Showing a collection of PowerPoint slides pulled from an
OpenText Content Server was the subject of a recent post. At that time, I used presentations from our
Content World Users' conference of a year ago to show how a collection of related materials from a secure enterprise repository could be embedded in the post using OpenText Widget Services (OTWS).
Last week was
the latest Content World 2011 conference, which provided me with a rich set of
new materials to show Widget Services' capabilities. Note: All of these presentations are already available individually from OpenText Online Communities (login required)
Full screen collection – In my previous post the
collection was embedded within the post. You could expand it if you chose. But
there are times when you want to show full-screen off-the-bat. So here are a
collection of presentations related to our eDOCS offering:
Select one, get details, view it in a player,
download it, or get the embed code to use elsewhere.
Collection embedded – Frankly I find the full screen version above more compelling, but there are times when you need to embed in context, much as you might embed a video from OpenText Video Services. So here is the same collection
embedded here to illustrate that:
A single presentation in a player – In contrast, here is a
single presentation, this time about Widget Services, opened in a viewer when you click this link.
I’m a big fan of video for work applications. It’s the best way to get information to staff quickly. As such I’ve been using the OpenText Video Service (OTVS) for some time. In fact, we recently developed a ‘Success Story’ about our own use of the service that will be out soon. We already have over 600 internal videos for staff running on OTVS, mostly made in the last year.
But while OTVS is easy to use, it really isn’t practical to train everyone in an organization to use it.
What they need is a simple addition to something they already use, such as OpenText Content Server (f.k.a. Livelink). That’s why I’m so interested in the forthcoming release of a module for OpenText Content Server.
If you’d like a sneak peak, watch this detailed, and somewhat lengthy video (running on the OTVS service):
Sometimes providing someone with a simple list of choices is not effective because they'll find it boring. Users may have been spoiled by the newer, more immersive online experiences. You need to create a more engaging experience.
At other times you want to package up content you have in source or original repository and provide it to users through some other website, wiki or blog.
These two scenarios are common ones that the OpenText Widget Services (OTWS) solution was designed to address. It also gives control of where the content is used, and more importantly, you don't have to renounce ownership rights based on an agreement with service provider.
A small code snippet is created to be embedded anywhere - much as users have learned for videos with YouTube (and Open Text Video Services) and presentations with SlideShare. But OTWS supports many formats of content, even in one collection assembled from more than one repository if required. In some ways it is like a dynamic, immersive portal.
There's nothing like an example, so here is a collection of four keynote presentations given at last year's Content World 2010 - the OpenText global users' conference. The original files happen to be in PDF converted from PowerPoint, but a wide variety of formats are supported by OTWS as I mentioned. There are a number of different style widget templates - I picked a simple one here.
If you've never seen this before, here are a few instructions:
For the Player
Scroll through the presentation collection using the arrow tabs on the left and right of the player frame
You can go to full screen mode in the widget through the icon on the lower right of the player. Frankly it's much better when you do that as I only put a small player here
Also on the lower right is a share icon (two heads) to download the embed code to be used elsewhere
For a Presentation in the Player
If you click on a presentation you can open it in your browser
There are then controls on the bottom to advance slides/pages, as well as to change the size and fit on your screen
You can download a specific presentationby clicking on the 'down-arrow' icon
You can see metadata of that presentation by clicking on the 'circling arrow' icon at the top left of the initial view
Next week there will be another Content World event. I'll be providing presentations from that event through widgets to supplement the traditional channel OpenText has provided. I'll use another widget template as well as a thumbnail feature to provide more easily read slide titles.
The player here is based on Flash, but HTML5 is supported in the OTWS version to be released in a few weeks.
