What new features are you looking for in a product like Adobe InDesign CC which would really be helpful and can prove to be a game changer in the next coming year in publishing industry

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to know any suggestions/ feedback or any innovation designers want to be supported in a professional software such as Adobe Indesign CC or similar products. What might be the key features/ideas that are going to change the publishing industry in the coming decades.

Any random thoughts are welcomed! These might be related to any typography changes, workflow easing, tool, automation, exports or anything.

Thanks

Would you be from Adobe?
Some of us here would have a few bones to pick.
There is no game to change, really. Not with a monopoly like Adobe.

Let’s start with purchase rather than lease of the software. Leasing holds my files hostage. I hate that.
Next, fix all the existing bugs before adding any new features.
Then more support for printers and some recognition that output is just as important as design. Adobe stopped their Print Partners program and pretty much cut loose on their tech support in that realm. Finding anyone that understands wide format is a crapshoot.

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I know what we all want. Real-time screen sharing support, that will let clients log in and watch us work and make little notes on our screen- on top of our project, live while we’re working.

There can be a little notification that lets clients know when we open their files.

They can be provided with a link that will let them share with friends and family so they can log in and make suggestions/notes as well.

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Thanks @PrintDriver and @Obsidian
Really glad to hear your propositions.

In addition to this, do you have any novel ideas that can make a publishing software stand apart from the rest.
These can include any non-existing solutions or innovative recommendations.

Obsidian, don’t forget the webcam link too. They have to be able to see your face as you grit your teeth and bite your tongue.

Rohit, any innovative recommendations that earn you money, I want a part of it.

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This :smiley:

Dang. I thought you were serious for a minute. :scream:

How about for it to just work properly first off? I have spent hours and hours reporting issues in the forums.

I agree. What I would like to see most (other than getting rid of their subscription model) is for Adobe to clean up, simplify and rid their core applications of all the bloat, inefficiencies, awkwardness and bugs that have accumulated over the past 20 years.

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Yes. It’s become some of the worst software I’ve used in 21 years.

I need to be able to easily do something like this in ID… have some light blue text, with a 3pt dark blue stroke, then a 5pt white stroke outside of that, then a 2pt light blue stroke outside that, then a 1pt dark blue stroke outside that. AND the text needs to stay editable.

So, multiple variable widths of stroke on text, with the ability to apply different colors to each stroke… and the text stays editable.

Nice ask @Mojo . Although your ask sounds fairly good, this would be a very specific usecase according to me. Can you let me know why would you want to have such strokes on text? Does this is something which would be needed by most of the designers?

I use the drawing tools in type authoring apps, like FontLab and Glyphs, quite a bit. The drawing tools in Illustrator are much more robust, but there’s one feature in the font apps that I really like much better than how Illustrator (or Affinity Designer) does it.

So let’s say there’s a shape made from a bunch of curves. Let’s also say the curves in the shape path are a little awkward and could be made simpler, smoother and a bit more harmonious.

Fixing this problem might mean removing some of the anchor points and readjusting the shape. However, removing an anchor point in Illustrator collapses the curve. In the type drawing apps, removing an anchor point results in the app recalculating the control handles of the adjacent anchor points to create a more harmonious approximation of the curve that was there to begin with.

It’s difficult to explain and even more difficult to explain why this matters. I never realized it was even an issue before I became familiar with the type drawing apps and noticed how often I came to rely on it for fine-tuning curved paths.

Let me rephrase the problem… my clients are constantly rewriting their text during the design and layout phase, and I need to be able to go back and edit everything. The stroke tool is frustrating because I’d like to be able to use different Types of strokes on text in ID. Like Thick-thin, etc. But in order to access the Types choices, I need to convert the text to outlines. This is inconvenient, and yes I think this is something needed by most designers.

So really, you’re asking for Illustrator Appearance Panel functionality in InDesign. I think this is exactly the type of thing Adobe wouldn’t, or won’t, do anytime soon. They already give you this feature in their suite of applications, and it’s place-able among them (either as place/link or Smart Object), so why would they needlessly bloat InDesign with a duplicate? That’s not to say I think having an Illustrator-style Appearance control concept in InDesign wouldn’t be useful. I guess the point I’m making is that it’s not new or as-yet unattainable.

That I totally get. I’d like it if Illustrator had a toggle for ‘preserve curvature’ behavior. Sometimes I want it the way it is, but other times it would be great to simplify without re-shape.

HB, you can’t apply that kind of appearance attribute to a stroke on live text. Not even in Illustrator. You have to outline the text first. Or stack multiple copies. (or at least you can’t in pre-cc19, haven’t checked that one yet.)

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Yes, exactly. You said it better than I did.

Technically, you can’t do the thick-thin on a single stroke like Indesign’s Stroke Style feature, but you can stack up strokes to produce the same/similar result…

Yes, that would be ideal. :smile:

I doubt many other designers have a need for multiple outlines around live type, short of, maybe, recreating psychedelic posters or Op Art from the 1960s. This is the kind of specialty thing that might be better added as a third-party plugin rather than a core feature.