As we all know there are some great customization options available to you on the Connect server to brand and reinforce a consistent look and feel across your enterprise. The Connect Central UI, the Connect login portal and of course the Connect meeting room can all have custom colors, logos, menus and URLs applied to the graphic elements that truly differentiate the Connect server and meeting room experience from all others in the space.
But can more be done? Can we go beyond the “Customization” tab put forth by Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional? Sure and here are a few ways to customize your meeting rooms.
One of my favorite ways to customize a meeting room is to use the “Room Background” setting in the menus: Meeting / Room Performance and Appearance / Room Background. Use an image file, like a .jpg or better yet a .swf file for a more expressive or animated experience. My preference is for that which works best as a room background and depending on your skills, experience or content on hand one format might be better than the other. Remember you need to upload these files to your Connect server before you can load them into the meeting room; you cannot load a “Room Background” from your desktop like you might upload a file into a meeting room share pod.
For images I get the best results with a .jpg file at 1024 x 768 pixel size image with a modest amount of compression applied to it. Use whatever image editor you prefer. I use Adobe Fireworks but that other image editor they have is fine too and probably has more expressive capabilities.
For .swf files I use either Adobe Flash or Adobe Illustrator and publish them and Flash Player 9 files. If the background was created in Adobe Illustrator I use an 800 x 600 canvas and then just get creative. The design capabilities of Illustrator are exceptional. Crisp text, the effects, the range of colors and the object options make all the things you create very clean and professional. If I have something created in Adobe Flash I follow a few basic rules. 1) actionScript 2.0 only and keep the coding to a minimum, 2) when using actionScript I never reach for resources outside the authoring file (can you? Yes. However if you get all complicated and dynamic it can makes things really slow down in the meeting room), 3) I keep the animation to a minimum as it can be distracting and since other pods are going to cover the background it might go from distracting to annoying, 4) don’t use the components that require Flash Player 10 or actionScript 3.0 and finally 5) TEST, Test, test.
You really need to test your .swf files whether from Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash or any other tool that outputs .swf files. Not all authoring tools and vendors create the same quality of .swf file output. Using a room background while similar to loading a .swf into a share pod is not exactly the same. So test you room backgrounds in your meeting rooms and if it is an animated .swf let it run for a few minutes and then open pods, switch layouts and make sure your wonderful creation is not impacting your meeting room in an unexpected way.
Okay room backgrounds are great but what else is possible? You can begin by using the share pod to upload a PPT files, .jpg, or .swf file that has our organizations brand, logo, crest or your personal photo; then I typically delete the entire name from the pod title bar. Yes it can be blank but it does make it more difficult to locate later if you close the pod. If you use blank spaces (the spacebar) in the titles the same difficulties apply. Remember to save your meeting rooms as room templates once you are happy with your customization so that you can have that consistent custom experience and so can all of your meeting room hosts.
Make your own custom pods! This is the highest level of customization that you can achieve. You do this and do it well you are a true Connect Master. Alistair Lee at Adobe is one of those masters but he may never admit it. Check out all his creations at the Acrobat Connect Pro Exchange which is really a tribute to Alistair and his productivity as a developer. Of course, ConnectSolutions is not standing on the sidelines we have developed a few custom pods for our customers and will be coming to market with a few of them in the near future. Keep checking our website for more details.
Okay go forth and customize your Connect experience – your server, your meetings and your events. Adobe Connect provides many wonderful UI elements but with a little time and effort you can create a tailor made experience that exceeds the out-of-the-box offering.
