GDPR regulations come into force this week, giving more privacy rights to consumers and holding to account those that breach them, so we are all for it. In line with the regulations, Brandworkz Brand Management Software release 8.2 comes with a focus on features to give greater control to clients and end users around visibility and management of individual profiles.
There are also improvements to image transcoding with speed improvements and other feature enhancements in Brandworkz 8.2. Along with the usual bug fixes.
User Management
1. Terms and Conditions Management
Administrators can manage their system terms and conditions. End users will be able to review and access their consent decisions from their profile page.
2. Configurable Profile Page
Administrators can control what information is presented on the user profile page.
3. Custom Contact Administrator Form
Administrators can set up a quick contact form for specified requests. This will allow users to contact their system administrators from their profile page.
4. Improved Profile View and Edit Pages
All user profile View and Edit pages have been updated to our latest UI for better usability, including the improved layout of information, better accessibility and keyboard shortcuts. Additional key options such as consent decisions and asset alerting preferences are also available. Furthermore, the underlying technology has been replaced, so that the functionality is entirely driven by our API.
Image Transcoding
1. Faster image transcoding
Generation of thumbnails and transformed downloads is significantly speeded up. In some cases by 400%
2. Better support for transparency
When downloading an image with transparency in (e.g. a PSD product cut out) to a format which supports transparency (e.g. PNG), the transparency will be preserved. When thumbnails are generated for images with transparency, a checkerboard pattern appears behind it to show that it is transparent.
3. New formats supported for automatic generation of previews
Camera RAW formats: Canon Raw (CR2, CRW), Digital Negative (DNG), Epson Raw (ERF), Fuji Raw (RAF), Hasselblad Raw (3FR), Image Raw (RAW), Kodak Raw (DCR), Mamiya Raw (MEF), Nikon Raw (NEF), Olympus Raw (ORF), Panasonic Raw (RW2), Pentax Raw (PEF), Sigma Raw (X3F), Sony Raw (SR2), Sony Raw (SRF), Sony Raw (ARW), Sony/Minolta Raw (MRW) • Fonts: Truetype (TTF), OpenType (OTF) • Photoshop Big (PSB)
4. Ability to pre-generate “canned” downloads
For clients with standard image transform wizards set up for their business, for example, a low-res jpg scaled to a fixed size, the wizards will be pre-generated on image upload. The first user to choose the download option will receive it immediately because the pre-generated version will already be available. There is no wait for it to generate.
5. Resampling support
The Brandworkz feature which allows users to scale the resolution of an image down to a specified pixel width/height has been improved for certain print purposes such as low-res For Placement Only. It is possible to set up a transform which preserves the original’s size in centimetres/inches but then resamples it to a specified DPI (e.g. resamples down to 72dpi).
Bug Fixes and Improvements in Brandworkz 8.2
1. DAM
- Direct asset downloads from the selected asset widget
- Faster generation of image previews
- Improved watermarking
2. Search
- Improved searching for assets containing special characters
- Improved search filter defaults
3. Web-to-Publish
- Artwork deletion
- Ability to add searchable metasets to Web-to-Publish templates
4. API
- Additional user endpoints
- OAuth 2.0 support
- Endpoint for integrating specific embed sizes
- Additional endpoints for CMS integrations
- Support for JWT token-based authentication
- Improvements to the Simple Search endpoint response, including better descriptors and validation parameters
More information on our API can be found on https://apidocs.brandworkz.com/
5. Additional improvements in Brandworkz 8.2
- Additional certificate checks and enforcing of https
- Support for full-width site templates
- Additional support for custom analytics tracking codes
- Various other bug fixes
