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For my web-app business using Publish Online, the ability for clients to add one of my web-app docs to their mobile homescreen is a real selling point. However, yet again it appears Adobe have made changes, but this time even more catastrophic than just lost productivity. Now, it appears to me they have messed with the 'Save to Homescreen' url. So when I'm on my clients' iphone, showing them how they can save the web-app (that I've just billed them for), to their home screen - I NOW CAN'T! So instead of creating an icon on their homescreen with the document url, it swaps this url for Adobe's own indd.adobe.com! Is it that Adobe want to promote their Publish Online product and are happy to kick my document out of the way to achieve this. I'm very frustrated because this is a CRITICAL ISSUE for my business (see image).
I'm sick of wasting time with these type of issues, previous to this they'd thickened the Nav Bar on the Publish Online mobile interface - which will cost me at least a day to fix. Before that someone decided documents should have a nice border around them, totally trashing the look of the web-apps I'd created for clients. A great pity because the product itself is superb apart from these really annoying issues.
{Renamed By MOD}
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Hi,
We're so sorry to hear about the trouble. I tested this and I can reproduce this on my end, so please allow me some time, I'll check with the team and update this discussion as soon as I hear from the team.
Regards
Rishabh
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Any news Rishabh?
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Even with actual bugs, the update cycle for things like this is measured in weeks.
With feature changes, it's months to... well, never.
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Thanks for your patience. We have logged a bug for this issue and we'll update this discussion as soon as we hear from the team.
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Many thanks, really big issue for our business
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I understand, I'll update this discussion as soon as I hear from the team.
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Hi Rishabh,
I'd also like to add that the document load time to open the first page is much slower since this domain change to indd.adobe.com has been made on the 'Save to Homescreen'
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I'm going to repeat what you've already heard several times. A free product is nothing to base a business on. As cold as this sounds if you can't afford the proper tools, especially something as inexpensive and powerful as in5 (it adds a lot of features), you're in the wrong business!
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Hopefully, Adobe will get this fixed after Rishabh reports it. However, I would be wary of any aspect of the business dependent on Adobe services or software; these things tend to come and go over the years. What if Adobe stopped it tomorrow?
You might want to look at using in5 <https://ajarproductions.com> to make your web apps and host them on your own domain. You will have much more control over the product and its presentation. Even if the server is a paid service, one could easily move the domain to another company.
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Absolutely concur on maintaining your own domain for these purposes. Businesses that depend on a third party, be it Facebook, Instagram, Adobe or even WordPress.com (never mind amateur services like Wix and Weebly) are just riding for a fall as services, features, performance and availability change.
Adobe is good at its products and services... but it changes and discontinues things on a regular basis. Bugs are one thing, but a change that no longer supports a particular quirk you're dependent on... an avoidable mess.
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Know what you're saying, have considered Ajar and server, but extra complexity and cost not wanted with my new web app business. If I'm paying Adobe for a service and using their document publishing platform, I'd hope that Adobe would understand this is something they cannot cease without directly losing clients
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Well, you can have it cheap, or you can have control. I've seen and been involved with many businesses that were absolutely dependent on a free or adjunct service like these and got tripped up.
You aren't really paying anything for Publish Online and thus kind of have to take it as it's provided, and it's going to evolve. Some changes might be to your benefit (and others' detriment), or vice versa.
If publishing to the web is a critical part of your business model, you should consider a service over which you have full control... or accept that you may have to rework your projects and portfolio as the platform changes. There are alternatives that would cost you no more than your own domain on a shared server.
Depending on "the web" to remain stable for business purposes is not a winning bet.
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I think you're confirming my viewpoint more than countering it.
PO is not a major service for Adobe; I don't think any experienced user considers it more than a convenient courtesy, like a few free gigs of cloud storage or the other (relative) trinkets in the box. I think seeing it as a component of your subscription that brings the same level of service, support and "reliability" as the major apps, or even things like TypeKit and Adobe Stock, is... faulty. It's a nice integrated convenience; use it as such.
