- Improves management of local and global parameters: it is now possible to define global parameters (they apply to all presentations) and local parameters (they apply to the active presentation only).

- Upgraded translations for Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

PowerPoint improvements

1. New “Manually close Flash window option” in grid settings (when importing Flash files). This option allowed to correctly process Flash animations that contain complex ActionScript (for instance, animations generated by Captivate).
2. In Conference Mode, stopping Speechi now switches PowerPoint back to “Edit” mode (this is the default mode).
3. Added a button in Configuration -> Themes to automatically reset default theme colors (Modern style).
4. Speechi author can now manage the size of the left column from Speechi back-end; therefore, the video default size can also be managed. This option is available from Configuration -> Themes (modern theme).

File management

1. “/Transitions” directory has been moved to a temporary directory, in /temp. This directory is voluminous, but is not needed to play Speechis online, from a server. Many users ignored this and uploaded this directory to their server without using the Speechi upload command, which resulted in hard disk space loss.

Bug fixes:

- Scorm integration problem in Claroline
- Flash video integration (hide Video resource based on timer when no “end movie” signal in Flash)
- Various fixes related to Epistudio integration and 3.0 release

Improvements:

- New FTP dialogs and threaded FTP
- New podcast dialogs
- Unlimited length for presentation title

Speechi Share and Speechi 3.0 are not really related developments, but we have been waiting for them for a long time. Just a few customers knew about the projects because we never tell the planet in advance to avoid “Microsoft” effects but they just happen to be ready for release at the same time !

• Speechi 3.0 is an improved version of Speechi with lots of new features related to video, posting Speechi presentations into blogs, podcasting Speechi presentations and customizable Flash front-ends
• Speechi Share lets you broadcast professor’s PC and voice.

So I guess I will have two write lots of new tickets in the next 2 weeks…

The new Speechi site is the result of A LOT of efforts. We felt that the previous site did not properly target the North American market. It had been designed 3 years ago when our only product was Speechi, and today we feature a full range of products: Speechi, Speechi Live, Speechi Share and of course, they are all integrated to Interactive Whiteboards.

We receive more than 10 customer questions a day and some of there are really so valuable that we think the answers should be made available to everyone…
So we remade the site, with an improved design (at least, I hope it’s improved) but most important an improved structure and a better architecture.
This site has been thought so that :

• it will be able to contain all our products (existing and new ones) and still remain very structured and consistent.
• the blog is fully integrated in the site, so we can keep communicating an a daily basis (or almost)
• the knowledge base (FAQ section) will be made available to every one. (right now, we just entered 15 FAqs, but we have about 200 FAQs in our support knowledge base and they will all be progressively entered.
• The store is also completely integrated into the site

We have evaluated lots of Content Management Systems before development and finally we have chosen WordPress because of the simplicity to enter new content. It’s been quiet a story to finalize but now that we’re there, I feel there is no limit about how this site can grow and live.
Oh and by the way, I am perfectly conscious that we still have some layout problems (I think minor) and we now plan to solve them gradually but if you see anything that’s not working right, your comment is more than welcome.
Your comment about how you like the new site compared to the old one is also more than welcome !

Cette version contient en particulier:

- une nouvelle “skin”, qui sera déclinée en une dizaine de thèmes pour le front-end de Speechi. Ces nouvelles skins sont très attendues par nos clients

- un nouvel “updater” (mise à jour incrémentale de Speechi sans réinstallation)… Vous savez que Speechi est mis à jour presque toutes les semaines (et parfois plusiers fois par semaines). Jusqu’ici, cette mise à jour prenait quelques minutes… Elle est maintenant automatique et se fait en quelques secondes. Ca fait longtmeps qu’on voulait le faire mais on avait la tête dans le guidon sur les nouvelles fonctionnalités… Là, ça y est !

Nouvelle skin / new skin. Go to Speechi Configuration -> Themes

Nouvel updater / new updater. Go to Speechi menu in PowerPoint.

Other evolutions and fixes

- Solved bug with Epistudio import from Speechi Studio mode
- Added anonymous login for Speechi Live

- new front-end design (beta)
- new epistudio features
- corrected bug on PPT 2000 that resulted in crash for empty shapes

Features

- Improving annotation “auto-save” mode
- Improved respect of timings in PPT 2003. PPT 2003 timings should now be perfectly respected in Speechi front-end.
- Improved grid behaviour (upload video file, Flash file, resource, etc…)

(more…)

- Added handlers to improve error handling and error reporting in Conference mode

- Changed location of Speechi.log file to accomodate for all possible user configuration, even the most exotic ones