GUI front end or server-side backend

[MPete]

I have begun building a megazinemz3 maker to streamline things for myself but thought it would be good for peopel to harness the full potential of MegaZine.

I'm building a server-based form that gives dropdowns and sliders to set all available parameters so each available option can be decided on in one spot.

Having this translated into a GUI software solution, AIR might be a consideration too, to do just the same thing.

This will allow you to import all your assets, set all the parameters for books, pages, chapters, attributes, plugins and see a live preview. When clicking "publish" is spits out hte entire directory structure, xml, navigation elements ready to just upload as is.

[Florian Nücke]

This sounds great! I have been thinking about a GUI editor for a long time, but just don't have the time to try building one...

Are you working in Flash directly, or more using JavaScript + Serverside scripting (e.g. PHP)? Just asking because you mentioned AIR, and if you're working in Flash it should be rather painless to port that to AIR. That'd be so cool.

Are you hardcoding the settings? I'm not sure if that's a possibility, but maybe it'd be possible to base the available settings off of the Document Type Definition (or at least some other external definition file)? That'd keep it dynamic and much easier to maintain.

If you have a beta ready I'd definitely be interested in playing around with it for a bit.

[kongo09]

This could potentially look like the Windows application from the Page-Flip people:
http://page-flip.com/

I'm sure you all have already downloaded the trial and played with it. I find it quite intuitive. On the other hand, to write a GUI editor that covers the full possibilities of ASUL is certainly a major challenge!

[MPete]

This could potentially look like the Windows application from the Page-Flip people:
http://page-flip.com/

I'm sure you all have already downloaded the trial and played with it. I find it quite intuitive. On the other hand, to write a GUI editor that covers the full possibilities of ASUL is certainly a major challenge!

Yes the GUI for PDF Publisher is very good and was my original choice before finding MegaZine. The key reason it's currently of little use (at least to me) is the limited customisation and connection/expansion by any plugin infrastructure or JavaScript API. For MegaZine to have a similar GUI for creating megazine xml files or a complete directory export along with giving access to all available variables would be great.

I'm not used to application programming so my version is a PHP/jQuery build which essentially does the same thing.

[kongo09]

MPete, that sounds really great. If you would like some input on this, I'm happy to give it a spin.

[Ecnassianer]

MPete is my hero. I'd love to see the fruits of this effort.