co-founder, in the company’s blog. "Our approach is: ‘Flash where Flash goes, HTML5 where Flash doesn't go.’ And we don’t see Flash going away anytime soon in the online editing space; it still provides the richest experience in many contexts. Targeting the most powerful media available on each distinct client lets us ensure the optimal user experience across all devices.”

SILICON PUBLISHING EXPERTISE AND CAPABILITY

Development of the HTML5 form of Silicon Designer started a year ago, and the company has grown substantially in recent years to meet demand for Silicon Designer implementations. It now employs engineers who played significant roles in defining the desktop- and server-based publishing technology standards that are in use around the world today.

“We see very powerful results coming out of an infusion of SVG, HTML5, and Silicon Designer,” Dunn said. “With our background in SVG from its birth in 1999, our focus on providing HTML5/Canvas/SVG features for online authoring, and our first-class expertise in extending rendition technology from Adobe and others, we’re in a unique position to get this done the right way."

ADOBE PARTNERSHIP LEADS TO UNPARALLELED DOCUMENT SET-UP CAPABILITY

For eleven years, Silicon Publishing has been an Adobe Systems partner and vendor, innovating diverse extensions to Adobe technologies. A recent example is a free browser downloadable from http://www.fotolia.com/adobeplugin that makes assets from the Fotolia stock-photo gallery available directly in the Photoshop/Illustrator InDesign work area. For its document set-up capability, Silicon Designer leverages the same CS Extension technology used in that plugin.

SILICON DESIGNER

The company’s signature product for online editing, Silicon Designer was released in September, 2009, and since that time has enjoyed success as the core web-to-print framework underlying some of the largest web-to-print implementations in the world. Over 20 Silicon Designer implementations are deployed or in the works, with either Flash or HTML5 front-ends for web authoring and Adobe InDesign Server or Adobe Scene7 Web-to-Print back-ends for print composition.

ABOUT SILICON PUBLISHING

Silicon Publishing is a leading developer of web-to-print, web-to-web, multi-channel, and other automated publishing solutions. By blending core technologies like Adobe Scene 7, InDesign Server, and XMPie with our own innovations, we enable our customers to automate and produce high-quality content for any medium. We have over a decade of experience implementing best-of-class publishing solutions for some of the world’s top brands.

More information is available at http://siliconpublishing.com The company blog is at http://blog.siliconpublishing.com.