If your business is truly dependent on a service, be it hosting or email or ecommerce support or massive SQL database management or very specific, advanced document display, it's simply not wise to build your whole functional model on an "also included" service that will change and evolve and may even just go away.
If you need 100% reliable e-magazine hosting, both functionally and as a support of your business image and reputation, you need to do it on a dedicated, reliable platform that you fully control. Or you need to "take what's given" and adapt to the (essentially) free service as it evolves. And have a backup plan for when Adobe quietly and regretfully discontinues the service.
The New York Times isn't hosted on a free Wix website. Just sayin'.
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Someone has clearly never heard of Digital Publishing Suite!
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Hi Bob,
were you referring to me re Suite product?
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Not to speak for Bob, but I think so.
The Digital Publishing Suite was part of early versions of InDesign. Part of the original offer for the Creative Cloud was unlimited single-issue apps. That service was eventually eliminated, leaving many publishers in the lurch.
A good rule of thumb is "What Adobe giveth, Adobe can taketh away..."
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Yes. DPS was a life changer for me but it lasted only a few years until they pulled the plug with very little fanfare and absolutely no plan B for users.
Will they do that to Publish Online? I doubt it, but it's nothing I would ever base any business on. The only thing I've ever used it for is quick proofing for fixed layout epubs.
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Think you're right, time to purchase Ajar's In5 and server space, pity though, because Publish online is so easy and quick. Worked out if I get rid of Illustrator and Photoshop, will cover some of server and plugin cost! Wouldn't actually have minded paying extra for Publish Online though!
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Have examined In5, had quite a few issues with it such as loss of animations. It adds a lot of complication, working out what In5 doesn't support is quite time-consuming and unproductive. Everyone's bleating about Adobe chopping the product, but somehow can't see it, especially if they're supporting web companies embedding within websites, etc.
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Everyone's bleating about Adobe chopping the product, but somehow can't see it, especially if they're supporting web companies embedding within websites, etc.
By @Nigey-LTA
All of us here who've been with Adobe for 20-30 years would probably bet that PO will eventually be dropped. Reason? Because it doesn't bring in any revenue. Today, Adobe is managed by its investors for the benefit the investors.
No revenue stream = no long-term committment. "What Adobe giveth, Adobe can taketh away..." is so true.
Never build a business plan where someone else's technology is critical to your success.
By all means, use it while you can. But always have a Plan B ready for the day the technology is ditched by its owner.
Software companies and their technologies are like baseball cards; they're traded, bought, swapped, and tossed into the trash via back-office deals so that eventually, one golden little boy owns the whole collection and is the winner. I'm not sure what he's the winner of, but HE knows he's the winner and that's all that matters.
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There is no other solution... that you are willing to pay for. That's basically what you said, both from the cost of hosting and all the "speed" of development costs.
I suspect that were PO not basically free, you never would have chosen it in the first place; now you want all the features, but are unwilling to pay any other combination of tools and services to get them.
You are clearly unaware of the history of this whole field, starting with the many shops and designers who were left with huge, sunk-cost libraries of PageMaker documents that became all but useless and obsolete. How about the billions of efforts based on Flash? I could go on at considerable length, as could many of the respondents here... and that's why we have consistently replied to you, and advised others, to use Publish Online as what it is, whatever it changes to, and not make it the crucial anchor of any business, especially if you have no resources to replace it when it no longer serves your needs (as now) or is no longer available at all (as is likely).
Support services like this, placed at user disposal at essentially no direct cost, are ephemeral and often experimental. Just because Adobe launched it and is supporting it so far... and making changes to it... is not any guarantee or "logical reason" why they will not shut it down tomorrow... and then launch a completely different service to the same ends, for their own technical and business reasons.
If you don't control it, and can't pay for it or an equivalent (meaning absolute control), it's a lousy foundation stone for critical business services, and that applies to absolutely everything, not just web software.
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