Bloom 4.0 is now on the Release Channel, with these changes:
- UI Localizations
- Added Afghanistan languages Dari & Northern Pashto to our UI choices (thanks SIL LEAD)
- Updated Spanish UI (thanks SIL LEAD)
- Localization (translating the Bloom user interface) has moved from something you could do inside Bloom to something you do on the web, using crowdin.com. There, we provide screenshots tied to many strings, a glossary, context notes, and a way to discuss translations with the development team and other translators.
- Use this link to sign up as a translator. Each project must have at least one translator and one proofreader. Our policy is to require one of them to be a native speaker. Once a proofreader has “approved” a given string, it will flow into a future release of Bloom.
- When you hover over a UI language in the menu, Bloom now shows the percentage of strings translated. We are no longer listing languages with only a fraction of the strings translated.
- Publish Tab
- Publish books to our new Bloom Reader Android app, which can get from the Play store or another user who has it installed.
- PDFs are now automatically compressed, so they are often a small fraction of their previous size.
- When you save a PDF, you can now choose CMYK coloring to satisfy some print shops.
- Collection Tab
- When creating a new collection, Bloom now chooses the primary country of the language as a default.
- When choosing a language, Bloom no longer displays “alternative names” of languages, as some may be offensive.
- Added a custom Front/Back matter choice for SIL PNG
- Added a custom branding pack choice for ToMasewalTlahtol of Mexico.
- Edit Tab
- You can now add moveable text blocks on top of images. Use this for comic books or kids’ books that fill the page with an image and then put text on top of it. This feature is still pretty rough, so we’ve left it rather hidden. Right-click on an image to add a moveable and resizable text block.
- We’ve added a new zoom control in the upper left. We’ve removed CTRL-Mouse wheel zooming (sorry) because it appears that some people were doing it accidentally and then getting very confused and writing to us. Already hearing complaints
- Bloom now shows page numbers on the page, in the Edit Tab.
- Left vs. right margins are now shown as they will on the printed book.
- We have reduced the time it takes to change pages. This is still slow for large books like the picture dictionaries some folks are building.
- OTHER
- When Bloom is first run after your computer starts, there was a delay caused by .net. This could cause people to think Bloom wasn’t running, so they would try and run it again. Bloom will now show a simple splash screen instantly to indicate that it is coming. Currently on Windows, this feature is lost if you pin a running Bloom to the Windows taskbar. Instead, pin the icon from the desktop.
- Changed “Vernacular” to “Local Language”
- We removed Settings and Other Collection buttons from the Edit and Publish Tabs. They aren’t really needed there, and we think that having them only available on the Collections Tab promotes an understanding of what it is that they do.
- As always, many bug fixes.
Bloom 3.9 will automatically ask to update itself. Otherwise, Windows users can get 4.0 from the Bloom downloads page. The linux version will follow shortly.