As we continue our commitment to providing the best interactive print tools and services, today we’ve made some improvements to the Layar Creator that should make a big difference in your experience.

Now Users Can Share Pages
Firstly, we’re making things a bit more social. We already allow users to share items on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, but previously they were limited to sharing just the digital content. We found that users are often looking to share the print content they are scanning with their social networks, so now they can do just that!

As a publisher, you can now add a Share Page button, which lets users easily share the original print content they are scanning. This way, others can see these pages and even scan them themselves to join in the interactive print experience.

You can add a caption to the page that appears on Facebook and on a landing page for the image hosted on Layar.com. It’s a great way to help spread your print content the way users are used to sharing digital content already.

Unified Page Uploader
But that’s not all. We’ve also made your lives easier as well with a small change to the page upload process. Previously, to upload a ZIP or PDF file to the Creator, you had to click a separate link within the normal image upload screen.

Now, we’ve unified these two functions, allowing you to use one upload mechanism for all interactive print content. Now JPG, PNG, PDF and ZIP files can all be uploaded from one window. It’s a small change but it should go a long way to making your experience with the Creator a smoother, more user-friendly one.

You can find these new features in the Creator today. Log in now to get started!

We’ve also added some more advanced buttons to the Creator, including a JSON Hotspot Widget and a Custom URI Button. We’ll go into more detail on those here on the blog soon.

Today in the Layar Creator, you may notice a few small changes we’ve made that will go a long way to improve your experience.

Tooltips and Pre-Filled Forms

First, you’ll notice that many of the menus for adding a button now have tooltips and pre-filled entries to make them easier to understand. It helps a lot when using buttons like the “Download App” button, in which you need to enter URL links to the App Store or Google Play store. A handy tooltip now walks you through how to find these URLs.

In the example above, a tooltip provides a nice suggestion for helping to sort messages you might receive from users of the “Email us” button.

Easier Purchase of Individual Pages

Below is the next improvement we’ve made today – purchasing pages. Previously if you wanted to purchase individual pages, you had to do so at the moment of publication, only bundles could be purchased on their own outside of publishing. Now, both can be purchased at any time, not just when publishing!

Better Analysis of Pages

And finally, we’ve implemented a system which performs a more detailed check of your images when you upload them. Previously we did a quick check to save time, but a more detailed check is also needed. Now we do both!

When you upload your image, after the first quick check, we now perform a more detailed analysis, but you can already get to work adding content to your pages while we check. You’ll see an “ANALYZING” badge on the thumbnails of your pages until it finishes.

In only takes a few moments, and if your page doesn’t pass the check, you will not be able to use it in the Creator. In most cases (like in the example above), a page will be disabled because it is either blank, or contains text only, but symmetry and repetitive patterns can be tricky as well.

These kinds of images are hard for users to scan and will not result in the best experience for users. Trust us, its for your own good! But chances are your images will be fine and you’ll never see this message.

And more!

These are just the most visible changes we’ve made to the Creator today. We’ve also fixed our share of bugs and made other improvements behind-the-scenes that will make the Creator faster, more stable and more robust. 

Enjoy!

Today we’ve released an update to Layar that you can now find in both the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. While it’s a small release from 6.0 to 6.1, it’s an important one, and here’s why.

With Layar 6.1, we’re focusing more on Layar Vision, and making the experience of viewing Vision content easier and faster. To get a better understanding of the changes coming in Layar 6.1, we crafted a quick video introducing you to the new features.

As you can see, the changes are minor but important:

• Firstly, when you launch Layar, you are now brought immediately to the Scan View screen. This way, when you see the View with Layar logo out in the world, you’re only one tap away from scanning and viewing great Layar Vision content. If you want to skip this screen and head to the layer catalogue, just tap the “Layers” button in the lower left corner. 
• And when you do scan items, you can do so by tapping anywhere on the Scan View screen. Previously we had a small area where you could tap, but now, simply tap anywhere to get started. It’s a small change, but it can go a long way to making Layar Vision a better experience.
• Finally, when you scan for Vision content, the layer will immediately launch if it is the only result found. Previously we displayed a results screen, and when only one result is listed, this is unnecessary. Just another small change making the use of Layar Vision a little more user-friendly.

Layar 6.1 is available now in the App Store and Android Market, so make sure you update today!