Infogrid Pacific is pleased to announce the Alpha release of AZARDI Online. A demonstration is available at azardi.infogridpacific.com.
AZARDI OL, like its sibling AZARDI Desktop, is an ePub reader supporting ePub 2, ePub 3 and when appropriate specific HTML5 packages. AZARDI OL is the first Reader in the AZARDI family to support SMIL Audio Overlays.
AZARDI OL is designed to allow the distribution of all ePub content on all platforms and devices which have standards compliant browsers, using virtually any screen size.
Just a quick first page warning to save time. Check out the browser compatibility advice.
AZARDI Online has a number of interesting features and functions not available in any other ePub Readers.
Personalization for any screen
Fixed layout chrome just doesn't work when this sort of flexibility is required. AZARDI OL addresses this with comprehensive, easy to use personalization. It probably results in a better reading experience than any of the fixed size readers, even on tablets. But that is an opinion.
AZARDI OL lets you customize font-family (not yet active) font-size, margins, line-height, justification, hyphenation, scrolling and paging modes up to four visible columns, column rules and, for when you really mess it up, a nice reset to two page view.
SMIL Audio
SMIL is difficult to produce and difficult to display. SMIL books are rare enough, but SMIL Readers apparently don't exist in the wild. We have included the full SMIL edition of A Christmas Carol with paragraph level SMIL highlighting patterns. Later we will include demostrations with word, phrase, sentence and paragraph highlighting.
If the book has a SMIL enabled page, the speaker icon next to personalization wakes up and you can interact with the audio.
Here it is with more or less everything on. The second paragraph is highlighted.
On a big monitor or projector screen, with the font set large, it makes a great teaching resource.
Fixed Layout
AZARDI OL supports fixed layout. At present that is the AZARDI system, but we are working on full support for the IDPF fixed layout specification, with support for proprietary schemes. Of course fixed layout books set at 1024px X 768px are not going to be particularly exciting on a lower-res monitor!
We are also playing with Apple Fixed Layout and Kindle Fire fixed layout semi-emulators so even that content is available without the proprietary delivery frameworks. EPUB3 UNLEASHED will be available shortly, but meanwhile the Flashcards demo shows fixed and flow content working together.
In AZARDI Conclusion
So there it is. A brave new digital content world! Digital content everywhere without the constraints of device specific packaging.
AZARDI Online is the result of requests from Library and other closed content delivery channels who just need to get their content everywhere and cannot make business sense from the closed channel delivery options available.
AZARDI OL It is also great for an ePub preview online offering, so publishers can promote their digital books with confidence, especially born digital books.
The code for AZARDI OL will be changing frequently over the next few weeks. If there is anything radical and new we will update the blog accordingly.
There are a number of demonstration books on the AZARDI site. We will be adding more over the next few weeks. The personalization features of AZARDI OL, especially multi-column views will be rolled into AZARDI Desktop to provide the same levels of customization.
If you are interested in more information, SMIL production or using AZARDI Online for preview or full reading, just contact us at sales@infogridpacific.com.
Posted by Richard Pipe