Video Review
This is huge and we’re probably most excited about this new addition. Now in the new Cage, you can share, collaborate, review, and approve video. Perfect for agencies doing broadcast and motion graphics, but also for all the studios that work on games, vfx, animation, and 3D.
From a UX perspective, we wanted the experience of reviewing video to be almost the same as an image. Knowing we had to handle a few things differently (and after working with a few studios on the best solution), we built all the interaction around the timeline. Here’s a closer look at the Video Review:
- Notes can be made on a frame-by-frame basis for the video and you’ll be using the same notes interface you’re using throughout Cage to make notes, tasks, etc.
- Tasks can be seamlessly made just like you would make them on images.
- Timeline functionality. In the timeline, you’ll see that the playhead has a “+” to denote “add”. You can click the video or the playhead, at which time the video pauses and gives you the option to make a note. Also in the timeline, you’ll see the option to quickly move between notes (think of this like fast forward, but to skip to the next note). And we have all the other settings like volume, full screen, etc.
- Modern web technology. We’ve built everything for this using HTML5 (and CSS, Javascript, etc)…and we’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the new compression and encoding algorithm so that your quality is super high, and the playback is super fast (playback of the video on mobile is pretty nice too).
There’s also another view (much like this for images) and we’ll show that to you guys too. We’re working on some pretty handy little tools for video for version 2, so stay tuned for some continual improvements and enhancements. We’re excited about the new Cage, and really excited about the addition of video. Enjoy!
The video used above is from our recent commercial shoot.Special thanks for our friends at Staplegun for their generosity and help.
Note List
With the current version of Cage, you only see and create notes on the actual image you’re viewing. We think this is great and we love the visual approach to providing more context to what you’re discussing. But that’s not for everyone and sometimes you just want to see the discussion. Often times (especially during those marathon discussions with your team or clients) people just want to have the discussion and the visuals take back seat, we know we this from our won experiences too. So we decided to build two views for you to toggle between (this is your preference, use which ever you prefer). You can still see and make notes directly on top of the work, but if you prefer having the discussion in a forum that’s more about the content and less about the visuals (we keep referring to “visuals” cause we have a surprise for you all), you can use the Note List. Here’s what you’ll see:
- Contextual discussions. Directly on this page, you’ll see the visual you’re working on to your right and all the discussions and different notes on the left. From here you can still create notes and tasks (both update in each view, so it doesn’t matter which one you use).
- Interactive feedback. As you’re interacting with a discussion, it highlights the area of the visual where the note was drawn and we also show a small thumbnail that you can click to see a larger view the highlighted section of the work. As you scroll down the page, the visuals follow you to each section you’re working on.
That’s the Note List inside Cage, a simple way to interact with your team and clients around creative work. A special thank you goes out to Foundry Collective and Paul and Scott for submitting some of their work to us for inclusion in the new demos we’re doing. You can see more of their work at Foundry Collective (great guys, who happen to have native roots in Oklahoma). More to come soon.
Address Book
We hinted at this feature in an earlier sneak peek, but again, this is something we thought was absolutely needed for one big reason…a better experience. We personally hated having to copy and paste links and bounce in and out of Cage and email, and wanted to make it a seamless experience (as it should be). In creating a better experience, one that’s simple, easy, and useful, we built an internal Address Book in Cage. A central place to add contacts, edit contacts, send/resend invites to a project, and a way to track if they have logged in and when. Now when you share a project (you’ll see how easy that is soon too), it’s as easy as checking who gets access…all in Cage. Inside this section, you’ll see:
- A list of all your contacts in Cage (client or team) and their email/company.
- A quick and easy way to edit/delete and also add more contacts.
- A way to see if your client ever logged in or got the link.
Simple, straight-forward, and useful. This is going to make life so much easier for you all and is going to give you a better experience using Cage in production. Thanks and enjoy…more to come soon (don’t worry, we’re almost done with sneak peeks and will be able to give you all access soon). Thank you all for the awesome emails, we’re excited too.
New Custom Colors
Our team has been hard at work and judging from the awesome response we’re getting in both signups and user emails telling us how much they like the app; we’re onto something!
Our development cycle is an agile, quick release one, so expect lots of small updates in addition to the big major releases. This new feature was one that was requested and that we also felt would be useful during the presentation phase, so we spent a day or two building it and testing it….and now it’s live. You can now pick custom colors for both notes (sometimes our default just might not cut it) and also background colors (instead of the transparency or black options we had).
Just a little customization so that you can make CAGE, yours. Enjoy!
