Print and Web: Top, Harris's JazBox utilizes a database and Adobe InDesign to produce traditional newspaper pages. Bottom, Baseview provides application service provider (ASP) services to newspapers that want to off-load web site responsibilities.

Lineups at Harris and Baseview cover needs of most publishers

NEW ORLEANS -- Harris Publishing Systems Corp. and Baseview Products Inc. seemingly have all the bases covered in products for the small, medium and large papers.

Harris takes care of the larger, PC-based end of the market, and Baseview handles the mid-sized and smaller, Macintosh-based end. Both organizations have been and remain customer-oriented, and pride themselves on good service.

That's why Harris, of Melbourne, Fla., bought Baseview, of Ann Arbor, Mich., back in 1994 -- to add depth and a Macintosh presence to its customer base. Both organizations are a part of the parent Harris Corp.

But that's the old news. Baseview and Harris were together at NEXPO, each getting half of one big booth. There's still a good deal of separation between these two suppliers after seven years of Harris ownership. It seems to be more of a size thing than a Macintosh or Windows thing, but both factors enter in.

Harris had the biggest news of the two with its Jazbox editorial system, which even to this confirmed Macintosh user looked pretty powerful, well thought out and easy to use.

Jazbox has three parts: Newsjaz, for paper publishing; Webjaz, for Internet publishing, and Jazstor, to manage all the associated media assets. All this is held together in the Jazbox workspace, a group of six windows on a PC giving access to the editorial workflow in a variety of ways. First is the VueFinder, which allows five ways to look at the site's data.

The five are SiteVue, BasketVue, SearchVue, WorkflowVue and PackageVue. They appear to be self-explanatory for anyone who has been around a publishing venture, but a quick word about the last three is in order. SearchVue conducts custom searches saved by the user that look at data in special ways. WorkflowVue is a way to see just where a particular item is on its way to becoming a part of a publication. And PackageVue is a way to group various pieces of data together in a related package, which can easily be done by the tried-and-true drag-and-drop.

Next is DataVue, which can show asset details with text or a thumbnail view of pages, graphics, photos, video or audio.

PageVue, of course, lets you see a made-up page onscreen; TextVue is what a reporter would see while writing a story. WorkflowVue has already been mentioned, but custom workflows are easy to create by linking icons representing various production steps together with arrows in a straightforward, visual way. A file can be placed outside any workflow, so users aren't locked in to any single workflow, and files can be sent back to a previous stage with the "back" button.

And finally, there's WebVue, which is the desktop window that shows the web site.

That's how Jazbox integrates things on a user's computer desktop, through various views. Another level of integration contained in Newsjaz is with the two page design tools most used in the business -- Quark XPress and Adobe InDesign -- as well as the ubiquitous Adobe Photoshop and Multi-Ad Creator, now known as Creator, from Multi-Ad Services Inc. of Peoria, Ill.

Data objects created by these last two programs, whether on a Mac or PC, can be blended into the Jazstore database seamlessly, so no extra steps are needed to get this third-party data into production.

This built-in flexibility means that Jazbox can accommodate several ways to accomplish the same production task. But based on its past record, Harris Publishing Systems will also show you a way based on "best practices," the best method for opening files or sending a story through the editing process.

This process now has to include web publishing, and with Webjaz, a smart template system enables the automation of changes in site content with no need to understand HTML coding. Depending on authority levels, a web browser can allow a remote user to work like he or she was in the office, filing and editing stories, with access to the Jazstore database.

And now a quick word about that database, the heart of the Jazbox system. It's object-oriented; runs on either UNIX or Windows NT servers, using Informix or Oracle; handles multiple data formats, including eXtensible Markup Language (XML) coding and Macintosh files, and is capable of being a publication's digital asset manager.

Let's not forget the advertising component. AdPower is the suite of applications offered by Harris as a total advertising solution. An ad is just like a digital asset in editorial -- once created, it can be easily published in paper or on the 'Net. Thanks to Windows-based AdPower, remote users can create ads, contacts can be managed, every ad can have multiple schedules.

Now, about Baseview: The quick way to summarize its offerings is to say it provides all the features you want in a Mac-based system which will now support both InDesign and XPress.

The smartest thing Baseview did in building its list of client publications over the years was to give the XPress layout engine a decent database. That would be the venerable IQue; version 2.1 was being previewed at NEXPO. IQue corrals stories, photos, graphics and pages -- and now, with LiveIQue, offers automatic web publishing from the IQue database.

Don't confuse this with JazShak, an integrated web-hosting service that can include on-line classifieds, banner ad management, content management and community tools (interactive polling, discussion boards and an events calendar).

Other new and noteworthy products from the Baseview side of the booth are: