Discussion: InDesign problems and innovations...

We can create Office documents (Word, Excel, etc.) without ever touching the exe (COM etc.).

We just can use the SDK for the document specification. And it is easy as well...

We should be able to do this with InDesign, as well it should be easy (I mean not C++ ;-))

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.) runs in the browser. InDesign should too!

In my opinion we should have the same shortcuts for Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator. Still a lot of new stuff works different also in Photoshop, InDesign, Illu. They should be more similar. For example proportional scaling, paths, and a lot of keyboard shortcuts. It seams like this teams don't talk together.

Back in 2016 I have blogged about color management becoming a more complex task by the hour (German only, sorry: Farbmanagement 2020 – printpraxis.net ). Things have gotten worse since then. Unfortunately, Adobe haven't adjusted their CMS since 1852 to make the gigantic pool of ICC profiles more accessible (or understandable). Printing becomes more complex; InDesign does nothing to ease the pain. Change that.

With all that multi-user connectivity resulting in randomly incoming changes of arbitrary linked assets, plus scripts or plugins triggered by change events and idle tasks, plus lengthy operations that nowadays require an extra invocation for updates, InDesign should overcome the strict sequential transaction processing imposed by the single user centric undo history.

For example undo could have multiple concurrent scopes. While the user is editing some text on page 3, another text incoming from grefel's WordPress connection would silently update itself on page 17, as does the icml link starting at page 20. A bunch of images is automatically relinked as soon the underlying resource is updated (new PS layers, Sensei did some feathering), the index, toc and other dynamic reports would update in parallel, and triggered by the text change Peter's cross-font kerning script would immediately launch and fix the typography.

The layouter is slowly moving forward to revisit the changes on page 17 - alerted to some overset by a cross-breed of background task/track changes panel. While she adds a page, the current state of the layout is automatically uploaded to the in-progress view of the CMS, following an outgoing PDF export link. For all alternative layouts in parallel, as her 18 core machine easily permits.

The user switches back to her text editing cursor/selection, presses undo to correct a typo from her previous typing. Nothing happens to the umpteen other scopes of activity.

More and more work is shifting into online resources (name it cloud, if you wish). With InDesign we cannot access these resources out of the box. A real innovation would be the ability to access HTTPS/REST.

There are two obvious and many other use cases:

1. Link Images/Assets on the web (from any source and DAM-Systems).
2. Access Content (CMS or similar systems)
   In InDesign that might bei simply as my press2id (GitHub - grefel/press2id: Connect Adobe InDesign to a Wordpress Blog via REST ) or this XD plugin Data Populator (https://www.datapopulator.com/ )
3. From an extension/scripitng perspective we could manage Cloud-Workflows with ease. The current situation, were ID only sits in the file system is so much 90ties...

My suggestion... voice activated commands like "Open Paragraph Panel", "Turn Off Layer 1", "Add Drop Shadow to Selection"

I'd be super happy with some basic useful updates.

Text formatting

• I agree with Dirk that we need kerning tables. Quark has always had that ability.
• I'd like an option to highlight all instances of a style in a document. (Word allows you to select all instances of same style)
• The ability to format unequal column widths in the same frame. (Word has this capability, so ID definitely should.)
• Alpha sort lists without a script (like Word )
• Indent to here option in bullets panel
• Shift tab (align to edge of frame) option in tab panel. (If that already exists, someone tell me how to do it, please.)

Documents

• More built in document presets for standard pieces like trifold brochures, business cards, rack cards, etc.
• Time tracking capabilities on INDD files. Even if it's something as simple as number of minutes the document was edited (again, like Word.)
• The ability to convert images to grayscale in InDesign. Or perhaps there is a grayscale option under new document.
• Option in ID to view two-up with cover on document formatted as single pages
• When adding a new image or font to an already packaged file, the option to add each to the appropriate subdirectory when placed.
• Option to auto-add all colors from a Library to the swatches panel (again, If already exists, someone tell me how to do it, please.)

Pages

• Total number of pages listed at the bottom left (instead of just current page, page x of xx)
• Duplicate page option where we can determine where that page is inserted (instead of just the option to add to the end of the document.)
• Duplicate pages into another open INDD file (similar to duplicate layers in Photoshop) instead of placing a file.

PDFs

• The ability to close an open PDF within the INDD print dialog box when trying to generate a replacement.
• Option to print current page in PDF export dialog box
• Option to Convert to outlines in PDF export dialog box

I know these aren't cool or innovative, but they would definitely improve productivity. Thanks!

You ask: 'Any smart solutions or workflows you want in the product that can ease work?'

Yes, buy WoodWing's Smart Styles plug-in and ship it with InDesign. Or, fix the table styles so the geometry of tables can be stored and applied.

As we produce a 16 pages advertisement product every week with a print volumne of 3.6 Mio. prints,

I'd like to have a better tool for adjusting the letters in a font, like Xpress have since a lot of

years.