Object States
Object States is a new Studio feature that allows for the direct application of hover, click, and custom states to design elements, like buttons, images, shapes, and more.
Object States gives designers open ended creative control over hover, click, and custom triggered states and will greatly increase efficiency and make it overall easier for designers building in Ceros. Object States offer more possibilities to create more immersive and connected interactive experiences.
Import
Ceros creators now have the ability to import third party design files from Photoshop, Illustrator, or Sketch directly into their Studio to continue creating and editing. Once imported into Ceros, supported design files retain their core attributes (e.g. layers), and designers can use the full capabilities of the Studio to continue building immersive digital experiences.
Import was built in an effort to make the designer workflow as seamless and frictionless as possible. For designers using other tools as part of their Ceros workflow, recreating designs in the Studio is time consuming, repetitive work. Import eliminates additional steps, and enables a faster, more efficient and streamlined workflow.
Notes:
- Initial rollout includes support for .psd (Photoshop), .ai (illustrator), and .sketch (Sketch) files. We will continue to investigate support for additional file formats in the future.
- Compatibility warnings (file features supported in other tools not currently supported in Ceros) may affect the imported file. You may find that addressing these incompatibilities in the source file will improve the import. For example, merging down clipping masks before import will ensure that images appear as expected in the Studio.
Image Masking
Image masking in Ceros allows designers to mask images with shapes -- the masked image appears only where it overlaps with the shape. In the initial release of the feature, masking is supported for images masked by a single shape (both standard shapes and custom shapes work).
Masking gives designers better creative options when designing with images. Additionally, we expect masks to be frequently used in imported design files. So, with masking as a Studio feature, we will also improve import compatibility and the import workflow.
How it works
- Users can create a mask by selecting an image or shape layer and choosing "Mask" from the right click menu.
- In the layers panel, masks appear as a "Mask Group."
- This group contains the shape (top layer) and image (bottom layer).
Accessibility Toolkit
We have worked closely with top accessibility consultants (A360) to develop tools that support the creation of accessible experiences. The Accessibility Toolkit aims to provide tools to help designers create experiences that are compliant with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) AA 2.0 standards, which is a universal set of guidelines for web accessibility.
Included in Accessibility Toolkit is:
- HTML Landmarks
- Hide From Screen Readers
- Skip to Main Content Link
- Component/Link/Button Labeling
- Reduced Motion (Browser/OS Preference)
- Accessible Video Player (Keyboard Nav)
- Accessible Video Player (transcripts)
- Accessible Video Player (captions/audio tracks)
- Screen reader-only Text
- Accessible Carousels
- Pause Animations (interaction link)
- Show/Hide Content
We believe that immersive digital content is for everyone, regardless of any vision, hearing, motor or cognitive barriers one may face. The Accessibility Toolkit was developed with the intention of enabling Ceros creators to improve the accessibility of their interactive experiences.
Notes:
- To access the Accessibility Toolkit, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
- Enabling accessibility features on your account is not an "ON" switch; utilizing accessibility features for a new or existing experience in Ceros does not automatically make that experience "accessible.”
- Importantly, accessibility standards may vary by company and it is up to the content creator to understand how to apply the Ceros tools to those standards
Product Hub
The Product Hub is our external place for all things product, including New Feature Highlights, our Ideas Portal, and Release Notes.
The Product Hub was created to give customers a central place to stay informed and share feedback and suggestions about the Ceros product.
How it works
- Highlights: The Highlights tab will showcase our newest feature releases and updates! You’ll see creative use cases and demos to inspire your digital content.
- Ideas Portal: The Ideas Portal is a space for two-way communication surrounding the Ceros Product Roadmap. You can submit your feedback and watch your ideas progress into future releases.
- Release Notes: Here, you’ll find a full summary of all the new features in a release, broken out into What, Why, and How it works. (Fun fact: This post you are currently reading is a release note!)
Component Mode
With a screen reader, Ceros currently reads out text character-by-character (or line-by-line, if you have accelerated text rendering turned on). Component Mode will allow the browser and screen reader to read entire text boxes more fluidly.
Component Mode is a huge step forward in our efforts to improve the accessibility of the Ceros platform. Text in Ceros will now be truly readable by screen readers with Component Mode, which is a requirement of accessibility audits.
As such, Component Mode has a number of additional key benefits:
- Improves experience load times because there is significantly less HTML to render, and less data to load so pages load faster
- Improves SEO by allowing crawlers to read whole sentences of text rather than character-by-character or line-by-line.
- Supports Accessibility (as a requirement) by allowing Screen Readers to read whole blocks of text rather than character-by-character or line-by-line.
Additionally, anyone who has experienced jumbled text while using Adaptive Layouts will be delighted to learn that Component Mode resolves this issue.
How It Works
Component Mode is located in the Studio, under Settings > Experience Performance > Text Rendering Mode. You will now see these three options under text rendering mode:
- Component (Recommended) NEW!
- Line (Formally Accelerated Text Mode)
- Character
Notes
- For new experiences, the text rendering mode will default to Component Mode.
- Old experiences remain in the mode they were originally set to.
- To change the text rendering mode on existing experiences to component mode- Go to Experience Settings > Experience Performance > under Text Rendering Mode- Select Component Mode
- You must republish existing experiences after switching text rendering modes
- When switching text rendering modes on existing experiences, this can sometimes affect the layout. Most text components won’t require any changes but it might be possible that a text component would need to be resized slightly to achieve the same layout