Tired of ping-ponging email attachments when collaborating on that screenplay with your cousin Sidney, who lives in Fargo, ND, while you live in Immokalee, FL? Or maybe you’d like to review the new poster your graphic designer’s working on, but you have to wait (which you hate!) until she’s finished before you can even comment on any changes you’d like to make (which she hates!). Of course, you’d make the changes yourself, but the only “photo shop” you’ve ever used was the “One-hour or your prints are free!”-kind at the mall. Or maybe it’s you who’s doing the graphic design work and want your production team’s input as early as possible to ensure you're headed in the right direction, but none of them have access to the applications you’re using.
Well, Adobe hopes its new CS Live Online Services will make problems like these a thing of the past. CS Live is comprised of five services designed to improve workflow and provide designers, developers, and media producers with the ability to collaborate in shared workspaces online. The online services consist of CS Review, which allows designers to share their work with other team members in a shared online workspace; BrowserLab (previously mentioned in an earlier review for Dreamweaver CS5—read it here), a helpful app for web designers and developers to test how their web pages look in various browsers; SiteCatalyst® Net Averages® Net Averages, a tool that provides Internet trends that also helps designers optimize their sites for desktop or mobile browsing; Adobe Story, which, provides users with a collaborative screenwriting environment; and Acrobat.com, where users can set up workspaces, share their screen, create PDFs and presentations, manage their projects, and upload file images using CS Review.
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For the purposes of this review, while I'll touch upon Acrobat.com and SiteCatalyst® Net Averages, I'll be concentrating more on CS Review, BrowserLab, and Adobe Story.
With BrowserLab you can compare your page in two browser views simultaneously.
Ease of Use
Getting started with CS Live is as simple as signing up for an Adobe ID, if you don't already have one. There are three ways you can take advantage of Adobe’s new services. First, since CS Live doesn’t work with earlier versions of Creative Suite, you can buy any of the CS5 Suites to access it. Second, download the free trial of any of the CS5 applications. And third, just sign up for an Adobe ID or use an existing one without installing any CS5 software. Of course, if you go with the third option, you’ll have to access all services through your browser, rather than through the CS5 applications. This may prove problematic depending on your browser of choice (more on that in the Performance section).
Once you have an Adobe ID, you can access any of the CS Live services using the CS Live button that appears at the top of most CS5 applications. With the drop-down menu, you can choose to manage your account, go to a service’s home page, read news and resources, and, in the case of Dreamweaver with BrowserLab or the graphic/video design apps (like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Premiere Pro) with CS Review, you can preview your work directly. The CS5 applications that don't integrate with CS Live are Fireworks, Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder, InCopy, Contribute, Soundbooth, and InDesign Server software.
In the graphic/video programs you can access CS Review through either the CS Live button or the CS Review panel. Setting up a review workspace is simple using the review panel, and uploading the captured image or video of your file is a snap. Of course, you’ll have to log into Acrobat.com, to view the workspace, as will anyone you're sharing the file with. CS Review makes it easy for anyone you’ve shared the file with to leave comments by clicking the “Add Comment” button located at the top of the workspace, clicking a specific area of the image file, clicking and dragging the cursor to highlight a larger area of the image file, or, for InDesign users, leaving a text comment on the image itself.
Tired of ping-ponging email attachments when collaborating on that screenplay with your cousin Sidney, who lives in Fargo, ND, while you live in Immokalee, FL? Or maybe you’d like to review the new poster your graphic designer’s working on, but you have to wait (which you hate!) until she’s finished before you can even comment on any changes you’d like to make (which she hates!). Of course, you’d make the changes yourself, but the only “photo shop” you’ve ever used was the “One-hour or your prints are free!”-kind at the mall. Or maybe it’s you who’s doing the graphic design work and want your production team’s input as early as possible to ensure you're headed in the right direction, but none of them have access to the applications you’re using.
